Transition to this new understanding is typically precipitated by an event or series of events that force the young person to acknowledge the personal impact of racism.
Racial awareness begins with lived experience, school incidents often serve as those "events".
Why do Black youths, in particular, think about themselves in terms of race? Because that is how the rest of the world thinks of them.
I think this line caputres how external percetion drives internal identity work.
One thing that happens is puberty. As children enter adolescence , they begin to explore the question of identity, asking "Who am I? Who can I be?" in ways they have not done before.
Tatum roots racial identity in the universal adolescent search for self, showing how race becomes part of that process.
Because Black children are much more likely to be in the lower track than in the honors track in racially mixed schools, such apparent sorting along racial lines sends a message about what it means to be Black.
Shows how institutional practices quietly reproduce racial hierachies.
when young Black men and women enter adolescence, the racial content of those messages intensifies.
Tatum captures how racism becomes unavoidable in adolescence, race suddenly defines how others see you.