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Social Identity Development
Jul. 15th, 2021 04:29 pmIn Late June I attended a Diversity Equity and Inclusion workshop. It had the standard "systemic racism is real" thing and "you should be antiracist!" thing, as well as, frustratingly, "we know that race in America isn't just a Black vs. White issue but in the interests of time we'll just focus on that". Which, given that one of the leads grew up in Hawaii and the other person is half-Vietnamese, I was kind of hoping for a more nuanced narrative. *
Anyways, one thing that I really liked about the workshop was the discussion about Social Identity Development. The basic idea is this: everyone goes through the 5 stages of coming to terms with the power of their race/ethnicity/etc.
- Stage 1 is being naive to the power imbalance
- Stage 2 is accepting the power imbalance because that's what others tell you
- Then there is a transition phase as you recognize the power imbalance to be wrong
- Stage 3 is a stage of "resistance" where you primarily feel anger at the system
- Stages 4 and 5 is basically reconciling this and moving towards doing positive work in your own life and in challenging the system.
Here is the PDF with the specifics, for both Dominant and Marginalized groups: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2ydgn8oty34m6t/Social%20Identity%20Development.pdf?dl=0
Anyway, the workshop leads described Stage 3 as the "guilty liberal / cancel culture / white savior" stage, and more importantly, talked about how, while it's an important stage, it's also a toxic stage to dwell in. This has made me think about how the internet really encourages people to stay in this stage of outrage, because outrage generates clicks, which generates revenue. :/ (I'm thinking about how the workshop lead said "At Stage 3, I kept going to conventions where I wanted to talk about my discovery that racism is systemic and everyone just rolled their eyes at me, until I learned to shut up and listen" and ... that's something that you learn by being in those spaces. What's the equivalent for the internet? I feel like the internet just reinforces and validates your outrage.)
Also really helpful for me, is the idea that oftentimes there's a clash of stages. The guilty liberal in Stage 3 going around conventions trying to start conversations about "wow race is a thing!" with Stage 4 poc who are trying to create their own positive spaces, for example. Or a Stage 3 poc who feels a lot of anger and rage toward the system might clash in an affinity group where there's Stage 5 poc who have reached a stage of positive action.
And of course, everyone is reaching these stages at different times in their lives. It helps for me to think about these stages as I figure out how to have these conversations. I might be in stage 4 but my students might be in stage 2. The purity police on the internet are probably at Stage 3 and really need to be guided to Stage 4, instead of letting them wallow in stage 3.
Anyways, I think that has helped me understand a lot of the tensions I see in interactions both online and in person, and so I wanted to pass it on.
----
* for example, how can we properly contextualize the 1871 LA lynching of Chinese Americans with the contemporaneous lynching of so many Black Americans under Jim Crow? How do we understand the Civil Rights movement in connection to Larry Itliong and Cesar Chavez? Can we have a conversation about how America was built on slave labor, but also immigrant labor, and connect the two narratives? Can we talk about the Bracero program?
Anyways, one thing that I really liked about the workshop was the discussion about Social Identity Development. The basic idea is this: everyone goes through the 5 stages of coming to terms with the power of their race/ethnicity/etc.
- Stage 1 is being naive to the power imbalance
- Stage 2 is accepting the power imbalance because that's what others tell you
- Then there is a transition phase as you recognize the power imbalance to be wrong
- Stage 3 is a stage of "resistance" where you primarily feel anger at the system
- Stages 4 and 5 is basically reconciling this and moving towards doing positive work in your own life and in challenging the system.
Here is the PDF with the specifics, for both Dominant and Marginalized groups: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2ydgn8oty34m6t/Social%20Identity%20Development.pdf?dl=0
Anyway, the workshop leads described Stage 3 as the "guilty liberal / cancel culture / white savior" stage, and more importantly, talked about how, while it's an important stage, it's also a toxic stage to dwell in. This has made me think about how the internet really encourages people to stay in this stage of outrage, because outrage generates clicks, which generates revenue. :/ (I'm thinking about how the workshop lead said "At Stage 3, I kept going to conventions where I wanted to talk about my discovery that racism is systemic and everyone just rolled their eyes at me, until I learned to shut up and listen" and ... that's something that you learn by being in those spaces. What's the equivalent for the internet? I feel like the internet just reinforces and validates your outrage.)
Also really helpful for me, is the idea that oftentimes there's a clash of stages. The guilty liberal in Stage 3 going around conventions trying to start conversations about "wow race is a thing!" with Stage 4 poc who are trying to create their own positive spaces, for example. Or a Stage 3 poc who feels a lot of anger and rage toward the system might clash in an affinity group where there's Stage 5 poc who have reached a stage of positive action.
And of course, everyone is reaching these stages at different times in their lives. It helps for me to think about these stages as I figure out how to have these conversations. I might be in stage 4 but my students might be in stage 2. The purity police on the internet are probably at Stage 3 and really need to be guided to Stage 4, instead of letting them wallow in stage 3.
Anyways, I think that has helped me understand a lot of the tensions I see in interactions both online and in person, and so I wanted to pass it on.
----
* for example, how can we properly contextualize the 1871 LA lynching of Chinese Americans with the contemporaneous lynching of so many Black Americans under Jim Crow? How do we understand the Civil Rights movement in connection to Larry Itliong and Cesar Chavez? Can we have a conversation about how America was built on slave labor, but also immigrant labor, and connect the two narratives? Can we talk about the Bracero program?
