Participants were asked if they felt that the ideas that they held about race were similar or different from the ideas that their parents may have held. Interviewees were equal in either agreeing yes, the meanings were the same or no the meanings had changed. Most of the participants agreed that viewing themselves as an individual was an idea that was different from how their parents viewed race. Another idea that emerged that was indicative of changing racial meanings and a shifting importance of race was the distancing move that some participants described. In some racially focused situations students described the tendency to detach themselves from other
members of their race or to detach themselves from race issues. Tonya, a Black female stated that: I don't, like I don't always like to play the race card…but being in this program has
made me very aware of racialized things…(…) I mean I don't know I guess because people are to a certain degree like not everything is about race. You know. I think I just feel like sometime maybe I am over thinking or over analyzing a situation from a racial perspective and it might not be you know, maybe I'm just second guessing myself but maybe it really is a racial experience and just maybe I just don’t' want to pay attention to it. I don't know.
In racially awkward situations participants reported a hesitancy to identify race as being a factor. Reginald, a Black male, described a situation when a White professor seemed particularly surprised that he had done well on an assignment: “she was like this was really good! I was like, yeah, you know I write, I can write you know. And she was like oh I got to submit this to like a scholarship or something. You know I mean, it's like I mean I don't if she was excited because, I don’t want to be
like racial man.” Similar sentiments where described by White participants when they perceived that a member of their race harbored less than favorable racially specific ideas. When asked if his ideas about race were similar or different from his parents, Steven delineated a distinction between his and his parent’s ideas: “I think they might consider it to be a point of pride potentially. I don't want to like throw them under the bus but I, I think for them they might have seen it as positive thing maybe where I see it as being not like shameful and negative necessarily but like, I don't know a little problematic.” Participants wanted to be able to make their own statements about race that was void of older conceptions.
Ideas are the Same
In contrast to the tendency to distance themselves from the ideas that previous generations held, were the participants who had racial ideas that were the same as previous generations. These participants reported having ideas that were duplications or very similar to the ideas that their parents held. Stacey reported that her parents had socialized her very well because her ideas about race hadn’t changed very much since leaving home:
I never really thought about that but just thinking about it now I would probably say no I actually think that my parents and I have very consistent beliefs or should I say they have socialized me very well and that I haven't strayed too far from the things that they have taught me… or lessons that they have tried to instill in me growing up. So I think that we still have pretty much consistent views on race and the importance of race.
Neil, a White male, felt that he had similar ideas to his parents but couldn’t be exactly sure because it had never really been discussed in his home: “Uh I don’t think it’s any different I don’t think it’s...I don’t think my parents have even discussed race with me um or their own race or white race in general.” Steven simply assumed that his parent’s ideas and his were the same.
It Needed to Mean Something Back Then
The idea that racial meanings were stagnant was contrasted to the idea that racial meanings were evolving into something different in present day society. Though some participants could not quite articulate what the new meanings were, it was clear that ideas about race and meanings that had been attached to race generations prior were transforming. Jackie, a Black female stated that:
Well my father grew up during… civil rights and segregations time era and so I think his idea of race then was just making it, like surviving during that time…you know making it happen doing what he can do to make ends meet just surviving that era without brutality and everything. And for me....I just see it more as just carrying on their legacy continuing to do good to stand out and...
Tonya, a Black female, expressed a similar idea that race meant something different for her parents than it did currently: “I think maybe [to] them they may have had a stronger sense… of community with being Black, as opposed to my generation. I mean it's there but I think it was stronger in their generation.” Reginald, a Black male, in attempting to conceptualize how it may be different replied:
Black needed to mean something back then…. it's almost as if we've moved away from the race to an extent. It's almost like socioeconomic or they try to make it seem that way, you know socioeconomic still means most, majority of Blacks and, no, no, no, no it's moved to socioeconomic like we can’t, we can't use the race card no more. Other students felt that racial meanings were beginning to be more encompassing to include Blacks throughout the diaspora. Victoria, a Black female, stated that “I kind of had a pan-Caribbean experience. Then moving to the United States it just kind of broaden from there but they, yeah they consider themselves Black in a general sense.” Most of the participants were unable to really
articulate what Black had evolved into in this current time but the majority stated that it was different from the past. Some participants wanted to make it clear that they were connected to the
ideas and experiences of their parents but that there was something slightly different in their current experience.