My transition away from the externally imposed ‘black’ racial identity was not a matter of choice. The transition was catalysed by traumatic racial abuse and victimisation which had the impact of shattering the belief system which kept my historically ‘blackened’ ego-identity intact. At the age of 5, the point at which I entered British society, the formation of my identity as a Jamaican had not been secured sufficient for me to be able to resist externally imposed ‘black’ racial socialisation as societally administered.
Thus, in the midst of racial abuse and victimisation at the hands of one ‘white’ institutional agent in the presence of two others, I experienced an illuminating Plato’s Cave moment when I perceived that I was not actually ‘black’ by nature but by historical cultural design… It was, I hypothesise 28 years later, in that moment that the externally imposed ‘black’ ego-identity shattered into smithereens. This is as I truly perceived the reality behind the reality of race and its role in British culture.
Those socialised ‘white’, I further hypothesised, are generationally unconsciously culturally recruited to protect the legacies of slavery, which includes ownership of the ‘black’ life-world. This is achieved by keeping the ‘black’ identity subordinated to their own ‘white’ and privileged racio-ethnic identity. My attempts
at upward progression in seeking espoused racial equality, to be achieved through academic study had, therefore, to be thwarted. This was the basis of the unprovoked racial abuse and victimisation focused on reminding me of my diminished status as a ‘black’ individual in the institutional context/British society/life. Racial abuse and victimisation had, on this occasion, however been taken too far as well as being directed at the wrong, already questioning, ‘black’ individual. I serendipitously saw through its purpose to ultimately realise that I had been unconsciously assimilated, socialised and stratified to live a lie in British society as an on-going legacy of slavery.
My ego, in realising that the ‘black’ identity was the result of historical ‘duping’, now institutionalised and continuing into the present, had nothing to defend anymore and so spontaneously shattered! Simultaneous to this the externally imposed ‘black culture’ which had, to this point, framed my life began to crumble. This is as I experienced what is described as a violent encounter with the ‘Self’ as it broke through internalised barriers to reclaim the ego which is meant to be its face on the physical plane of human life.
The outcome: I was left in the very vulnerable egoless state of my resurfaced core identity as the descendant of enslaved African (DoEA) with work to do. Finally, I perceived meaningful purpose to my existence! I had, unwittingly, with crisis, been afforded a ‘new beginning’ in life… It is out of my decision to consciously engage with the knowledge of the ages and across civilisations to learn how to create a new and authentic ego-identity and so life that I eventually named myself authentically as an emergent self-authoring and integrated British African Caribbean (BAC) with the publication of my book in 2007.
The BAC identit
y signifies that I have grown out of the unconsciously ‘socialised race-based mind’ of British culture. In catalysing a race-based crisis in my life-world in 1990, through the use of racial abuse and victimisation, colleagues had afforded me the opportunity to attain higher levels of human development: the result of my choice to work through crisis using the research process. This is why and how the self-authored and integrated British African Caribbean (BAC) identity has come into existence.