Television's Model of the Quest for African Consciousness: A Comparison with Cross' Empirical Model of Psychological Nigrescence

Abstract

Using Cross' four-stage empirical model of Nigrescence (the development of African consciousness), this paper examines what appears to be television's highly formularized presentation of the context, content, and process of the search for African identity among African American children. Situation comedies from the late 1970s and early 1980s that featured Black children in predominately White environments are the central focus of this analysis because (a) television appears to have restricted the quest for African consciousness to situation comedy, and (b) television appears to have confined the racial consciousness quest to the domain of children, and primarily to Black children in White environments. Using examples from "Fish," "Diff'rent Strokes," "Facts of Life," and "Webster," the authors contend that Black children characters are presented as progressing through the Pre-encounter, Encounter, and Immersion phase of the Immersion-Emersion stages of Cross's model, but are reverted before they reach the Internalization stage. The authors suggest some alternative strategies for television's presentation of the quest by Blacks of the African consciousness. The authors also discuss aspects of television's portrayal that raise potential empirical research issues.