Black identity in biracial Black/White people: A comparison of Jacqueline who refuses to be exclusively Black and Adolphus who wishes he were.

Posted in Articles, Campus Life, Identity Development/Psychology, Media Archive, United States on 2012-03-13 20:58Z by Steven

Black identity in biracial Black/White people: A comparison of Jacqueline who refuses to be exclusively Black and Adolphus who wishes he were.

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology
Volume 7, Number 2 (May 2001)
page 182-196
DOI: 10.1037//1099-9809.7.2.182

Angela R. Gillem
Arcadia University

Laura Renee Cohn
Arcadia University

Cambria Thorne
Arcadia University

Two biracial college freshmen (17 and 19 yrs old), both of whom identify as Black, were chosen from a larger sample of participants in a qualitative study of biracial identity development to exemplify the differences in the paths that 2 biracial individuals could take to achieve racial identity resolution. Through the case study method, the authors describe the course and progression of racial identity development (RID) in these 2 individuals and discuss some key themes in their lives that have contributed to the development of their RID. The purposes are fourfold: to describe, nonclinical subjective experiences of being biracial in the US, to explore the differences in the paths that 2 biracial individuals can take to achieve what looks superficially like similar Black racial identity resolution, to demonstrate how identifying as Black can have different meanings and consequences for 2 biracial people, and to contribute to the differentiation of Black RID from biracial Black/White RID. The authors raise questions about the generalizability of monoracial Black and ethnic identity theories to biracial individuals.

Read the entire article here.

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