When white people experience the weight of the past: The role of white identity strategies in linking colonialism to current racial inequalities

Linking European colonial deeds to current racial inequalities poses identity challenges to white European people. Using mixed-methods consisting of qualitative interviews (N = 24) and quantitative surveys (N = 591), we addressed the strategies that white people in the Netherlands use to manage their ethnic-racial identity in relation to linking colonialism with current racial inequalities. In doing so, we explored whether and how white people’s ethnic-racial identity strategies relate to legitimising ideologies of inequalities. We found that white Dutch people exhibited different combinations of prideful (high identification), dissociating (low identification), and power-cognisant (critical identification) identity strategies. Specifically, those holding prideful and dissociating strategies were less prone to link colonialism and racial inequalities than white people exclusively endorsing power-cognisance. Thereby, power-cognisant people challenged current racial inequalities the most. We conclude by discussing how uncovering ethnic-racial dominant groups’ identity strategies recasts prejudice as stemming from structures of inequality and facilitates person-centred interventions.