RUNNING HEAD: PERSONAL CULTURAL IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 1

Personal Cultural Identity Development

Robert Green
Wake Forest University









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Today I will review the interactions of my life and upbringing in an attempt at
understanding my own cultural identity, how it developed, and how these dynamics will affect
me as a counselor.
Childhood to Adolescence
Thinking back over my interactions with members of other cultural groups, one of my
earliest memories was from when I lived in Kentucky for a year in the 2
nd
grade. My father
worked for Wal-Mart as a manager for over 6 years. His job was to go to newly opened stores
and help get them up and running before moving on to the next store the following year. As a
young child I remember constantly having to move and leaving friends behind. As a result, I
learned to dislike traveling because we would often move to a new state each year. The states
we moved to were all in the southeast including: South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky,
Tennessee, and North Carolina. Prior to moving to Tennessee, we lived in Glasgow, KY. This
was the site of my first crush, which was on a young white girl at an afterschool program I
attended.
I dont remember her name, but I remember her being very popular at the program. I
looked forward to seeing her each day after school. Although I had no clue of how to approach
girls, one day she came and spoke to me first. We talked about me being shy, and she offered to
play a game with me. I learned how to play connect 4 that day and looked forward to spending
more time with her. Unfortunately, that was my last day seeing her because I never went back to
the after school program and we moved to Tennessee a few days later.
On the way to TN, I found myself thinking about her and reminiscing over what could
have been. Now that I am processing my early experiences, I realize that I had little contact with
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people of my own ethnicity outside of my own family. I did not attend many social functions
outside of school, and for a majority of my childhood I was one of the only black kids in my
class. Most of my friends were kids in my class, but it wasnt until an incident in 3
rd
grade where
I was treated unfairly that I noticed differential treatment based on skin color.
One day in class, we were watching a movie and the teacher stepped out for a while to
run an errand. I sat in the back of the class with my friend Erin, who was white and one of the
only people in the class that I talked to. During that time, I had a fascination with cowboys and
often drew them. As I was drawing a picture of a cowboy, Erin told me to move up with him to
the seats in the middle of the classroom. So, I took my picture I was drawing with me and sat
beside Erin. I continued drawing for another 10 minutes before another classmate walked over
to me and told me that I was sitting in his seat and asked me to move. I said, Ok and began
getting up, but before I could get out of the seat my classmate picked up my picture and started
walking towards the back of the classroom with it. I told him to give it back and reached for my
picture then he turned around, called me a nigger, and punched me in the chin. I retaliated by
punching him in the face, after which he started crying. Shortly after that, the teacher returned
and we were both called out into the hallway to explain what happened. We were then sent to
the office for fighting, but we received different consequences for our actions. He received one
day of afterschool detention, but I received three days. I was told that the reason was because
other boy had a red fist print on the side of his cheek, and I didnt have any marks on me. Upon
hearing that from the principal, I was somewhat dumbfounded. I remember going to the
bathroom and inspecting my face in the mirror for a fist print or mark on my chin as well
because I knew I was struck first. At that time I knew something was wrong but I had no real
concept of differential treatment based on race or skin color. Furthermore, it seemed that him
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calling me nigger was not a punishment worthy event. Nonetheless, though most of my early
interactions with whites were mainly through school, those interactions constituted a majority of
my social interactions at that time. This trend continued even after moving again to North
Carolina.
Throughout my early adolescence until high school, most of my best friends were white.
Two of them I began spending significant time with even outside of school. Bobby was one of
the first friends I met upon moving to NC. We lived in the same neighborhood, and rode the bus
or walked to school together. When my family finally moved to NC, my father expressed that he
no longer wanted to move every year so he took another management job and stayed in
Greenville, NC. For the first two years of middle school Bobby and I would hangout after
school at his house playing videogames and talking about videogames. For the duration of our
friendship, the topic of race was never a pertinent issue to either of us.
The second white friend I spent significant time with was Alex. Alex and I shared a
common affinity for comic books and comic book cards. He was a big fan of the Spiderman and
X-man series, so we spent most of the time talking about characters, drawing our own comics,
and trading cards. There was a noticeable difference in disposition between Alex and me. He
was a rather stereotypically nerdy looking guy with the red hair, big glasses, and a wiry frame.
He never played sports and was not very athletically inclined. Although my parents never
specifically focused on how to treat people with different physical abilities, I naturally noticed
the difference and consciously decided that wasnt important to me. We hung out at the boys
and girls club, and other people would often ask me why I was hanging with him. I began
noticing a difference in social class and how people treated you based on where you fit in. The
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same guys that I would see and play sports with, would pick on and sometimes bully Alex.
However, when I was around him no one would mess with him.
Later Adolescence to Young Adulthood
While completing my family genogram and in preparation of this assignment, I asked
both of my parents in what ways had they focused on race and cultural identity while parenting
my brothers and me. They both stated that they had not really focused on race, but more so on
instilling a mindset of independence and thinking for oneself. I believe this mindset was the
impetus of my own search bourgeoning desire to find revelations of what I recognized as black
identity in high school.
A question that many African Americans wrestle with especially in school is the question
of whether one is acting black. This question rang with a particular salience for me as I found
myself being the only black person with all honors classes out of everyone I knew. In high
school social pressures to fit in begin to intensify as achieving social status amongst peers
becomes a paramount developmental task. I found that my white peers were much more
accepting of my usual shyness, but that trait became a detriment when my black peers began to
challenge my blackness. For example, some of my black peers would express that since I was
making higher grades that I am acting white. These challenges usually came amongst an
audience of peers, thus remaining reticent often resulted in the validity of those challenges
seemingly being confirmed amongst the group.
Unfortunately, there was nothing I could look back to in my earlier experiences that
prepared me to refute both the challenges and the implications associated with them. Although I
knew there was something wrong with those comments and associating lower grades with
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blacks, I never heard that association spoken so blatantly in the past. Issues of stereotypes and
their effects on people within a population were never taught in any of the schools I attended,
which left me unprepared to explain the seemingly self-evident observation of my peers. Most
of the black peers I knew were not making very high grades, and were not in honors classes.
Thus, with no other contextual understanding I can see how it is plausible to associate the lack of
higher achieving black students as being the natural state of things.
High school represented the time period when I started taking notice of racial and cultural
differences. I began to see a difference in expectations, beliefs about abilities, and importance
being placed on academia vs. life outside of school. The general make-up of the school was
mostly white, but there was a significant minority population of primarily African American
students. Most students of other ethnicities usually chose to assimilate with either black or white
peers. Fortunately, there were a lot of positive interactions between black and white peers within
the school. Most of the interactions were between sports players on the football, baseball, and
basketball teams. I remember one particular incident among the members of the football team
and baseball team that exampled multicultural solidarity, but in a not so positive manner.
Our baseball team was very dominant and won several state championships. As a result,
the players were very proud and somewhat boastful especially towards the rival high school.
One day after we won a game against our rival high school, those players wanted to fight. Some
of the players from our baseball team accepted the challenge and scheduled to fight behind a
barn on the outskirts of the town the next night. As it follows, many of the baseball players also
played football and came to school the next day to tell the other football players what happened.
Later that evening, many of the members of the football and baseball teams both black and white
showed up together to fight the rival high school.
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And like many other competitions between our schools, we won that contest as well.
Although I do not reverence violence or esteem the actions of our team that night, many of black
sports players took note of the cultural differences related to that night. First, the scheduling of a
fight is not something usually found within the black culture. If there will be a fight it will
happen immediately, or spontaneously. Secondly, deciding upon a specific location of a fight
was not a familiar practice for my black peers. Most of them agreed that when an altercation
begins it is likely that the fight will occur there. Also of note was that the white peers felt
comfortable coming to black teammates and requesting assistance in an altercation, but if the
black students were in an altercation outside of school and requested assistance from their white
teammates I doubt they would be as willing to participate.
More specific to academia, I began to notice the lack of black contributions toward the
building of this nation in the lessons being taught. My experiences in the 10
th
grade marked the
beginning of my conscious journey towards developing my own cultural identity. Notably, my
US History teacher was a rather open-minded white lady that worked to pull the most out of her
students. During our study of the civil war and events leading up to it, I noticed that there were
only 2 paragraphs about slavery found in the entire book. According to the text, that seemed to
be the only contribution worth mentioning of blacks prior to Jim Crow laws and black codes
briefly mentioned in the following chapter. Shortly following the mention of black codes, there
was a page dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr and speaking of the civil rights movement and the
non-violent tactics used during the movement. I have always been interested in history, but
found that many of my black peers seemed disinterested in that subject. Furthermore, I began to
speculate that the reason for their apathy was there was little being taught that made one proud to
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be black. The culminated lesson about the history of blacks being taught in that class was that
we were slaves and good long-sufferers; nothing more was poignant enough to merit mentioning.
I told my mother about my feelings and she advised me to write a letter to the teacher
advising her how I felt. So, I wrote a letter about the need for African American history to be
taught to African Americans so that we can feel more included in the lessons we are learning
about. Much to my surprise, my teacher asked me to stay after class the next day so that she
could speak with me. She advised me that she planned on presenting my letter in a presentation
she would be having with the school board later that month, and she wanted me to type it and
turn it back in to her.
After speaking with her I felt a connection with her unlike I had with any other teacher
before. I felt validated in my expression of a desire to learn more about my own people in
addition to the US history lessons already being taught. Consequently, that became my favorite
class and she was my favorite high school teacher. My grades shot up from an 86 the two
grading periods to a 96 for the last two; I also made the second highest EOC grade in the class.
That experience helped me to connect why there were so many of my black peers were
judgmental towards me for taking certain classes and excelling in them. Many of them
interpreted school as having little practical application to them, and most of the lessons being
learned were of foreign concepts with little relevance to their daily existence. As I learned later,
to give a people a historical foundation about where they come from helps them to build their
self-identity and confidence in who they are. This is expressly important to the identity
development of minorities ever conscious of their conflicting roles within the context of a
dominant society.
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An example of my transition through personal identity conflict can be found in my
artwork from my 10
th
grade art class. One of my hobbies growing up was sketching images from
comics and magazines. I was rather adept, thus I took an honors Art II class and joined the art
club. During the first day of class, I met a white senior named Sam whom I sat beside on the
days he attended class. Sam and I talked about a number of topics, but he also brought up the
topic of black women vs white women. Sam would say that he loves white women, but he also
found black women very beautiful outside of the attitude they show sometimes. We would laugh
as he would imitate the mannerisms of a black woman getting angry at him looking at her,
resulting in him slapping himself to the floor. Interestingly, the more Sam and I talked about
women the more attractive I found white women. For a significant period of my 10
th
grade year,
I neglected noticing the black girls in the school.
One day we were assigned to do a piece of art of our choosing that was representative of
something significant to us. As I pondered over what to sketch, my mind wandered to a recent
movie I had watched with Denzel Washington as the lead actor. I was looking over a magazine
for inspiration, and noticed a black actress that looked familiar but I could not remember her
name. I sat there for a minute trying to remember her name or the names of any black actresses
for that matter, and couldnt think of anyone. I then tried doing the same with black actors, again
to no avail. This realization shook me for a moment, and I began to question myself about why I
could not remember even one.
Disconcerted, I found myself unable to think any further towards artwork that day. As I
sat there, Sam reached over to direct my attention towards one of the other girls in the class. I
remember him commenting on how good she looked as he normally did, but this time I just
didnt see it. My mind went back to the black actress in the magazine and how beautiful she
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was. Then I began thinking about the black girls at the school and realized that they too were
attractive. That evening when I went home I asked my parents if they knew any black actors or
actresses. They were able to name a few and reminisced over the movies they watched growing
up. I also researched black actors and actresses online, and felt a sense of relief in learning their
names as some of their faces seemed familiar.
The next day, I noticed a shift in my preference and no longer neglected noticing the
black girls of the school. When I arrived at my art class I looked again at the same magazine,
and found a picture of a black man with brown eyes staring back up at me. At that moment, I
decided I would never again neglect my own people while following someone elses preference.
So, I sketched that picture as a representation of my new found appreciation for black people.
The picture was entered into an art museum, and when I later received it back I placed it in my
room as a memento to myself. On the following page, Ive included a sketch of a black mans
face which is representative of this memento.
Reflecting over this period of my life, I would identify it as the pre-encounter stage of
nigrescence. Described at this stage is an identification and idealization of white culture over
ones own culture. Unique to my own experience, my identification seemed to be on a
subconscious level until I consciously decided to acknowledge what I saw as important aspects
of my culture. Acknowledgement of the slights of microaggressions or preferential treatment of
one ethnicity over another can sometimes be dismissed as they may not appear as overt racism.
Still, they have an aggregate effect on the subconscious mind regarding ones perception of
reality. That perception can result in something as seemingly simple as aesthetic preference, but
that preference itself can be a result of subtle foreign influences and denigration of one group as
compared to another.
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At this time, I would place myself at the black identity stage of internalization. I place
myself at this position because of the years of studying and placing value on things that were
particular to Afrocentric culture. Consciously placing that value is the first step to counteract the
microaggressions and perceptions that are perpetuated against blacks in this country. It also
progresses the individual towards the encounter stage. Furthermore, I was able to acknowledge
the current realities of institutionalized and covert racism. That acknowledgement can be an
infuriating experience, because inherent to the nature of racism is the denial of ones humanity.
And I believe it is only natural to respond when the core of ones existence is being challenged.
All of these experiences can quickly lead to the immersion stage. I believe that the difference
between the immersion and internalization stages is a conscious decision by the individual as to
how they will respond to the realities of racism, and cooperate with whites despite all that they
know.
Thus, I consciously decide not to hold a grudge against whites and garner my perception
of people based on the values and merits they present in their behaviors. As a counselor it will
be important to not only recognize which stage a client may be operating in, but also not to
supercede their willingness to advance or change from that stage. Movement through the stages
requires a tremendous level of work by the individual to acknowledge the realities of injustice,
learn the historical context, and to figure out their role within this context. In my role as a
mental health counselor my goal is to help clients toward their optimal level of personal well-
being. Whether that well-being is inclusive of esteemed cultural identity may or may not be
salient to their overall functioning. Moreover, in my work with all clients I expect of myself to
give the highest quality service regardless of ethnicity. Remaining cognizant of this personal
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value and expectation helps to guard me from counter transference issues and treating clients as
part of an oppressive system.