Part II, Understanding Blackness in a White Context, Chapter 5, Racial Identity in Adulthood Summary and Analysis

Tatum reports that she did not sit at the Black table in her cafeteria because there were too few Black students with which to do so. She did well in school and chose to go to Wesleyan University, a black school that had recently gone co-ed, so the ratio of black men to black women was seven to one. Tatum flourished socially and academically, but she could not remember the names of any white classmate. She had what Cross describes as an immersion experience, which involves a desire to surround one's self with symbols of racial identity. In this state, Blacks see Whites as irrelevant. It is a time of self-discovery and Blacks are energized by the...