How White people manage the weight of the past: The role of advantaged identity strategies in linking colonialism to current racial inequality

Linking European colonialism to current racial inequality may pose identity challenges to White European people. Through mixed methods, we examined how White people in the Netherlands manage their advantaged ethno-racial identity in relation to linking colonialism to current racial inequality. In Study 1, using individual interviews (N = 24), we found that participants exhibited identity strategies described in previous theorising: prideful (strong identification), distancing (weak identification) and power-cognisant (critical identification). In Studies 2a and 2b, using surveys (N = 591), we built on Study 1's results and found using latent profile analysis that participants blended strategies, resulting in four profiles: prideful-distancing (or prideful-ambivalent), distancing, distancing-cognisant and power-cognisant. Identity profiles distinguished whether participants linked colonialism to current racial inequality and their ideological outlook. Those exhibiting prideful-distancing and distancing profiles unlinked colonialism, asserted existing racial equality and downplayed the role of ethno-racial categories in shaping people's lives. Those exhibiting distancing-cognisant and power-cognisant profiles linked colonialism to and acknowledged current racial inequality. Those exhibiting a power-cognisant profile uniquely recognised the importance of ethno-racial categories, displaying thus a markedly pro-egalitarian outlook. We conclude by discussing the implications of how White people's identity management relates to linking colonialism to current racial inequality and its legitimacy.