Counseling the Culturally Diverse. Laura Smith L.

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ students in class searching the Internet for information to refute data documenting racial disparities or a story about someone's experiences with discrimination.

Anger, on the other hand, turns its attention to attacking the threatening behavior of others. Given the choice of the fight‐or‐flight response, some White students’ anger turns to rage; they make a choice to take action in stopping the threatening accusations (Spanierman & Cabrera, 2015). The strategy used is to discredit the substance of an argument and/or to derogate the communicator, often through a personal attack (“He or she is just an angry Black man or woman”). Sometimes, White rage lies beneath the surface as students seethe in silence, and sometimes it leads to hostile actions, like making official complaints about the teacher for covering the material in class. In many respects, anger, rage, and defensiveness may become so aroused that one loses control of one's self‐monitoring capacities and the ability to accurately assess the external environment. These latter two abilities are extremely important for effective multicultural counseling.

      The Meaning of Guilt, Regret, and Remorse

      When discussing diversity issues, many White trainees admit to feeling guilty, although most tend to say that they “are made to feel guilty” by People of Color, especially when unjustly accused (Sue & Spanierman, 2020). This statement actually suggests a distancing strategy in localizing guilt as external to oneself rather than as rightfully residing and being felt internally. Guilt as an emotion occurs when we believe we have violated an internal moral code, and have compromised our own standards of conduct. The question becomes, why should White trainees feel guilty when topics of race, racism, or Whiteness are discussed? If indeed they are not racist, not responsible for the racial sins of the past, and not responsible for current injustices, then why should they feel guilt and how could they be made to feel guilty?

Some have coined the term “White guilt” to refer to the individual and collective feelings of culpability experienced by some White Americans for the racist treatment of People of Color, both historically and currently (Goodman, 2001; Spanierman, Todd, & Anderson, 2009; Tatum, 1992). In diversity discussions, many White trainees find guilt extremely uncomfortable, because it means that they have violated a moral standard and are disinclined to acknowledge their violation. What is that moral standard? Being a good, moral, and decent human being who does not discriminate, being a nonracist, living a life that speaks to equality and justice, and being a humane person who treats everyone with respect and dignity are the positive standards that are being breached. Compromising these moral standards and beliefs and acting in ways that violate them bring on bad feelings of guilt and remorse.

      BEHAVIORAL RESISTANCE

      White racial guilt involves realizing one's potential culpability over past deeds; guilt is compounded by the knowledge that continued inaction on one's part allows for the perpetuation of racism in oneself and others. Thus, taking action is a means to alleviate feelings of guilt. The emotions of helplessness and hopelessness make themselves felt in two different arenas: one is internal (personal change) and the other is external (system change). In becoming aware of their racial/cultural identity, for example, White students at this juncture of development may begin to ask two primary questions.

      First, “How does one change?” What needs to be changed? How does one become a nonracist or an unbiased person? How does one break the shackles of social conditioning that have taught one that some groups are more worthy than others, and that other groups are less worthy? Many trainees often make these comments: “I don't know where to begin.” “If I am not aware of my racism, how do I become aware of it?” “Tell me what I must do to rid myself of these prejudices.” “Should I attend more workshops?” “I feel so confused, helpless, impotent, and paralyzed.”

Second, “What must I do to eradicate racism in the broader society?” While self‐change requires becoming a nonracist person, societal change requires becoming an antiracist one. Affecting an ethnocentric mental health delivery system falls into this category. This role means becoming an advocate and actively intervening when injustice makes its presence felt at the individual level (for example, objecting to a racist joke or confronting friends, neighbors, or colleagues about their prejudices) and at the institutional level (for example, opposing biased mental health practices, supporting civil rights issues, making sure a multicultural curriculum is being taught in schools, or openly supporting social justice groups).

      The helplessness that is felt by White students in diversity studies, unless adequately deconstructed, can easily provide an excuse or rationalization for inaction. “What good would it do?” “I'm only one person, how can I make any difference?” “The problem is so big, whatever I do will only be a drop in the bucket.” Feeling helpless and hopeless is legitimate unless it is used as an excuse to escape responsibility for taking any form of action. Helplessness is modifiable when students are provided options and strategies that can be used to increase their awareness and personal growth, and when they are provided with the tools to dismantle racism in our society. Hopefully, this course and the readings will provide you with suggestions of where to begin, especially in mental health practice.

Hopelessness is a feeling of despair and of giving up, a self‐belief that no action will matter and no solution will work. Helplessness and hopelessness associated with the need for change and action can be paralytic. The excuse for inaction, and thus the avoidance of racial exploration, resides not simply in not knowing what to do, but in some very basic fears eloquently expressed by Tatum (2002).

       Fear is a powerful emotion, one that immobilizes, traps words in our throats, and stills our tongues. Like a deer on the highway, frozen in the panic induced by the lights of an oncoming car, when we are afraid it seems that we cannot think, we cannot speak, we cannot move … What do we fear? Isolation from friends and family, ostracism for speaking of things that generate discomfort, rejection by those who may be offended by what we have to say, the loss of privilege or status for speaking in support of those who have been marginalized by society, physical harm caused by the irrational wrath of those who disagree with your stance? (pp. 115–116)

      In other words, helplessness and hopelessness are emotions that can provide cover for not taking action. They allow many of us to not change for fear that our actions will result in the negative consequences previously outlined. Becoming a multiculturally competent counselor or therapist requires change.

CULTURAL COMPETENCE AND EMOTIONS

There are many other powerful emotions often experienced by students during the journey to developing cultural competence. They include sadness, disappointment, humiliation, blame, invalidation, and so on. These feelings, along with those already discussed, can make their appearance in dialogues on multiculturalism or diversity.

      The unpleasantness of some emotions and their potentially disturbing meanings makes for avoidance of honest multicultural dialogues and hence a blockage of the learning process. Rather than seeing emotions as a hindrance and barrier to mutual understanding, and rather than shutting them down, allowing them to bubble to the surface actually frees the mind and body to achieve understanding and insight. The cathartic relationship between memories, fears, stereotypic images, and the emotional release of feelings is captured in the following passage, which describes the racial awakening of Reese, a White male social justice advocate.

       I remember when I was first introduced to [intergroup dialogue] … I thought it was the most bullshit pedagogy … And, I fought it so hard … I don't know why I would ever sign up for another course … I really thought it was stupid … [L]ike the taking СКАЧАТЬ