The Paths to Black/White Racial Identity Development

By Janice Van Buren, Ph.D.

Identity development is a continuous process that begins in early childhood and continues throughout one’s life span in addition a healthy racial identity is something multiracial individuals must develop and maintain throughout their lives.

The paths toward developing a racial identity are complex and challenging, particularly for those having African American and Caucasian biological parents. As a result of the scientifically flawed "one drop rule", biracial individuals were characterized as being a member solely of the African American race, regardless of physical appearance, thus denying a substantial part of their cultural heritage. The "one-drop rule" originated during slavery and declared "that a mixed race child be relegated to the racial group of the lower status parent”.

Their challenges in developing a racial identity are to:  integrate dual and /or cultural identities, develop both a personal identity and a positive racial identity, and, as adolescents, do well in tackling the tasks of developing peer relationships, defining their sexual orientation and sexual preference, making a career choice, and separating from their parents. Despite these demands they tend to be high achievers and have comparable levels of self-esteem and psychiatric problems to those of other children.

Racial identity development is believed to be a fluid process that is constantly evolving with  many influences: physical appearance (along with imposed constraints), family members, social class, diversity of the schools they attend, racial composition of the neighborhood, peer group association, social network composition and geographical/regional residence, and particular ideas about race (some are unique to specific situations and others reflecting society as a whole).

Appearance –Physical appearances (in addition to clothing, hair style, etc.) provide initial face-to-face information about us that allows others to define and place us in a social space. Skin color, hair texture, and facial features influence an individual’s biracial identity to others.

Family- Parents, as the primary agent of their mixed race child’s identity, indirectly, provide the background for their child's day-to-day interactions and the racial makeup of their social environment through selecting where they live and the schools they attend; both of these components reflect the parent’s social class. Parents directly influence their child’s identity development by instilling a sense of racial belonging and providing the child’s initial impressions of race.

Social networks - Neighbors, teachers, peers, extended family, the media, and society as a whole play important roles in determining a child’s acceptance and pride in his/her own racial identity.

Peers play a large part in identity development in biracial children. Curious peers who recognize  (beginning around age three) visible differences between one another often ask questions related to skin color, hair texture, and family composition.

Gender shapes the entire process of racial identity development among mixed race people so that girls, unlike boys, tend to experience gender-specific stressors that influence racial identity development. Mixed-race girls encounter a unique set of issues most often around physical appearance, which creates tensions between light-skinned and dark-skinned girls.

Identities

The racial identity of a mixed race child can follow a variety of paths by reflecting the mother's racial background or the father's racial background (singular), an identity that embraces both at once (blended), or rejects race identifiers all together (transcendent).

Singular Identities: Exclusively Black

Black/white mixed-race people who understand their racial identity in alliance with only one of their birth parents more often identify as exclusively black. The singular black identity is far more prevalent than the singular white identity because of the historical legacy of the ‘one-drop’ rule. Many mixed-race people (regardless of how they may understand themselves) are considered black by others because this norm remains so entrenched in our society.

Appearances play an influential role in whether individuals will choose this particular identity along with their social network makeup, family discussions about being multiracial, and negative treatment from whites. Individuals who chose the singular black identity had frequent contact with African Americans and are associated with having a predominately black childhood environment. As adults, they continue to establish themselves in similar social networks. These contacts reinforce their racial identity as African Americans.

How one experiences race within their social network is very important. This group has experienced race both positively and negatively; they have experienced negative treatment by whites and positive experiences by blacks.

Also, individuals whose families did not talk openly about being mixed-race and who did not experience negative treatment from blacks tend to understand their racial identity as exclusively black. Their racial identity is maintained through the ongoing process of appearing to others as black, being categorized by others as black, and they socially experience the world as a black person.

Singular Identities: Exclusively White

It is rare that multiracial people will choose this identity.

Research documenting this identity is scarce and often a topic of great discomfort for multiracial researchers, activists, and counselors dealing with multiracial people." This discomfort comes from the idea that some consider the singular white identity equivalent to ‘passing.' “  White identification is different from with passing. Historically, passing implies that an individual has a nonwhite identity, yet pretends to be white for various social and economic reasons. Individuals with a singular white identity are not passing because they truly understand their racial identity as white (despite the fact that one parent is black).

Transcendent Identity

Also rare, Individuals who chose this identity have no racial identity and do not believe in the realities of race identifiers. Physical appearances of these individuals incorporate all varieties. Transcendents have the whitest social networks of all the other identities. They inhabited white social environments throughout their life span and do not feel particularly close to either blacks or whites. They do not have a superficial "colorblind" mentality that may have been do a white physical appearance, youthful idealism, and/or have not experienced the harsh realities of racism.

Blended Identities

Blending occurs along a continuum: from exclusively black identity → blended identity w/black emphasis → blended biracial identity → blended w/white emphasis → exclusively white identity.

Among those who use labels such as "biracial," "mixed," "mulatto," "mestizo," or "hapa" to describe their racial identity there are many varieties of self-understandings and degrees of blending with some leaning far more in a one direction than another.  Most mixed race people tend to fall somewhere in the middle range of the continuum, understanding themselves as biracial.

Some have their biracial identity validated by others in their social network while others have not.
Appearance influences the development of a validated biracial identity. If an individual's physical appearance is closer to whites than to blacks, they are more likely to understand being mixed-race as a biracial identity and that this identity is more likely to be validated. For those whose appearance is closer to blacks than to whites, their identity as biracial is less likely to be validated.

Choosing the validated biracial identity is associated with having predominantly white childhood social networks. As adults, those with a validated biracial identity retain the racially predominantly white social networks. Those who whose biracial identity is validated report feeling less close to blacks and closer to whites.

Those having an unvalidated biracial identity had many more African Americans in their childhood social network. This group shifts from a predominantly black childhood social network to predominantly white adult social network. This shift in social networks is greater than for all other identity groups.

The unvalidated group has had very different experiences. Blacks populated their childhood social networks, yet they report the most negative treatment from blacks. This situation, while different from the validated biracial, turns individuals away from the development of a singular black identity and pulls them toward the biracial identity. When their networks change to predominantly white, that pull is reinforced
The unvalidated biracial group feels as close to blacks as individuals who chose the singular black identity, but also felt closer to whites than did the exclusively black identifiers.

The unvalidated biracial group tend to experienced more inherent tension in their racial identity. Perhaps this is due to the combination of existing in predominately black childhood social networks and experiencing negative social interactions with blacks, yet still feeling closer to blacks than whites. They also experience negativity from both whites and blacks as they move from mostly black situations to whiter ones throughout their life cycle.

A little More about Validation and Rejection

Physical appearances significantly influence how others categorize and respond to mixed-race people. If a child appears white, others understand her as white and respond accordingly. The same is true where a child appears black. When children appear mixed or ambiguous, others make varied assessments about their racial identity and/or directly ask: what are you? This question clarifies how others will respond to the mixed-race child. These reactions have an effect on how mixed-race children come to understand their racial identity. In some cases, a child's physical appearance and social environment make it relatively easier to blend their blackness and whiteness. In other cases, children's physical appearance and/or their environment make any blending a challenge (i.e., they are not validated)

The overall wellness of mixed-race people is the result of validation or rejection of their chosen racial identity. The degree of validation or rejection biracial people experience from others, especially those who are emotionally significant to them, can either reinforce their self-understanding and support a sense of identity cohesion, or can undermine their sense of self and create psychic distress.

Some Resources:

American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (1999). Facts for families: Multiracial children. No. 71, www.aacap.org/publications/ factsfam/71.ht

Erikson, Erik H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: W. W. Norton.

Gibbs. J. I H, (1998). Biracial adolescents. In J. I Gibbs. L. N. Huang, & Associates (Eds.). Children of color: Psychological interventions with cultural diverse youth (pp. 305-332). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Rockquemore, K.A. & laszloffy, T. (2005). Raising Biracial Children: Lanham, MD: Alta Mira.

Rockquemore, K.A. & Brunsma, D. (2008) Beyond Black: Biracial Identity in America,(2nd ed.). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Sue, D. W., & Sue, D. (2003). Counseling the culturally different: Theory and practice (4th ed). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

I'd like your questions or comments, thanks!

www.janicevanburenphd.com
janice@janicevanburenphd.com
609.915.4677

Comments

[Lynne Berrett]

Another insightful post, Janice. I learn so much from you every time you write.

[Margaret Jones]

As the white mother of two biracial children I was very interested in Janet's article. Depending on the social situation my son will identify himself as black or biracial. My daughter who experienced racial bigotry from black college classmates has moved from a biracial identity to a transdentent one. She noted that when a white person is asked what are they, they respond by providing their ethnic heritage. So if my daughter is asked that question she responds, "I'm Italian, German, English and Trinidadian." She then "lets them figure it out" for themselves.

[Amy Johnson]

Great information, Janice. Thank you for your insights and wisdom about this important topic.

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