Racial Identity Development In William E Cross's Nigresence Model

Racial identity development is something every African American child has to go through. The main approach is normally linked to racial identities, awareness, and ethics. African American children awareness is normally reflected by their mental ability to distinguish an individuals’ basis based on characteristics. Growing up the main influences that influenced my personal development was social networks, family, and historical events. Family helped influence personal development because they expose me to black culture. Historical events fall along the lines of celebrating holidays such as Black History Month in school or even church.
William E Cross’s Nigresence model discusses five stages which include emersion, immersion, pre-encounter, encounter, and internalization commitment. First, the pre-encounter stage happened in middle school being exposed to so many Caucasian people, and considering how a like we acted. Acted which means growing up in the country and using the same slang as well as taking a liking in the same activities. Second, the encounter stage mainly happened freshman year of college being exposed to the many stories in Black Arts & Literature. Having conversations on White washing and how Egyptians were black people. Third, the immersion and emersion stage which happens to be the peak of black identity development happened after taking Africana Studies, and learning even more about the history of African Americans and

Another issue would be cultural appropriation, when you have mainly Whites adopting styles from our culture, and then having those same people taking credit for the styles that we created.
In conclusion, in order for an African American to successful go through these developments of Black identity they most first go through the stages of forming a racial identity through and successfully making a