The Hardiman White Racial Identity Development Model
The Hardiman White Racial Identity Development Model was developed by Janet E. Helms and James P. Hardiman. It provides a basis for understanding how people who identify as white develop their racial identity. This model builds upon earlier theories of racial identity development, such as William Cross’s Nigrescence Model, which focused primarily on the experiences of African Americans (Sue et al., 2022). As such, these two models outline the process of people coming to terms with their racial identity, whereby one is coming to terms with being privileged while the other one is about being oppressed. Notably, the Hardiman White Racial Identity Development Model specifically studies the experiences and progressions through which white individuals come to understand and navigate their racial identity in what they learn to be a racially stratified society, with them being at the very top.
The model consists of five distinctive stages of racial consciousness, with four transition phases happening in between the stages. The five stages include naivete, acceptance, resistance, redefinition, and internalization. The first stage is the naiveté stage, characterized by the lack of social consciousness, meaning that an individual has no awareness of racism or racial differences (Sue et al., 2022). The next stage is the acceptance stage, whereby the individual accepts white racist beliefs and behaviors. However, I partly disagree that the model must follow this strict process. I believe that the acceptance stage is not always applicable in this generation, which is marked by people who are more open-minded and informed than ever. The transition will most likely skip the acceptance stage straight to the third stage, whereby the individual rejects any internalized racist beliefs they may have had, as well as the rejection of Whiteness. This is mainly thanks to people recognizing that we live in a patriarchal society, which has given more power to some groups while oppressing others. As such, people are more accepting rather than denying when inequalities are pointed out. However, this is not the case for all, especially the older generation, including some millennials and boomers, who will most likely go through all the stages and transition phases. Therefore, I would argue that this model does oversimplify the complexities of racial identity development and fails to adequately account for intersectional experiences of race, gender, class, and time. Nevertheless, it does provide a useful framework for understanding the ways in which white individuals come to understand their racial identity inside a racially stratified world.
References
Sue, D. W., Sue, D., Neville, H. A., & Smith, L. (2022). Counseling the culturally diverse:
Theory and practice. John Wiley & Sons.
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Question 
REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. About the four passages above, what emerges from each about the meaning and/or
experience of Whiteness?
2. Can you discern any commonalities among any of the passages? In what ways do they differ?
3. Which (if any) of these perspectives are more familiar to you, either because you or someone you know has a similar view? Which (if any) do you find to be more unfamiliar?
The Hardiman White Racial Identity Development Model
4. If they were asked what it means to be White, do you think People of Color would also have difficulty answering the question? Why or why not?
Research on Whiteness and White privilege points to an important barrier to racial understanding for White Americans: the invisibility of their Whiteness to them and/or its impact on their lives (Bell, 2003;
Hegarty 2017· Helms 1990⋅ Snanierman