Imposed Racial Identities: Another Essential Concept

In this chapter, the author offer more concrete examples of how the external imposition of identity on nondominant groups reifies inequality through stereotypical expectations and oppressive actions that influence organizational outcomes. They revirew the white racial framing through which different racial groups, the socially imposed framing that is united by the common denominator of implemented marginalization, exclusion, and other subordination. Native American faculty, staff, and students often face a distinctive type of racial framing, one also including imposed racial names and identities. The 2000 United States census was the first to allow individuals to identify in more than one racial category. And this percentage likely underestimates the actual size of the multiracial population. One research study of biracial and bicultural individuals found that the biracial subjects reported greater identity denial and questioning than the other subjects in terms of being told by outsiders how they should identify racially.