Abstract
This chapter follows the course of the scientific discourses that were first developed in the 1930s in response to high levels of internal racism and social stigmatization. The role of stigma in the black society has been elaborately explained with the help of “black identity dynamics”. The stigma management perspective associated with the lives of African–Americans is an elaboration of the nigrescence theory. The concept of identity functions is highlighted in the chapter and three functions (buffering, bonding and bridging) in particular, are explained in detail. The ideas of ‘individualism’ and ‘code-switching’ also play an important part in a black person's overall response to society. These different functions are then compared with the mechanisms of social and educational psychology literature. A preliminary research study is explained in the concluding section of the chapter. Everyday black life is thus a co-existence of stigma management and non-stigma driven activities.
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