Status Updates From Being White Today

Dr. Janet Helms’s White Racial Identity Development model identifies six stages within White identity development:
1. Contact
2. Disintegration
3. Reintegration
4. Pseudo-Independence
5. Immersion/ Emersion
6. Autonomy

“… White abolition does *not* promote hating White people. It simply questions the value of the concept of White identity in the first place as it seeks to dismantle whiteness and white supremacy.”

“Antiracism includes two differing approaches to White identity: one that believes developing a White identity is a bad idea, and one believes developing a positive, antiracist White identity is a good idea.”

Four distinct approaches, or orientations, that speak to the value of White identity:
- Orientation #1: Colorblindness (or Race-Blindness)
- Orientation #2: White Supremacy
- Orientation #3 & #4: Antiracist Options
- #3: White Abolition
- #4: Positive White Identity Development

“When people talk about dismantling whiteness … it is a statement against the dominance of one group or way of being over all others.”

“[W]hite supremacy culture tends to value hierarchical decision-making, conflict avoidance, and individual work over collaboration.”

“[W]hiteness generally treats people as disposable and leads to significant, widespread harm that damages everyone.”

“White people as a legal category did not exist until the late 1600s when the rich and powerful created it. The purpose was to stop dissatisfied laborers (free, indentured, and enslaved) from working together to overthrow an exploitative form of capitalism flourishing in the colonies. The gambit worked. … Thus, whiteness is another word for white supremely.”