Datum's article "Talking About Race, Learning About Racism..."

I found this article to be very interesting and also enlightening. While reading the Racial Development Identity Theory for Whites I asked myself what stage I would put myself in. I know that I have moved past the Contact stage of development and can remember being in it. I also realized that, many of the White people I know are stuck in this stage. I grew up in a suburban neighborhood in CT next to Bridgeport, a major city. Living here provided me with the opportunity to meet and form relationships with people of different races. When I moved to the town i currently reside in, I was first able to see the impact of racism. My town is very small and is essentially segregated; for example there were only three African-American students in my entire high school!!! Living with and interacting with many of the people of the town illustrated to me how people can be stuck in the Contact stage. These people maintain their naive curiosity and fear about people of color because they rarely have or take the opportunity to interact with them. Without getting to know people who are different from you, you can never even come close to understanding their unique experience or forming a open mind. I am not pretending to be the perfect image of White understanding, or even an example of White understanding, but I am a White person who is trying to overcome the obstacles of racism in my own life and thinking. To answer my initial question to myself, I believe that I am past the Contact stage and I am pretty sure I have reached the Disintegration stage; hopefully I will skip the Reintergration stage.