Black on black encounters: exploring some psychological and political processes among black professionals and students in black-only support groups

This article examines the issues for black professionals in welfare organis ations and black students in higher education as we interact with each othe r as black people. It offers a blend of empirical description and theorisin g of the group dynamics that occur as black professionals and black student s interrelate in black-only groups. It shows how diverse and complex the is sues are and it invites us to re-think the notion of 'black identity'. The politics of identity is the politics of how individuals and members of mino rities perceive themselves (as opposed to the hegemony that society might i mpose upon them). The struggle for hegemony is not only played out on a nat ional or international stage bur also between groups and individuals within groups.