BCMA Webinar: The Development of White Identity with Silvia Mangue Alene

May 17, 2021

Presenter:
Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum

What is your ethnic background?

According to Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum, many white people never really considered their own racial and ethnic group membership. For them, Whiteness was simply the unexamined norm. Because they represent the societal norm, Whites can easily reach adulthood without thinking much about their racial group.

On the other hand, active exploration of what means to be Black is an almost universal experience for Black adolescents due to the encounters with racism they commonly have. The same is not true for White adolescents. White may go unexplored because it just seems normal. But when the individual goes through experiences that trigger an active exploration of what it means to be white, a process of identity development begins to unfold.

This lecture explains how White people can achieve a healthy sense of White identity. This presentation is a one-hour lecture on The Development of White Identity. It addresses the process of identity development specifically linked to an understanding of what it means to be White in a race-conscious society.