My White Racial Identity Development Journey Revisited

In the fall of 2002 I attended an anti-racism conference at Hampshire College. One of the presenters was working on a book about white people challenging racism. They asked white people at the conference to write about their journey of awakening about white privilege, and their white racial identity development. I submitted my writing, but never heard whether the book was published. My guess is that it was not. I’ve also lost track of who the person was who was going to publish the book.

I’m 57 now, and I was 40 when I wrote it, so a lot has changed. This includes my understanding of the issues at play. That said, I’m still going to publish it “as is” to show that we don’t “arrive” at a place with our identity development, whether it’s our identity as an anti-racist or with our whiteness. I’m doing this at this particular time because I’m about to publish another essay on what racism has to with white people and I think my personal background story might be helpful to folks who read that.

I’m sharing this to give a glimpse “behind of the curtain” of what it meant for me to go from unawareness to awareness of my white privilege, and my white identity development. I’m including the exact instructions we were given for our writing.

The instructions for each of us to write our chapter on White People Challenging Racism are in italics below.

First, let me clarify that it’s o.k. to write about YOU. In fact, that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do…