The pre-encounter stage begins early in life when a black child associates beauty with the white culture. As Gates describes, “I first got to know white people as “people” through their flickering images on television shows”(Gates, 1994, p.20). Gates becomes obsessed with the white culture through television shows like Leave it to Beaver where he believes that the “perfect” family should be like the Beaver family. When the local schools integrated in 1955, Gates begins the first grade and bec

The encounter stage of the model deals with an encounter that a black person has that is associated with racism and begins to doubt their pre-encounter stage. Gates’ first experience with racism is when he sees Mr. Frank Price treat Mr. Stanley Fisher, a black man, very rudely. He explains that the details are blurry, but remembers that the incident made him feel a racist attitude. He not only experiences racism through white people, but through his own black culture. Gates learns of his mother’s hatred toward white people and in some sense follows her attitude as he gets older. The Coleman family dinners even have their own sort of segregation because the women would serve the men in the main room, and then eat together in the kitchen. His experiences of racism against himself began in the school setting. As people get older, they develop a cognitive prejudice where they reject an individual based on their membership in a certain category. Linda’s prejudice against Gates is cognitive and not emotional, which is more of a personal bias. When Gates begins middle to high school, his white friends socially distant themselves from him and are less willing to establish a relationship with him or members of racial groups other than their own. This attitude starts with the news of race riots in Los Angeles. Gates begins to “experience that strange combination of power and powerlessness that you feel when the actions of another black person affect your own life, simply because you both are black. I realized that the actions of people I did not know had become my responsibility…”(Gate

Some topics in this essay:
Yale University, Stanley Fisher, West Virginia, Leave Beaver, Angeles Gates, Black Power, Whitmore Gates, Gates Fearsome, Gates Jr’s, white culture, white people, gates begins, West Virginia”Gates, black person, culture gates, black culture gates, immersion stage, pre-encounter stage, stage begins, gates able, commitment gates, cycle cultural identity, gates begins stage, white culture school, conversion experience model,