Becoming and Unbecoming White: Owning and Disowning a Racial Identity

Journal of Negro Education, The, Fall 1999 by Tiner, Kathy

Becoming and Unbecoming White: Owning and Disowning a Racial Identity, edited by Christine Clark and James O'Donnell. Westport, CT: Bergin & Garvey, 1999. 304 pp. $22.95, paper.

Reviewed by Kathy Tiner, The Fielding Institute for Educational Leadership and Change.

Analyzing Whiteness opens a theoretical space for teachers and students to articulate how their own racial identities have been shaped within the broader racist culture and what responsibilities they might assume for living in a present in which Whites are accorded privileges and opportunities (though in complex and different ways) largely at the expense of other racial groups. (Giroux 1997, p. 314)

As part of Greenwood's "Critical Studies in Education and Culture" series, Becoming and Unbecoming White clearly meets the standards and expectations outlined in the Foreword by series editor Henry Giroux. Clark and O'Donnell, as White American educators, have effectively constructed a unique resource for dialogue in multicultural education classrooms, noting in their prefacing chapter that they intend this volume to engage students, "especially White students, in the process of identifying how whiteness is constructed and how racism is manifested particularly at institutional levels in society" (p. 4). Designed as an educational resource, this work embodies the tenets of autobiographical research, and each narrative employs critical and reflective analysis through dialogic inquiry. The editors have skillfully arranged the book's 11 chapters in a developmental fashion to reflect the learning processes involved in the transformational process of White racial identity development. Each contributor's narrative biography thus seems to extend the one preceding it.

Like perfect bookends, two critical pedagogists, Peter McLaren and Giroux, respectively, begin and end the narratives by informing, challenging, and encouraging transformative action. Freireian philosophy is evident in McLaren's essay, entitled "Unthinking Whiteness, Rethinking Democracy: Critical Citizenship in Gringolandia" (Chapter 2). His reflections pose problems regarding White identity, capitalism, and critical citizenship in relationship to critical pedagogy. McLaren challenges readers to lives of commitment to "solidarity with the oppressed ... against all those practices of unfreedom associated with living in a White supremacist capitalist society" (p. 53).

In Chapter 3, Beverly Tatum foreshadows the impact of these 11 very personal stories in her title, "Lighting Candles in the Dark." Tatum introduces White racial identity theory using Helms's (1995) model, identifying stages of the model through the examples given in the narratives. More importantly, she describes the value of the model through the stories of antiracist in the narratives. More importantly, she describes to Whites who seek to become change agents and alerts White readers to the value of these stories of antiracist risks that people of color face in accepting them. Such stories to she notes who seek to become change agents an imports White readers to the purpose for people of color by le in accepting them "know that it is possible tories, have whites, serve an important purp. 62). The ensuing autobiographical narratives in this volume are stor people of color by letting them "know that it is possible to have white allies" tion or, as Tatum puts it, "works in progress" (p. 62). The ensuing autobiographical narratives in this volume are stories of White Americans' continuing,life struggles in becoming antiracist multicultural educators. Evident in all are the processes and time it has taken all to become antiracist in their convictions.

For example, in Chapter 4, Becky Thompson clearly defines the stages of development she experienced in acknowledging and accepting her White identity. Though noting her appreciation for the various White identity models that have allowed her to dialogue and interpret racial dynamics in for the classroom, Thompson critically discusses the ahistorical limitations of those models. She claims that they separate White identity from gender, sexuality, and class identities. She further questions the relatinship between individual development and the interface of social movements, pointing out avenues for future work in racial identity development. David Wellman relates his story in Chapter 5. As the son of Communists, growing up in Detroit with the support and friendship of Black people, Wellman recalls being treated as "red." He maintains that his awareness of his Whiteness, along with his realization that the only common characteristic he shared with other Whites was his complexion, did not became evident to him until he entered graduate school. Wellman introduces the concept of racial "borderlands" in his discussions and identifies himself as a "border person," explaining the contradictions to sociological theory this identity presents and its impact on academia.

In Chapter 6, Christine Clark alerts readers to the contradictions imposed by "attempting to decenter whiteness while simultaneously perpetuating its centeredness" (p. 92). She explains that the lessons learned from her experiences in countering racism have informed her teaching praxis and transformed her classrooms into democratic multicultural ones that develop critical thinkers who focus on inclusivity and multiplicity. Arnold Cooper, in Chapter 7, relates his experiences as a VISTA volunteer, assistant principal, and currently dean of a school of education. Cooper's experiences emphasize the importance for White educators in predominantly non-White schools to know the neighborhoods in which they work, to live and share experiences with non-White students on their turf while recognizing, as Powell (1996) contends, that Whites "cannot completely understand the ramifications of racism in our society" (p. 12). Cooper demonstrates through his experiences, and through his discussion of the references he uses in his multicultural education classes, the impact one's origins can have on one's responsiveness to others.