CHAPTER EIGHT
The initial reading of the analyses following each case produced few points of comparison across cases, reaffirming the individualistic and contextual nature of white and male identity development. As such, it is not the intent of this research to make generalizations about the gender and racial identity of white males by comparing across the cases. Instead, cross-case observations are made for the purposes of identifying dynamics consistent across the experiences of three or more of the participants and understanding how such dynamics contribute to the individuality of each respective case. These observations include: 1) the importance of contextual factors in the white and male identity development process of the participants, 2) the influence of identity issues other than race and gender in the white and male identity development of the participants, and 3) the connection between the participants' approaches to personal development and their approaches to doing multicultural work.
Importance of Contextual Factors
Contextual factors were instrumental in each participant's white and male identity development processes. Steve, who was raised primarily on racially and socioeconomically diverse military bases by parents modeling an appreciation for diversity, took early opportunities to form friendships across racial lines. Along with his parents' activism with respect to racial issues, his own interracial friendships became the bases for Steve's early awareness of race and racial issues. Concurrently, the strongly-defined gender roles on the military bases informed Steve's early steps toward male identity development.
John's white and male identity development was influenced by contextual factors as well. Growing up and attending seminary school in a predominantly African American neighborhood afforded John the opportunity to experience life as an "outsider." As a result, he developed an early awareness of his whiteness and an appreciation for the significance of racial difference. In a similar manner, John's male identity development began as a process of reconciling his male-dominated experiences - living with six brothers and attending seminary school - with his experiences teaching female-dominated classes.
Likewise, my identity development along racial and gender lines was affected by contextual factors. My early understanding of race and racial identity resulted from attending school in a racially diverse area and in developing close friendships with people of color from an early age. Because I was also touched by my father's racial prejudice, growing up in a context which allowed to me to make such friendships was vital to my development of an appreciation for diversity and in my attitude toward people of color generally. Simultaneously, my early notions regarding gender roles and male identity in particular were informed by my parents' modeling of an approach which challenged traditional gender roles.
Overall, the consistency across the cases of the importance of contextual factors illustrates the importance of examining context in attempting to understand an individual's process of identity development. When such developmental processes are examined without a simultaneous examination of contextual experiences, only an incomplete understanding can be achieved. For example, it is not possible to develop a clear understanding of my early struggles with male identity without considering my parents' struggles to spare me from the constraints of traditional gender roles and how their message contradicted messages I was receiving elsewhere.
Influence of Identity Issues Other than Race and Gender
Another influential dynamic consistent across the cases was the influence of issues other than race and gender in the participants' white and male identity development. In Brett's case, his racial identity was entangled with internal conflicts regarding ethnic and national identity. He only acknowledged his whiteness after becoming disgruntled with United States politics, failing to identify along his German and French ethnic lines, briefly socializing into Brazilian culture, and feeling guilty for losing touch with his "roots." As he illustrated in our interviews by answering questions regarding his white identity with commentaries on "Americans," Brett still has trouble distinguishing between his national, ethnic and racial identity.
For Steve, being gay has influenced the course of both his white and male identity development. As a member of an oppressed group, Steve's experiences brought him to understand systemic issues surrounding discrimination. He had experienced the feeling of "being on the outside of the perception of what was going on." As a result, through personal experience, Steve developed an appreciation for the "dual realities" that people of color must live with and the privilege that came with not having to do so. Meanwhile, racism within the gay community continues to entangle identity issues for Steve who has dedicated his work and education toward ending discrimination.
Steve's sexual orientation has also affected his male identity development. Because of the fear of femininity and homophobia associated with masculinity and male identity, Steve "never quite assumed the degree of privilege" afforded heterosexual men. Similarly, his vulnerability in the face of instances of verbal and physical abuse directly contradict traditional masculine images of stoicism and insensitivity. Currently, Steve's male identity development remains a continual process toward understanding what it means to be male "with a sexual orientation overlaid on that."
John's white identity development is closely tied to his involvement in religion. His identification with the church helped him to maintain focus and work through his fears of being one of the few white people living and working in the area.
While these factors regarding other cultural identifiers affected the white and/or male identity development of each participant differently, considered together they serve to illustrate the complexity of individual identity development. Just as John's process of white identity development cannot be understood without considering religion as an influence, Steve's experience cannot be fully understood outside the context of his sexual orientation. Likewise, John's experience with religion was informed by the fact that he was one of the few white men in the area while Steve's sexual orientation identity development is affected by his sense of male identity. As this indicates, though it remains important to explore processes of identity development specific to particular cultural indicators, it is important to remember that these points of identification form an effectual web, each process of development influencing and informed by the others.
Connection Between Approaches to Personal Development and Work
A third observation across the cases was a connection between a participant's approach to personal development and his approach to doing multicultural work or facilitation. For John, the connections have been a focus on individual gifts and a recognition of the benefits of diversity. Just as John's appreciation for diversity is grounded in a recognition of his personal contribution to the community, his approach to facilitating workshops is grounded in developing appreciation within organizations for the diverse perspectives present, and using "their diversity as a real strength for community building." Likewise, in the same manner that John recognized the value of having an opportunity "to see something in a totally different way" when living in a predominantly African American neighborhood, he has worked to show participants in his workshops that they stood to gain considering things from a different perspective.
For me, the connection has been the recognition of a need for introspection and self-development. This has been apparent in my approach to personal development in that I have endeavored to base my process of learning about diversity issues in a larger process of introspection. Similarly, the foundation of my approach to multicultural awareness facilitation has been to facilitate experiences in which participants share and reflect on their own experiences.
For Brett, the connection between his approach for self-development and his approach for doing multicultural work has been grounded in a failure to recognize white and male privilege. This manifested itself in Brett's personal development through his focus on the negative associations he had regarding people of color and women as the significant factors in his identity development. His failure to recognize white and male privilege was also prevalent in his approach to diversity work, illustrated by the fact that he started with an assumption that oppressed people are responsible for their own failure at upward mobility because they accept and play into victim status.
Overall, the connections existing between the participants' approaches to personal development and their approaches to multicultural and diversity work exemplify the importance for people doing multicultural work to remain aware of their own process and stage of self-development. As illustrated by the participants of this study, doing so is not only valuable within one's development process, but also results in greater insight into how a facilitator's own issues are manifested in his or her work.
The most apparent observation across the participants' white identity development processes is their individuality. While Brett, John, Steve and I share some similar experiences with white identity, these experiences affected us differently and fell within different points of our identity development. An examination of how such similar experiences played into the diverse identity development processes of the individual participants offers insight into how characteristics of white people, as specified by the literature, manifest themselves and are addressed by the participants. Similarities in experience with white identity development observed across the cases of this study include: 1) an early unawareness of the significance of racial differences (Powell, 1996; Terry 1970; Frankenberg, 1993; Helms, 1993), 2) the acknowledgment of a need to take responsibility for self-assessment regarding one's whiteness (Helms, 1984; Katz and Ivey, 1977; Lawrence and Bunche, 1996), and 3) the recognition of white privilege and power (McIntosh, 1988; Kivel, 1996, McIntyre, 1997).
Early Unawareness of the Significance of Racial Differences
Brett, Steve and I exhibited an early unawareness regarding the significance of racial differences. For Brett, this was apparent in his belief that the United States society "had a big hang-up with ethnicity," which he believed to be "so insignificant a thing." Because Brett never reached a point of awareness at which he acknowledged the significance of racial differences, he also never developed an understanding of the significance of his whiteness (Frankenberg, 1993). As a result, his entire conception of his white identity remains solely focused on people of color instead of his own identity development process.
Though Steve lived in a diverse area, he also demonstrated an early unawareness of the significance of racial differences by assuming that the experiences of his African American friends coincided with his own experiences. Steve focused on his similarities with people, "filtering" his "understanding of race and racism through the lens of class." Still, because Steve maintained friendships with people of color, he also maintained the possibility of developing a better understanding of his role as a white person in the dynamics of a cross-racial relationship (Helms, 1984). Then, as he became more aware of the significance of difference regarding sexual orientation, he was able to develop a greater awareness of and sympathy for the significance of racial differences for his friends of color.
Like Steve, my unawareness regarding the significance of racial differences was apparent in my focus on the similarities between myself and my friends of color: "I always thought we were so alike - all athletes, all into video games, all big eaters..." Yet, it was through these similarities with my friends of color that I developed discomfort with my father's racial prejudice. Further, similar to Steve's experience, my friendships with people of color were instrumental in my later awareness regarding the importance of race and racial identity.
Considered together, these experiences illustrate the importance of developing positive associations and friendships with people of color in moving toward an awareness of the significance of racial differences. While such positive associations proved vital in the white identity develop process of Steve and I, Brett's lack of positive associations with people of color resulted in a lack of opportunities to observe how his experience differed from their experiences.
Acknowledging a Need to Take Responsibility for Self-Assessment
John, Steve and I share an acknowledgment of a need to take responsibility for our own self-assessment regarding white identity as a major step in our process of white identity development. John, this recognized the need to face his fears of being one of the few white people in his neighborhood and of being honest about his feelings. In owning these issues and working through them, John enabled himself to develop a greater understanding of his whiteness as an institutional matter, as evidenced in his reaction to almost being shot: "I realized I could stop right now...[others] had not that option."
While John's acknowledgment that he needed to take responsibility for assessing his own whiteness led to greater institutional understanding, Steve's experience was the reverse. Through experiencing the institutional oppression as a result of his sexual orientation, Steve recognized his responsibility for assessing his own whiteness and how that plays into the oppression of people of color. This became the first step in Steve's fully self-reflective approach to discussing race issues.
My acknowledgment of a need to accept the responsibility of assessing my whiteness has been a very recent development in my process of white identity development. I have worked to internalize discussions of race I would have previously participated in from an emotional distance. Also, this acknowledgment has accentuated my desire to dedicate myself to my own introspective, self-reflective work, as illustrated by this study.
The consistent existence across the cases of an acknowledgment of the need to take responsibility for self-assessment regarding one's whiteness reveals the importance of such a step in a process of white identity development. In taking such responsibility, John, Steve and I moved toward our respective self-reflective, introspective processes, which, according to the literature, are vital in both white identity development processes (Helms, 1984; Katz and Ivey, 1977) as well as multicultural teaching competence (Sleeter, 1996; McIntyre, 1997; McLaren, 1995; Haymes, 1995). For Brett, the lack of a self-reflective, introspective approach to considering racial issues is reflective of his failure to accept responsibility for, and engage in a process of, self-assessment regarding his whiteness.
The Recognition of White Privilege and Power
Recognizing the dynamics of white privilege and power as described by McIntosh (1988), Kivel (1996) and McIntyre (1997) was an important step in white identity development for John, Steve and me. In John's case, this recognition grew out of his introspection and self-assessment processes regarding his white identity. Still important in his white identity formulation, John's understanding of white privilege helps him make sense out of being turned down for jobs based on his race: "I'm sure that there have been times when I've also been chosen because I'm white..." Meanwhile, this understanding has helped John maintain perspective on his position within a racially diverse neighborhood and college, and the resulting anger people of color sometimes direct toward him.
Steve's ability to recognize white privilege and power was illustrated throughout our conversations as he alluded to how privilege and power dynamics were manifested throughout his life experiences. He specifically described examples of products of his white privilege, including his privilege to drive above the speed limit knowing that, if he is stopped, he would not feel in danger as his African American advisor felt. This understanding of white privilege sprang Steve into a process of directly and systematically considering what his whiteness means with respect to his overall identity.
My recognition of white privilege and power coincided with my determination to develop an introspective process for understanding and developing my white identity. With a recognition of white privilege, I set forth to explore its manifestation in my experience both culturally and historically. To this end, I have begun to reexamine cultural and historical aspects of my family, including the racial prejudice passed down from my grandparents to my father and the relocation tendencies of my parents in a quest to understand my whiteness within cultural and historical contexts.
As multicultural awareness facilitators, the presence of a recognition of white privilege and power in the experience of three of this study's participants is an important observation. According to Sleeter (1996) and McIntyre (1997), privilege within opportunity structures is often unexamined by white educators. Within the context of multicultural work, it is essential that such issues are brought to the fore and examined. In cases such as Brett's, where white privilege remains unexamined, a facilitator can serve to reinforce racial prejudice instead of advocating against it. This was evident in Brett's attitude toward people of color.
Overall, though the characteristic of the cases uniting them most closely is their diversity, a number of lessons can be gleaned from examining the few similarities which exist across the participants' experiences. The observations made here regarding an early awareness of the significance of differences, the acknowledgment of a need to take responsibility for self-assessment, and the recognition of white privilege and power further illustrate the importance of modeling a process of introspection and self-reflection for white people engaged in multicultural work. Likewise, a comparison between the roles of these characteristics in Brett's experience with their role in the experiences of the other participants highlights the ways in which the lack of a personal process of introspection and self-reflection results in a failure to move toward positive white identity development (Helms, 1984; 1993).
As with the white identity development processes, the most readily observable characteristic across the participants' male identity development processes is their diversity. Unlike the participants' white identity development processes, an examination of male identity development across cases reveals no discernible points of comparison among them. Instead, such an examination makes the diversity among development processes of the participants more pronounced. Still, valuable insight can be made by exploring the outstanding features of each case in order to understand how these features play into the uniqueness of each participant's personal experiences and multicultural work.
Brett's gender identity development relied solely on a critique of women. Unlike the other participants who have begun a process of considering what it means to be male, Brett has yet to engage in any self-reflective process for his own gender identity development. As a result, he continues to carry unexamined male privilege (McIntosh, 1988) in his work life as well as his personal life. This is illustrated by the sexist overtones of many of his statements regarding women, as well as his focus on these observations instead of an examination of his own identity:
...women are really blowing the opportunities that they have because they go through this process of turning into very aggressive people, and getting into self-defeating behaviors....we've got two things working against [women]. First of all, they don't form a mutual support society, which men do, and the other thing is they're over-exaggerating the qualities they think they need to be successful in a political - in a man's world.
They want to be treated equally, and yet they like it when you open the door for them and treat them differently... Well, you know, 'We still like to be treated with deference, and we want to be treated like fluff, but you better pay us the same amount of money.'
The main characteristic of Steve's male identity development process making it necessarily and fully different from those of the other participants is his concurrent and intertwined process of gay identity development. Because, like whiteness and maleness, heterosexuality is considered the "norm" to which other sexual orientations are compared, Brett, John and I have not been forced to consider our sexual orientation to the same extent as Steve. Moreover, this dynamic is complicated further in that Steve's experience directly contradicts many of the characteristics identified with male identity or masculinity including fear of femininity (David and Brannon, 1976; O'Neil, 1982; Hartley, 1976; LaFollette, 1992; Meth, 1990), homophobia (David and Brannon, 1976; Lehne, 1976; Balswick, 1982; O'Neil, 1982), and a lack of emotionality (Meth, 1990; Pasick, Gordon and Meth, 1990; Balswick, 1982; David and Brannon, 1976). In terms of multicultural work, Steve's identification with an oppressed group offers him insight into the personal and institutional dynamics of oppression.
An outstanding characteristic of John's male identity development is his transition from working out of an all-male seminary school to teaching in a predominantly-female classroom. It was this switch that forced John to more carefully consider how his maleness affects his teaching and to closely examine male privilege and power. As a result, he currently works to develop classroom atmospheres conducive to honest dialog regarding gender dynamics in his classes as well as gender issues in general. This differs from the experiences of the other participants in that John's acknowledgment of his need for male identity development grew out of his recognition of power dynamics within a particular context. My need for exploring my male identity development sprang from a different place, characterized by my struggle to balance my emotional and sensitive self with the socially-defined image of male identity and masculinity. Meanwhile, whereas John was long able to "be less conscious of" gender, Steve's male identity development was a product of his hyper-awareness of maleness stemming from his sexual orientation.
The defining characteristic of my male identity development process was an internal struggle to locate myself amid an emotional self and a self heavily influenced by social gender roles. It was this struggle that led to a period of emotional inexpressiveness during high school. This differs from the experiences of John and Steve in that while they showed no evidence of adopting stereotypically defined male characteristics, my male identity development has necessarily become a process of confronting the emotional inexpressiveness, fear of femininity and other tendencies of stereotypically defined men which I came to adopt through social interactions.
Like the observations made across white identity development processes, these observations highlight the importance of introspection and self-reflection in the personal and professional development of the participants. It is through such introspection and self-reflection that John, Steve and I have come to understand our maleness within our own contexts. John's context is characterized by the power dynamics associated with being a white male teacher of predominantly female classes within a mostly African American neighborhood. In Steve's case, the context involves the consideration of his sexual orientation and gender as separate issues as well as intertwined experiences. My context is defined by my continuing struggle to come to terms with myself as self-defined and myself as a socially-defined male. For each of us, the ability to negotiate these contexts and perform effectively as multicultural facilitators and educators has relied on introspective and self-reflective processes in which we have worked to understand ourselves and how we play into the issues around which we facilitate discussions.
Though white identity as an area of inquiry has only received attention in the last thirty years, the evolution of such inquiry relies on a constant critique of its methods and approaches for understanding whiteness and white identity. This study exposes some of the limitations and weaknesses of current white identity literature, calling for a reexamination of the methods and approaches employed by current researchers of white identity. These limitations include: 1) a failure to address key issues in the participants' experiences (i.e. John's experience growing up in predominantly African American neighborhoods), and 2) a failure to model the introspection and self-reflection repeatedly suggested as vital to self-development.
Failure to Address Key Issues and Experiences
A review of the literature on white identity and the experience of white people in multicultural education produced a number of observations regarding white people, our identity development, and our multicultural teaching practices. Among these observations were the denial of our whiteness (Powell, 1996; Scheurich, 1993; Katz and Ivey, 1977), color-blindness (Powell, 1996; Terry, 1970; Frankenberg, 1993; Helms, 1993), lack of understanding of systemic or institutional racism (Powell, 1996; Lawrence, 1997; Kluegel and Smith, 1986; Giroux, 1997; Sleeter, 1996), and the acceptance of unexamined white privilege (McIntosh, 1988; McIntyre, 1997; Kivel, 1996). Helms (1984), pulling from these observations in a sample of pre-service educators, developed a linear model of white identity development to describe a progression of resolutions of these issues toward the development of a positive white identity.
Quantitative measures have shown Helms' model to be generally consistent with the experiences of other samples of educators (McIntyre, 1997; Jones and Carter, 1996; Carter and Goodwin, 1994; Lawrence and Bunche, 1996). Yet, a close examination of the individual experiences of this study's sample reveals the failure of both Helms' model, as well as the characteristics it organizes, to address key concerns for understanding the white identity development of this study's participants. For example, the roots of John's process of white identity development can be found in his experience growing up and attending seminary school in predominantly African American neighborhoods. As previously discussed, his determination to work effectively in these neighborhoods as part of the church became John's springboard for internally exploring the meaning of his whiteness. Moreover, because John identified these issues as crucial to his own process, attempting to understand his white identity development without understanding such individual factors necessarily results in a limited picture of John's experience. Though, for instance, John's acknowledgment of the importance of racial differences reflected some aspects of Helm's Pseudo-independence stage (1990), attempting to understand this acknowledgment without understanding the context in which it was made results in a limited picture of the significance of John's experience.
Similarly, as a white person currently engaged in a process of examining my white identity development, I felt constrained by the models of white identity development in the literature. Though characteristics described by Helms' model described some of my tendencies throughout my process of white identity development, it failed to name or address other important and distinguishing factors. Through my introspection and self-reflection, I have come to understand that the most influential of these factors was my struggle to reconcile my father's racial prejudice with my position within a racially diverse circle of friends. Yet, as I studied existing models and typologies, I failed to find a connection point for that struggle.
In effect, my attempt to understand my own white identity development in terms of the literature was grounded in an assumption that my experiences could be explained without my own voice and insights to add context and perspective. In turn, when the literature failed to address key issues in my white identity development and failed to reflect my story, I began to feel alienated from the very process of examining my own experiences. The danger of this is that if white individuals are looking to the literature on white identity development as a starting point for their process of self-reflection and understanding, and are unable to find a point of connection between the literature and their individual experiences and issues, they too may become alienated from their own processes. If, like the participants of this study, their experiences do not fit neatly into Helms' model (1984; 1990), they may become discouraged from exploring and examining their own stories. Despite that, the current literature on white identity is steeped in a generalizing approach without simultaneously examining the key issues and contexts of individuals' experiences. Catherine Riessman (1993, pp. 13-14) describes how the thrust of individual experiences becomes lost in the process of simplifying them into generalized descriptions:
The challenge is to identify similarities across the moments into an aggregate, a summation. An investigator sits with pages of tape-recorded stories, snips away at the flow of talk to make it fit between the covers of a book, and tries to create sense and dramatic tension. There are decisions about form, ordering, style of presentation, and how the fragments of lives that have been given in interviews will be housed. The anticipated response to the work inevitably shapes what gets included and excluded. In the end, the analyst creates a metastory about what happened by telling what the interview narratives signify, editing and reshaping what was told, and turning it into a hybrid story... Values, politics, and theoretical commitments enter once again...
As the focus of generalization of experiences increases, the amount of possible points of connection for others decreases.
In short, because current literature on white identity remains focused on generalizing experiences and characteristics of white people, it fails to consider specific key issues in individual experiences of white identity development. Individuals, like myself, who look to the literature to find a starting point for our own process of self-examination, but who are unable to understand our experiences in terms of the models and characteristics described there, may become alienated or discouraged from engaging in a process of introspection and self-reflection with respect to our whiteness. As literature on white identity development becomes more focused on generalizations and less inclusive of the voices and narratives of people, fewer points of connection can be struck between the literature and the actual experience of white individuals.
Failure to Model Introspection and Self-Reflection
The most repeated recommendation throughout the literature was for white educators and pre-service teachers (Carter, 1990; Katz, 1985; Ponterotto, 1988; Sleeter, 1996; McLaren, 1995; Haymes, 1995), as well as white people in general (Helms, 1984; McIntosh, 1988; McIntyre, 1997), to engage in a process of introspection and self-examination toward understanding the individual and systemic meaning of our whiteness. Lawrence and Bunche posit: (1996, p. 531):
We must help [pre-service teachers] to both unlearn and relearn history and to examine how issues of power and dominance have influenced and continue to influence the fabric of life in this country. A crucial part of this unlearning, relearning, and examining for white teacher education students involves seeing themselves as racial beings, as white persons in a white-dominated society. White students must also be encouraged to examine how race shapes their lives, not just the lives of people of color, and how they can use their race-privilege to either contribute to the maintenance of the racial order or take steps to challenge it.
Yet, like most contributors to the current literature on white identity, Lawrence and Bunche (1996) fail to model the process of self-examination they describe as being so important to the development of teachers. Instead of speaking from an introspective perspective, illustrating and modeling how important such a process is to them, Lawrence and Bunche (1996) focus on fitting the individual experiences of teachers into the generalized notions of whiteness discussed by Helms (1984; 1990) and other researchers. According to Lawrence and Bunche's abstract (1996, p. 531):
...interview data and course writings from five participants enrolled in Education 205 were collected and then analyzed qualitatively according to attitudes and behaviours described in Helms' model of white racial identity development.
This trend of insisting on the importance of introspection and self-reflection, then continuing to generalize people's experience without modeling an introspective, self-analytic approach to discussing white identity is repeated throughout the literature. In his article, "Whites in Education: Rethinking Our Role," Gary Howard (1993, p. 37) poses the following questions "from the perspective of a white American":
What does it mean for white people to be responsible and aware in a nation where we have been the dominant cultural and political force? What can be our unique contribution, and what are the issues we need to face? How do we help create a nation where all cultures are accorded dignity and the right to survive?
Howard (1993, p. 39) suggests that the first step toward addressing these questions:
is to approach the past and the present with a new sense of honesty. Facing reality is the beginning of liberation. As white Americans we can face honestly the fact that we have benefited from racism. The point is simply to face the reality of our own privilege.
Yet, throughout his article, Howard (1993) never addresses - never models - his process for facing the reality of his own privilege. Even when he directly addresses the need for white Americans to "come to terms with who we are as a people," he offers no insights into what perspective he, as an individual, is bringing to the discussion. What does it mean for Howard to be responsible and aware in a nation where he has been part of the dominant cultural and political force? What can be Howard's unique contribution? Such are introspective questions rising from an awareness of one's own privilege.
One of the few articles in which the author does model an introspective approach is Peggy McIntosh's (1988) "White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women's Studies." As opposed to Howard's article, a reading of McIntosh's (1988, p. 2) work reveals an introspective, self-reflective approach to understanding whiteness:
I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets which I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was 'meant' to remain oblivious.
McIntosh (1988, p. 4) describes her own experience with white identity:
...I will give here a list of special circumstances and conditions I experience which I did not earn but which I have been made to feel are mine by birth, by citizenship, and by virtue of being a conscientious law abiding 'normal' person of good will...1. I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
2. I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
3. If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live...
In analyzing her own experiences and taking responsibility for her whiteness, McIntosh (1988) both addresses white identity and models an introspective process for doing so. Still, McIntosh's approach is the exception rather than the rule in current literature on white identity development. Future literature on white identity development must more effectively model introspective processes in an attempt to set a precedent for, and encourage, white people interested in investing themselves in a process of awareness and development with respect to their whiteness.
Psychologists, anthropologists and sociologists have attempted to understand male identity through a variety of approaches including psychoanalysis, role theory, and the social relations perspective. As discussed earlier, the literature of each of these approaches presents arguments about the inferiority of the others. Still, an examination across male identity literature from psychoanalysis, role theory and the social relations perspective produces a list of characteristics commonly identified as the key issues in male identity development. These include a fear of femininity (O'Neil, 1982; Hartley, 1976; LaFollette, 1992; Meth, 1990; David and Brannon, 1976; Connell, 1995; Buchbinder, 1994), emotional and affectionate inexpressiveness (Meth, 1990; Pasick, Gordon and Meth, 1990; Balswick, 1982; David and Brannon, 1976; Lehne, 1976), homophobia (David and Brannon, 1976; Lehne, 1976; Balswick, 1982; Pleck, 1980; Connell, 1995; Meth, 1990), a need for power and control (Meth, 1990; O'Neil, 1982; Steinberg, 1993; Komisar, 1976; Janssen-Jurreit, 1982; Kahn, 1984; LaFollette, 1992) and obsession with success (Steinberg, 1993; David and Brannon, 1976; O'Neil, 1982; Pasick, 1990). Despite the agreement in the literature regarding these issues, this study reveals some of the limitations of existing male identity literature and shortcomings in the approach of current male identity researchers. These limitations and shortcomings include: 1) a lack of consideration for the experiences of gay men, and 2) a failure to describe strategies for developing a positive male identity.
Lack of Consideration for the Experiences of Gay Men
Throughout the literature on male identity, homophobia is identified as a key issue with regard to the identity development of men. According to O'Neil in "Gender-Role Conflict and Strain" (1982, p. 27), "Homophobia has been described by several authors as a powerful and central dynamic in the maintenance of traditional male roles." Balswick (1982, pp. 140-141) elaborates:
American males show many signs of their fear of being branded homosexual or of having homosexual tendencies. Generally, the more secure a man is in his sexuality the more open he can be in relating to a member of the same sex. The man who is secure in his own masculinity can put his arms around another man or verbally express his affection to him... Compared to other cultures of the world, American males are very undemonstrative and inhibited about showing love to someone of the same sex.
Three assumptions are implicit in this statement: 1) that "American males" are heterosexual, 2) that homosexual men have the same experiences with sexuality and affection as heterosexual men, and 3) that homosexual men have the same fear of being branded "homosexual" as heterosexual men. Balswick (1982) discusses homophobia in male identity without considering how it affects the most obviously-affected group of men - the gay community. Moreover, his failure to acknowledge his focus on heterosexual men reveals an assumption regarding his prospective audience. In short, Balswick (1982) and O'Neil (1982) illustrate the exclusive approach to understanding male identity which is epidemic throughout the male identity literature.
An examination of Steve's male identity development process in light of the current literature highlights this exclusivity. According to Steve, his gender identity has been - and continues to be - heavily influenced by his sexual identity development process:
I had a lot of experiences growing up where I got a lot of messages that I wasn't man enough. It was only as more of an adult that I realized that a lot of guys got that message, a lot of heterosexuals got that message, too, but it was more piercing for me because I had this big secret. It was more devastating because I knew in my heart they were right, as opposed to heterosexual guys who could kind of blow it off...
Over the course of Steve's male identity development, homophobia has not been, as it is described in the literature, simply an attitude stemming from a fear of femininity (David and Brannon, 1976; Balswick, 1982; Lehne, 1976; Meth, 1990; Connell, 1995), but a physical threat. Likewise, Steve's overall experience with male identity has not been a function of emotional inexpressiveness, the need for power or control, or an obsession with success, but a struggle to develop an understanding of his gender identity "with a sexual orientation overlaid on that." Currently, the male identity literature fails to validate such a struggle as relevant to the identity development of men.
In effect, by excluding consideration for the gay male experience, most of the literature on male identity serves to reinforce one of the issues it associates with male identity, homophobia. According to Lehne (1976, p. 77):
Homophobia is used as a technique of social control by homosexist individuals to enforce the norms of male sex-role behavior. This is why individuals whose lives are generally unaffected by homosexuality are homophobic; homosexuality is not the real threat, the real threat is change in the male sex-role.
By referring to male identity only from the perspective of heterosexual male identity, the literature plays into the practice of defining and enforcing the male roles it describes as debilitating in male identity development.
Failure to Describe Strategies for Developing Positive Male Identity
Despite offering descriptions of issues men face in male identity development, the literature fails to offer strategies for confronting and addressing these issues. Unlike the approach taken in much of the white identity literature, a majority of male identity researchers make no direct or indirect allusion to the concept of identity development - the idea that men can engage in a process to attain control of our own gender identities and work through related issues. Instead, they maintain focus on describing generalized notions of what it means to be male, of male roles, and of masculinity, and how these affect the relationships, psyches and interactions of men.
As a male currently in the process of examining my male identity development, I translated the literature's lack of strategies for developing positive male identity as a suggestion that I had no control or cause for hope regarding my gender identity development. I felt alienated and discouraged by the literature's tendency to claim to understand my experience, framing it "this is what is wrong with men" while failing to describe strategies for working through "what is wrong." An excerpt from Warren Steinberg's Masculinity, Identity, Conflict, and Transformation (1993, pp. 99-100) illustrates this point:
Equating masculinity with external accomplishment, and external accomplishment with financial success and power, exerts an unfortunate and insidious social pressure on the self-esteem of many men. Such a equation inhibits men from formulating individual values distinct from those of the dominant society. Men who value internal achievements, devotion to family, and commitment to society, none of which may lead to external recognition, wealth, or power, face the danger of denigration.
Because I am one of the "men who value internal achievements, devotion to family, and commitment to society" (Steinberg, 1993, p. 99), I became personally invested in the resolution of this issue upon reading Steinberg's book. Though he described how valuing these things affected a variety of individuals, Steinberg failed to describe an approach for dealing with "the danger of denigration" (Steinberg, 1993, p. 100).
In part, this shortcoming of the literature can be attributed to the sources of the research. While a majority of the white identity literature was written by educators, the male identity literature was written primarily by social scientists who may be less concerned with their own sense of identity development than teachers, counselors and other educators. As a result, the language commonly employed in the literature is one of projection as opposed to one of self-reflection, as also illustrated in the above excerpt from Steinberg's book (1993). The multicultural literature, by not addressing issues of groups in power (Howard, 1993), fails to contribute to the male identity literature from an introspective approach focused on self-development (Hidalgo, 1993). This highlights the need of multiculturalism to more closely examine the issues surrounding the gender identity development of men and other privileged groups (McIntosh, 1988), and to model and encourage an introspective process for doing so.
As an educator, I have a dual responsibility for developing and actively undertaking a process of self-awareness and introspection. First, I have a responsibility to myself to constantly work to examine my identity and how it affects my personal relationships and interactions with family, friends, and society. Second, I have a responsibility to the students, workshop attendees, teachers and community groups I reach as an educator and facilitator to continue to engage in an introspective process to maintain an understanding of how my own identity development affects my multicultural work. My development and participation in the introspective aspect of this research has led me to three recommendations for the continuation of my process toward self-awareness and introspection in light of my position as an educator and facilitator. These include: 1) modeling a process of introspection and self-examination in teaching and facilitating approaches, 2) modeling a process of introspection and self-examination in my contributions to the literature, 3) expanding my approach to multicultural education to include the experiences and positive development of people identifying with privileged (McIntosh, 1988) groups.
To be an effective educator and facilitator, I must constantly model a process of introspection and self-examination. It is no longer sufficient for me to ask others to invest themselves in self-reflective activities about what it means to be female, African American, Jewish or poor without simultaneously investing myself in such a process. As part of this process, I must recognize and openly take responsibility for the privilege (McIntosh, 1988), assumptions, prejudices and biases I carry into classrooms and workshops, and how these might affect my interactions with those I work with (Hidalgo, 1993). Likewise, I must examine my language and how it contributes to, or detracts from, my attempts to model an introspective process. Questions I need to consider include: 1) Am I speaking from my own experience instead of through generalizations?; 2) Am I taking responsibility for my perspective as opposed to projecting that responsibility on others?; and 3) Am I inviting discourse through my language or dominating discussions and alienating participants who do not identify with my experience?
In reviewing the literature relevant to this study, I found that, with few exceptions, the authors who advocated for a process of self-examination (Pedersen, 1993; Sue, 1993; Carter, 1990; Katz, 1985; Ponterotto, 1988; McRae and Johnson, 1991; McLaren, 1995; Haymes, 1995) - or insisted upon such a process (Parham, 1993; Richardson and Molinaro, 1996) - failed to employ a research approach which modeled it. This highlights another recommendation in working toward self-awareness and introspection in light of my position as an educator and facilitator: modeling a process of introspection and self-examination in my contributions to the literature. By identifying myself, telling my story, and including my reactions and reflections to this research, I both equip the reader with important knowledge in her or his understanding of the perspective I bring to the study and demonstrate my own understanding of the need for constant self-development. It is not enough to write articles describing what other people need to do in order to be "multiculturally competent" (Ponterotto, 1988; Ponterotto et al., 1991). Instead, I must accept the responsibility which comes with being an educator, continuing to practice what I teach. I need to ask myself: 1) Am I sufficiently identifying myself to inform readers of my perspective?; and 2) Am I describing my own experiences with identity development in my writing or remaining safely removed by focusing solely on the experiences of others?.
My third recommendation is that I must make a point to directly address the experiences of privileged groups (McIntosh, 1988) in my work and research on multicultural education. In order to do so, my approach must not be in the spirit of blaming or developing guilt in white people, men, heterosexual people, Christians, or other non-oppressed people. I need to rededicate to facilitating and participating in experiences in which I and those I work with collaborate toward developing awareness of how my position in groups of power negatively affects not only other groups, but also my ability to develop a positive sense of my white identity, male identity, sexual orientation identity, faith identity, socioeconomic identity, etc. I can no longer focus my multicultural work solely on the experiences of oppressed groups, in effect giving those groups the responsibility to teach me and other members of non-oppressed groups about the effects of individual and systemic oppression. Instead, through modeling as an educator and a writer, I must work to promote an approach to multicultural education theory and practice which transcends a tendency to exclude the voices of those who most desperately need to be in the conversation. It is through introducing my voice to a conversation, sharing the products of my introspection, that I validate experiences and development, and through which I locate further points for introspection and examination.
Overall, the identification of these recommendations is a significant step in my self-awareness and self-development. In moving beyond a traditional case-study approach to systematically engage in an introspective process regarding my white and male identity, I have developed both a greater understanding of my current state of development and a deeper sense for how these points of identification have helped shape my approach as a facilitator and an educator. As a result, this research has produced not only observations regarding the limitations of current literature, but also a series of recommendations for me, the researcher, to continue my development process. This highlights the importance of engaging in self-reflective practices to address both my responsibility to myself and to those I teach and facilitate.
As part of my self-analytic and introspective process, I must engage in future work toward developing an understanding of my points of identification beyond race and gender. Because my interactions with students, workshop attendees, other facilitators, friends, family and colleagues are shaped not only by my maleness and whiteness, but also by my identification as upper-middle class, heterosexual, Christian, etc., I have a responsibility to work toward understanding how my experiences within each of these groups affects my relationships with others. It is also important that other members of non-oppressed groups contribute to the multicultural literature beyond describing prerequisites for attaining multicultural competence. As contributors to the multicultural education literature, we must model introspective and self-reflective approaches to addressing how privilege (McIntosh, 1988) affects our individual teaching and facilitating practices.
This study reveals a need in future research to move away from generalizing experiences into models such as Helms' white identity development model (1984). As the analysis shows, Helms' model and the set of descriptors from the male identity literature failed to address key issues and experiences in the identity development of the participants. An understanding of the dynamics shaping the experiences of the participants was only gleaned through a process of examining each case on its own merit and allowing each participant's narrative set to disclose the experiences and issues relevant to his own identity development process. Future research should continue to focus on deep descriptions of individual experiences, offering readers more to connect with than a quantitatively devised set of generalized experiences.
A variety of questions to guide and focus future research rise from this study. In what ways do individuals' various points of identification interact, and how does this affect their educational practices? How do white males' own educational experiences manifest in our teaching and facilitating? What types of introspective processes are white male multicultural educators and facilitators currently engaging in to address white and male privilege (McIntosh, 1988) and how this privilege affects our interactions with those around us? In searching for answers to these questions and bringing the experiences of white males, along with the experiences of oppressed groups, to the fore of multicultural education and inquiry, we can both develop a better understanding of how to help engage ourselves in a process toward positive identity development and also make the dialog of the multicultural literature more inviting for other white males to enter the conversation and self-development process.
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