When Race Becomes an Identity

What if your identity was based partly by the color of your skin?  What if that skin tone was used as a negative?  What if it was made to make you appear as a threat?  What if it made people lower their expectations of what you are capable of or your worth as a person?  Identity is compromised of many components, and one of them is our race.  However, race does not indicate who someone is as a person.  The attached beliefs assigned to a race give race the power to be an identity.  As a result, individuals are shaped through lived experiences and a piece of their projected identity is based on their race.  Since we are in Black History month, we wanted to explore race as an identity and what goes along with it.

Othering

Othering is the thinking process that distinguishes people as they and us. This process might be unconscious or conscious. It excludes people based on the proverbial line being drawn, race, socio-economic status, religion, and so on.  By doing this, we create stereotypes and biases of people who are other than us (the line being drawn). A person will create their own beliefs, values, ideas, way of living, as the correct (superior) way, and anyone who is not in agreement or conform to those are different.  The person othering someone can see the opposing view/lifestyle as deficient, inferior, wrong, etc. This thinking makes room for systemic racism, white supremacy, and discrimination.

Example:  You’re a white teacher in a predominately black school district.  Your family praises you for what you are doing to make the children’s life better.   These comments from your family would reveal a stereotype/unconscious bias: that because the children you teach are black their lives are not equal to yours, and that they are lacking or couldn’t get education without you. It places the white teacher above her black students; it places the white teacher as the savior.

Cognitive Dissonance 

Cognitive Dissonance is when a person has two conflicting views on something.  This occurs in a situation where you believe something about someone but then act toward them differently.  It breeds anxiety and discomfort within the person holding this mental dichotomy and it creates separation, prejudices, and oppression.  To escape the feelings a person may try to justify or dismiss the thoughts to make the discomfort stop.

Example: I think of the movie “The Help.”  There is the scene where Hilly will not allow her maid to use the bathroom; “they have different disease than us“ she tells her friends. However, the white homeowner allowed her maid to potty train her child, clean their bathroom, polish their silverware, implying she does not possess these “different diseases” because she could clean and take care of things that their bodies would touch.

Translating to Daily Life

I believe on some level we have all been aware of these actions, but perhaps did not have a name for them.  As you go about your day, at school, work, church, community gatherings, stay observant and listen to your body.  Do you notice either othering or cognitive dissonance in those spaces?  Take time to process the situations, journal, discuss with a trusted friend or counselor, share with our community.  This is part of the journey, we need to hear from those who are receiving and those who are operating in either way.  As people share remember our pillars: love, listen, and honesty. We want to provide space where people do not have to prove their story and not to feel shame for what they do not know.  Race and Convos community should be a place to grow and deconstruct racism.

Let’s have race and convos…

What resonated with you?

Have you been subject to othering or cognitive dissonance?  Would you mind sharing?

Did reading this open your eyes to ways you may be othering someone/people or operating under cognitive dissonance?

Many Cultures, Our World

www.raceandconvos.org