Racism and Identity Formation: Exploring the Impact of false narratives

This workshop explores the role of imposed false narratives and where they come from, how they affect individuals, and how they affect society and systemic forms of oppression. Many have tried to identify and name the roles that people take on within the family unit, such as Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse’s family roles of scapegoat, mascot, hero, and lost child; we’ll discuss how people self-identify with a variety of roles that may or may not reflect these common categories, with a particular emphasis on how race impacts these self-identifications. These categories and narratives are universal and affect everyone. We’ll then see how these false narratives start in the family unit (thus affecting the individual’s psychological well-being) and then extend outward into
society, with a particular emphasis on how these roles can become racialized and also reflect racist ideas. We will then reflect on what our roles can be in affecting change in our personal lives, our community, and society.