But don't worry, my plan is not to take you step by step through this long journey I continue to be on, but simply to talk a bit about the fact that it is a journey. I think the classic metaphor of peeling an onion one layer at a time is very apt in this instance.
Perhaps there are people who have some kind of enlightened moment when they wake up all of the sudden to discard their own racism. But I'd be skeptical of anyone who claimed that kind of experience.
I began to wonder if there is some kind of generalized path that this journey tends to take. And was particularly intrigued a few months ago to learn about a theory developed by Dr. Milton Bennett called The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity.
He posits 6 stages of development, the first three being "ethnocentric" and the last three being "ethnorelative". The following description of these stages is taken from pdf files located at The Intercultural Communication Institute.
Ethnocentric
1. Denial of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture is experienced as the only real one. Other cultures are avoided by maintaining psychological and/or physical isolation from differences.
The fact that I didn't even see the African American students in my high school would indicate I was at this stage.
2. Defense against cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture (or an adopted culture) is experienced as the only good one. The world is organized into “us and them,” where “we” are superior and “they” are inferior.
This is where people with the most blatant type of racism would fit - those who openly criticize other races/cultures.
But there are also those in this stage who have rejected their own culture and see it as only negative - valueing another culture(s) as superior to their own.
3. Minimization of cultural difference is the state in which elements of one’s own cultural world view are experienced as universal.
At this stage people talk about the idea that we can be a "colorblind" society and tend to minimize the different experience of people of color.
Ethnorelative
4. Acceptance of cultural difference is the state in which one’s own culture is experienced as just one of a number of equally complex worldviews. Acceptance does not mean agreement—cultural difference may be judged negatively—but the judgment is not ethnocentric.
At acceptance, a person has seen that there are very real differences in culture and in the experiences of persons of color in this culture.
5. Adaptation to cultural difference is the state in which the experience of another culture yields perception and behavior appropriate to that culture. One’s worldview is expanded to include constructs from other worldviews.
A person in adaptation might say: "To solve this dispute, I'm going to have to change my approach."
6. Integration of cultural difference is the state in which one’s experience of self is expanded to include the movement in and out of different cultural worldviews. People at Integration often are dealing with issues related to their own “cultural marginality.” It is common among non-dominant minority groups, long-term expatriates, and “global nomads.”
As I look at these stages, I think most conflicts in the progressive blogosphere about racism have to do with the difference between stages 3 and 4 - from minimization to acceptance. That's just my take on it - others may disagree. And I think the move from minimization to acceptance has to at least incorporate the acknowledgement of the limits of one's own cultural experiences and an attempt to see the differences with others. For me this has often meant hearing the experience of people of color as being different from my own - and not generalizing my experience to them. This song by Tracy Chapman is perhaps as good of an illustration of that as you'll find.
There is fiction in the space between
you and me.
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