Nigresence model in regard to Barack Obama

Nigresence model in regard to Barack Obama
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12th, November 2014
Introduction
The rate of interaction between the different people especially the Africans and white people has increased across the world. The interaction has risen due to various reasons including sporting, tourism and education. The increased rate of interaction has both positive and negative impact on the interacting parties. Often, marriages between white and the African people results due to this interaction leading to half-cast generation. In America, this has resulted to the establishment of a race that is referred to as Black American that has resulted to the marriage between the Africans ad Americans. The US president, Barack Obama is amongst the many Americans who have resulted from this intermarriage. As such, this essay evaluates the significance of Nigresence model in reference to Barack Obama’s lifestyle.
Nigresence model is a psychological theory that is based on the development of the ethic that is specifically based on black identity development (Sullivan & Esmail, 2012). The theory was developed by William Cross, who is a well-known researcher, as well as a theorist. The theory focuses on the development of black people as a group as well as an individual. In addition, the model looks into the process through which an individual goes through to identify the black identity that they possess. As such, the validity of this model can be evaluated by considering the life-span of the US president Barack Obama.
The lifestyle of Barack Obama is well recorded in the book Dream from My Father where his entire life is described before he became the US president. Obama wrote this book during the free time when he was an obscure State Senator even before he had decided to run for the presidency. According to Obama (2004), he was born in Honolulu, in 1961, after his parents, Ann Dunham from Wichita and Barack Obama from Kenya, met at the University of Hawaii as students. Through this marriage, Obama was born as a black American as stated in the book. Also, the book continues to explain that Obama’s parents broke up in 1963 two years after he was born. The mother to Obama took him away and they went to live in New York suggesting that he did get a chance of staying in Kenya at his childhood. As a result, he did not spend enough time with his father who had returned to Kenya after his studies. This implies that the image of his father was formed out of the stories that were being told to him by his mother together with her parents.
According to the Nigresence model, Cross argues that the childhood and infancy of a child greatly contribute to the black identity development of the child. According to this argument, historical events, social networks and families influence the early socialization of the individual (Sullivan & Esmail, 2012). As such, the Obama’s view of late Barak Obama is defined according to what he used to hear from what he was narrated to by his mother and her parents. It is through these stories that Obama knows the character of black people as well as determining the attitude he has over them. Additionally, the stories relating to his father’s death inspired him most that he thrived hard to make the ends met.