Cultural Competence: The Need for Racial Literacy
Introduction
One cannot teach that which onedoes not know (Howard, 2006). The topic of racial literacy is highly charged, fraught with avoidance issues, high degrees of discomfort, and a lack of knowledge and experience for many. Much of the current American education system is steeped in traditional models of the brick and mortar buildings with standard instructional delivery, classroom teachers, and traditional curriculum and teaching materials. This model is still fairly standard in many schools and has stood for at least a century as the delivery system for our students from P-12. What has changed, however, are the people – the students who enter those buildings, the families inwhich they live, and the teachers who teach them. The people represent some of the most diverse in the world at this time in our history. Students are now challenged to become global citizens who are effective oral communicators,savvy in their use of technology,and lifelong learners with the motivation to constantly learn and retrain to meet the demands of the marketplace, to demonstrate tolerance, and ultimately become cooperative team players. These requirements are well beyond what a typical curriculum addresses and yet each of these skills involves understanding how to get along and work with other people. Having effective socialization skills in the schools and workplace is becoming more and more important to schools, communities and society.
The current demographics of today’s American schools demonstrates this point. Today, due to immigration and changing patterns of fertility, the U.S. is experiencing the most diversity ever experienced by any nation—a population in which all races and ethnicities are part of minority groups that make up a complex whole. These demographic trends vary between states and regions, with some increasing and others with a declining enrollment in student population. The trends also vary for different population groups. Although educational attainment levels are improving overall, significant disparities exist by race.
The United States is growing more diverse.Trends in immigration and birth rates indicate that soon there will be no majority racial or ethnic group in the United States—no one group that makes up more than fifty percent of the total population. Already almost one in ten U.S. Counties has a population that is more than fifty percent minority. Eight counties reached that status in 2006, bringing the total to 303 of the nation's 3,141 counties.Between 2000 and 2010, 15 states—six of them in the Northeast—saw their non-Hispanic white populations decline. (The states are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island). During this same period, black populations declined in only two states—Alaska and Hawaii, while Hispanic and Asian populations grew in every state.
Even in states where the non-Hispanic white population increased, growth was larger in other populations. For example, nine states, all in the South and West, saw double-digit percentage increases in their non-Hispanic white population but even higher increases in their non-white and Hispanicpopulations, foreshadowing our nation's evolution into a "majority minority" society.
Minority populations, especially Hispanics, are growing more quickly than the population as a whole. Between 2000 and 2010, the total U.S. population increased by 9.7 percent. Looking at the population as a whole, however, masks deep differences among various groups. During the same decade, the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent, the Asian population by 43 percent, and the black population by 12.3 percent. The non-Hispanic white population grew by only 4.9 percent.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureauthrough 2050 indicate an increasingly diverse nation with these projections:
Between 2010 and 2050, the Hispanic population will grow from 49.7 million to 132.8 million, an increase of 83 million or 167 percent. The group's share of the nation's population will almost double, from 16 percent in 2010 to 30 percent in 2050.
The Asian population will grow 213 percent, or from 14.4 million to 34.4 million. Asians' share of the population will double, from 4.7 percent to 7.8 percent.
The black population will grow from 39.9 million to 56.9 million, an increase of 17 million or 46 percent. The black share of the population will remain relatively the same at around 13 percent.
The non-Hispanic white population will increase by only 1 percent, from 200.9 million to 203.3 million, a gain of 2.5 million. The non-Hispanic white share of the population will decline from 64.7 percent in 2010 to 46.3 percent in 2050 (Center for Public Education, 2012).
Racial Literacy
These projections clearly suggest that we are in need of educators who are culturally aware and competent. Historically we relied on the family to transmit and model appropriate social/emotional skills to children. The authors contend that these social and emotional skills continue to be an integral part of social and emotional familial modeling, but its methods are antiquated and the results lead to a monolithic way of thinking. However, in more recent years many schools by choice or force have created rudimentary ways of addressing cultural awareness through social educational campaigns such as Black History Month, LGBT History Month, and National Historic Hispanic Month, to name a few. It is important to note that at present cultural competence is nota skill that is typically intentionally included in most school curriculanor is it routinely taught in teacher training programs. Although desirable and important, students and educators who have a sense of these competencies are usually introduced to them in a haphazard manner and not in a thoughtful intentional way.
One aspect of cultural competence is racial literacy. We have already identified many valued forms of “literacy” in the current school curriculum, including English literacy, mathematical literacy (often referred to as numeracy), informational literacy, and computer literacy. Given the importance of the human relationship, it would seem obvious to include racial literacy as critical to the curriculum.
Racial literacy is a term that has been proposed by a few researchers. Gainier (2004) defined it as the “capacity to decipher the durable racial grammar that structures racialized hierarchies and frames the narratives of nations” while Lewis (2001) described it as “the ability to decipher racial messages, the implicit and explicit racial lessons that are taught and learned in schools.” Based on her research with teachers and students at a southern elementary school, Howard (2013, p. 14) defined racial literacy as “a negotiated skill between individuals and the social webs in which a person is located. It is a skill acquired through social lessons taught in both formal and informal spaces, such as playgrounds, classrooms, homes, public rallies, and news reports which result in the ability to make connections with one’s self, conflicting or correlated racial messages, and the world.” She goes on to say that racial literacy is a dynamic process and is not linear yet is dependent on how race is translated in and through local places. She goes on to define racial illiteracy as “colorblind literacy,” the failure to recognize race in connection to structures and systems of society” (p. 16). After an extensive study of students and their teachers, Howard concluded that without public or private conversations about race, racial inequity among teachers and students is inevitable. Thus, the need for meaningful dialogue is critical to racial literacy.
The need for a culturally competent, racially literate society is becoming even more important, particularly within the profession of educators – teachers, counselors, and administrators, as the overall population has shifted to a “minority majority” while the teacher population remains a “white majority.” As recently as 2007-2008, the percentage of White, non-Hispanic teachers was 83.5%, followed by 6.9% Hispanic (regardless of race), 6.7% Black, non-Hispanic; 1.3% Asian, non-Hispanic; .9% two or more races, non-Hispanic; .5% American Indian/Alaska Native, non-Hispanic; and .2 Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, non-Hispanic. This suggests that in U.S. schools where 13% of the students are Black, non-Hispanic students, their teachers proportionally represent only half of that percentage (6.7%).
Making The Leap from Theory to Practice
The question then becomes how do we become racially literate? How can teachers and studentsin schools begin to address this important skill that is needed to become culturally competent?
As in learning any critical skill, one must personally embrace it as being valuable and essential. There must be personal motivation and in this case, an openness and willingness to be vulnerable and receptive to feedback. Discussions about race is not a topic where there is a high degree of comfort and confidence. The concept of race often evokes many emotional reactions such as trepidation, anger, fear, avoidance, defensiveness, shame and confusion. Stevenson (2014) aptly uses the “elephant in the classroom” as a metaphor to describe the presence of racial conflicts in society and schools that go unaddressed and the persistent stress caused by these conflicts. He further identifies his assumptions of racial stress and literacy that provide a framework to begin addressing the challenges that educators face. The assumption most closely linked to preparing teachers is that “schools are places where avoidant racial socialization, politics, and skills, are taught.” (p. 38). Thus, to become racially competent, one must be willing to be open to learn and explore new ideas and perspectives regarding one’s own attitudes and beliefs toward race. This is particularly important for teachers who play such an important role in helping to shape the mind and character of our youth.
Understanding the concept of racial socialization is very complex and controversial. How does such a term exist and why? Two theorists (Helms Cook; 1999) explain racial socialization as thediscriminatory societal practices that impact racial identity development. Further, thesesocietal practices and policies create a culture where persons are indoctrinated to accept how people perceive their race and the interrelationships that exist within and across racial groups (p.10). At what point in your personal self-discovery do you unequivocally self-identify as a certain race or ethnicity? At what point did that realization become crystal clear to you? Was it a subtle or blatant interaction between you and another? Did that experience create an aching discomfort?
Experiencing those racially charged moments should make people grow, metaphorically stretch and learn. Unfortunately, that does not always happen without resistance.
Resistance in its best form begins to resemble color blindness, widespread rationalizations and white privilege (Koppelman, 2013) until the paradigm shift happens and the person reflects and embracesan anti-racist education philosophy. For example,DiAngelo (2013) found that many whites viewed 21st century school segregation as ‘accidental’ and because they were fortunate enough to live in a white neighborhood they were spared from learning about racism. From this supposition there appears to be a benign commitment to learning about 21st century racism and oppression almost as if the problems of racism and oppression don’t impact everyone.
What is the benefit of learning about racism and oppression? How can these concepts improve the quality of education, and quality of life of teacher and student alike? Helms and Cook (1999) and Locke & Bailey (2014)provide racial identity frameworkswhich endorse the notion that learning about racism and oppression neutralizes white superiority and creates a willingness to be more emotionally sensitive to acts of inequality and the perceptions to inequality.
The frameworks presented are used to explain white and persons of color’s interpersonalreactions to racism. Traditionally, these two models of racial identity development are introduced in counselor education curricula to foster racial competence.
The first model to be introduced is the White Racial Identity Model (Helms & Cook, 1999). The posits of the White Racial Identity Model (WRID) suggests that:
- belonging to this socioracial group contributes to a false sense of racial group superiority and privilege.
- The process of overcoming internalized racism for White people requires the individual to replace racial group entitlement and privilege with a nonracist and realistic self-affirming collective racial identity.
- Whites learn to perceive themselves and their group as being entitled to similar privilege. The group learns to protect their privilege status by denying and distorting race related reality, and aggressing against perceived threat to the racial status quo.(p. 90).
The WRID framework consists of seven ego statuses that provide a perspective on how a white person may make assumptions about a racial encounter. These ego statuses are contact, disintegration, reintegration, pseudo-independence, immersion, emersion, and autonomy (p. 90).
The stage of Contact is simply when a white person is satisfied with racial status quo. This is a primitive stage of racial identity development because this person is completely clueless that racial problems exist. Typically, the person who falls into the Contact stage lives in a naive safe and insulated environment.
Disintegration evolves as a result of some racial crisis that have been acknowledged internally. The person who is in the disintegration phase is coming to terms with realization thatthe world is ‘not ok’ yet very much uncomfortable with voicing an objection and possibly disrupting the harmony which exists in their white world.
Reintegration evolves when a white person tries to regain control after experiencing the anxiety of the racial crisis. Having to choose between humanity and his own racial group is extremely difficult. Because the previous status‘disintegration’ is emotionally traumatic for many, a shift happens and instead of becoming open and enlightened he idealizeshis own socioracialgroup and denigrates and showsintolerance for other groups. Reintegration is a very dangerous stage for teacher educators. They may not be able to understand any other person’s cultural perspective. They may also operate from a framework that is very dogmatic and impersonal for students and families who don’t share the same racial group. Racial factors may strongly influence their life decisions.
The ego status of Pseudo-Independence is also very dangerous for teachers working in diverse communities, as it can devalue those students who are racially different. Helms and Cook (1999) conclude that Pseudo-Independence is an intellectualized commitment to one’s own socioracial group and subtle superiority and tolerance of other socioracial groups as long as they can be helped to conform to white standards of merit.
Immersion and emersion are very inter-connected ego-statuses. Immersion is defined as searching for an understanding of the personal meaning of Whiteness and racism and the ways by which one benefits from them as well as redefining Whiteness. Emersion is a sense of discovery, security, sanity, and group solidarity and pride that accompanies being with other White people who are embarked on the mission of rediscovering Whiteness. These two ego statuses should be experienced if the idea of relearning is to take place. When Helms and Cook (1999) talk about rediscovering Whiteness, it is our belief that a new blueprint is formed where the benefits of white privilege are recognized and accepted.
Finally, the ego status ‘Autonomy’is an informed positive socioracial group commitment.A white person at this status uses her internal standards for self-definition to relinquish the privileges of racism. The person at this status avoidslife options that require participation in racial oppression. The person at this status becomes a champion and advocate for all students regardless of race, gender and socioeconomic status.
The People of Color (POC) Racial Identity models refers to Asian, African, Latino/Latina and Native Americans of color living in the US regardless of their original continental origins of their ancestry (Helms & Cook, 1999). The People of Color Racial Identity Model is comprised of six ego status. The first status, Conformity,is considered the least sophisticated in that the person operating in this status is likely to conform to existing stereotypes or completely assimilate into the White culture. If a teacher of color is working from this ego status and has completely assimilated and his student is also working from this stage and has conformed to existing negative stereotypes it is a likely mismatch.Both will believe the other is inappropriate-too white or “too hood.”
The next ego status is Dissonance, which is often fraught with disorientation, confusion, and unpredictable responses to racial events. At some point in a person of color’s experience she begins to realize she doesn’t fit in even when conforming to white standards. This begins to evolve as a form of self-hatred because often times the person is caught between two cultures. The ego statuses Immersion and Emersion are connected. Immersion evolves in response to the person’s need to replace the group specific negativity with positive group information. He or she idealizes everything considered to be of his or her group and denigrates everything to be considered to be of the White world. When a person is operating from the ego status Immersion she is committed to her own group, hypertensive toward racial issues and believes the world operates only in black and white (very dichotomous thinking). While Emersion is the sense of community that a person feels when they are surrounded by members of their own group. Emersion is the psychological safety net that is felt when you have found positive group definition and are grounded in that belief.