Black Racial Identity Development

Models of Black Racial Identity Development

Black racial identity development has often been conceptualized in models that describe linear stages through which Black individuals move from a negative to a positive self-identity in the context of their racial group membership. One of the earliest and most influential models of BRID was developed by William E. Cross, Jr., as part of his Nigrescence (the process of becoming Black) theory. Cross used a five-stage model to describe a Black person's feelings, thoughts, and behaviors as he or she moves from a White frame of reference to a positive Black frame of reference: pre-encounter, encounter, immersion/emersion, internalization, and internalization/commitment.

In the pre-encounter stage, Black people consciously or unconsciously manifest an anti-Black worldview while seeking to assimilate and acculturate into dominant White society. Low self-esteem and poor psychological health are characteristic of individuals at this stage. The encounter stage is marked by two processes: (1) an experience that challenges the pre-encounter individual's pro-White/anti-Black world-view, and (2) a reinterpretation of one's racial identity as a result of this experience. At this stage, a Black person finds support in the search for a Black identity and makes the conscious decision to identify with being Black. A strong pro-Black attitude and withdrawal from, and hostility toward, dominant White culture typifies the immersion/emersion stage, signifying a switch from the “old” anti-Black/pro-White worldview. The individual has an acute sense of Black pride, but a positive Black identity has not yet been internalized. [Page 1037]Feelings of guilt and anger at having been conditioned by White culture are common. At the internalization stage, Black people succeed in reconciling the antagonism of their pre-encounter and immersion/emersion worldviews. The individual's resentment of White culture subsides and a nonracist, multicultural orientation prevails. Social action demarcates the ultimate stage, internalization/'commitment, from the previous stage. Here, Black people not only incorporate a positive Black racial identity into their self-concepts, but they also make a commitment to activities that promote social justice and civil rights.

The Nigrescence model has received the most attention in the psychological literature of all the BRID models, particularly for its association with a measurement instrument developed by Janet Helms—the Racial Identity Attitude Scale-Black—which has been used to operationahze BRID in a number of studies. Cross and his colleagues have since revised the Nigrescence model, collapsing the internalization and internalization/commitment stages into one stage (internalization) and expanding each stage into multiple “identity clusters” to address the criticism that numerous identities may be manifested at each stage.

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