The NON-RACIST WHITE COUNSELOR
By: Allison Weliky, MA
Click here to contact Allison and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile
This paper begins an examination into the possible characteristics of a non-racist white therapeutic Counselor. To begin addressing this topic, many questions must be asked around the history of race in this country. Therefore, significant energy is put into understanding the origins of what we call “race” and “white” in the United States. The history of counseling is examined, in its beginnings as a predominantly white professional group and clientele, and its first attempts to deal with “multicultural concerns.” This discussion brings to light, that as with other aspects of “American” life, the counseling profession has been embedded in a racist system. The discourse suggests that as counselors come to terms with this reality, they must ask themselves what their agenda is in counseling people of any race and how willing they are to acknowledge their own racial privileges.
***I have consciously decided not to capitalize “white” throughout the paper.****
What Might be the Characteristics a Non-racist white Counselor?
As I ventured into the Naropa University library, my essential question swirled around my head: What might be the characteristics of a non-racist white counselor? I wondered, is there such a thing? Can a white person be non-racist? What is a racist? What is “white”? What is the role of a counselor of any race? Does this role change based on the counselor’s race, the client’s race? Where do I even begin to find the answers, if there are any?
My search on the Naropa computer catalog with subject “non-racist white” returned “nothing found” in the Naropa circulation. Next, I searched for “multicultural counseling,” which led me to the stacks. Finally, my eyes reached the bottom shelves where there were maybe fifteen to twenty books on the topic of multicultural counseling. As I sat down on the floor to better see the titles, I was reminded of some lines I had read many years earlier by the author Adrienne Rich. I went back to the book to find her exact words. In her writing about the incredible power of words and poetry in her work, What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics (1993), she writes about her venture into a chain bookstore in search of poetry books. When she finally asks someone where the poetry section is, a young man walks her to the back of the store and says: “Those two shelves down there.” Rich writes: “Poetry is underneath, and intermixed with, the books on rock music, movies, and theater- not a bad thing, I think, but poetry is awfully low ‘down there.’” She continues: “But why aren’t these books out front like the greeting cards or with the manuals on intimacy, parenting. sex and grief?…who [will] go all the way back and stoop, down there, looking for something labeled ‘poetry’?”(pp.30-31). How easy it was for me to replace the word poetry with multiculturalism.
As I sat on the floor in front of the small multicultural counseling section, I automatically found myself trying to justify the small section, with thoughts like: it’s just a small library, I’m sure that “they” didn’t really, intentionally, put the books out of eye level, and other similar thoughts. However, the fact of the matter remains that this topic, “Multicultural Counseling,” was something that was not immediately visible. It was as Rich puts it, “down there,” out of sight, out of mind. Upon reflecting on Rich’s words, what becomes even more clear is that “multiculturalism” is, in fact both figuratively and literally, underneath almost everything in daily, “American” life. Rich finishes her chapter by saying that “suppression can take many forms- from outright banning and burning of books, to questions of who owns the presses, to patterns of distribution and availability.”(31). It is with this notion of suppression kept in mind, that I will continue my exploration into the nature of a non-racist white counselor. Of the many questions highlighted, Rich’s comments, brings home the idea that it is possible that “someone” or some system(s) might not actually want me to understand how to be a non-racist white counselor or maybe the impossibility of this option. Nonetheless, I am intent on engaging with this essential question, which has implications that go above and beyond my future role as a counselor and into my life as a whole.
What is Race?
In watching a California Newsreel video entitled Race: the power of an illusion (2003), as part of my research, I was profoundly struck by a quote from a former Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun. In the famous Bakke affirmative action case on college admissions he said: “In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way.” (Adelman & Smith, 2003). It is with this notion in mind, that it becomes necessary to explore what it means to be a white person in this country before we can even begin to understand more specific aspects of being a white counselor. The history of whiteness is this country is complex and entangled. Being white has always gone beyond a simple outward appearance. Whiteness, in many ways, has its origins in an inflated and artificial legal system. In looking at the history of lawmaking in this country, we see that many immigrants were made “white by law” and thus eligible for citizenship. (Adelman & Smith, 2003).
On the creation of “white,” in a speech entitled “Who Invented White People?,” Professor Gregory Jay follows the winding and corrupt roots of what we call race. He writes: “Whiteness, then, emerged as what we now call a ‘pan-ethnic’ category, as a way of merging a variety of European ethnic populations into a single ‘race,’ especially so as to distinguish them from people with whom they had very particular legal and political relations — Africans, Asians, American Indians — that were not equal to their relations with one another as whites.” (Jay, 1998). Race is an invention; science has been unable to find evidence of race in terms of genetics or behavioral variations.
Every human population is a mongrel population, full of people descended from various places and with widely differing physical qualities… ‘Race’ is what academics like to call a ‘socially constructed’ reality. Race is a reality in the sense that people experience it as real and base much of their behavior on it. Race, however, is only real because certain social institutions and practices make it real.” (Jay, 1998).
Race and its related laws have made clear the rights and privileges of whites as well as what is denied to the “non-whites.” The civil activist and professor, James O. Horton points out the arbitrary nature of race in our country by looking at the Jim Crow Segregation laws of the mid 19th century to the early 20th century. He cites examples of how a person in Florida, at the time of these laws, was Black if they were 1/8th Black, and thus subject to the Jim Crow regulations, but in Virginia a person was Black if they were 1/16th black and finally in Alabama if a person had even one drop of “Black blood” they were black. Horton, laughingly, points out that just by crossing state lines one could legally change his/her race. In other words, race is a social and political construction. As Horton puts it: “give me power and I can make you any race I want.” (Adelman & Smith, 2003). Although, these institutionalized aspects of race and racism may be more invisible now than in American history they are nonetheless still alive and well underneath the governmental systems of this country.
Being Uncomfortable is Good
Making the invisible visible means taking responsibility and acknowledging what being white has given “us” and taken away from “others.” Professor John A. Powell, an internationally recognized authority in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties, and issues relating to race, ethnicity, poverty and the law, suggests that in order to accomplish anything where race is concerned, “we have to be willing to be uncomfortable.” (Adelman & Smith, 2003).The problem is that often in the counseling field “being uncomfortable,” is at times confused with a lack of knowledge. The logic is something like: if you are uncomfortable than you must not know what you are doing. This often puts professionals in a bind. But what if discomfort is actually a positive sign that an individual, in this case a white counselor, is confronting the complex reality of living and practicing in a multicultural context?
Many multicultural texts and educational programs actually do see the origin of this discomfort as a lack of knowledge, the white counselor does not know enough about other cultural/racial groups. These texts and programs then spend a great deal of time trying to educate whites on stereotypical descriptions and ways of dealing with various cultural/racial groups. As Utsey and Gernat point out in their article entitled: White Racial Identity Attitudes and the Ego Defense Mechanisms Used by White Counselor Trainees in Racially Provocative Counseling Situations: “Traditionally, programs focused on developing a knowledge base of cultural nuances, increasing awareness of the unique issues affecting clients from racial/ethnic groups, teaching specific multicultural counseling skills and competencies, and fostering nonracist attitudes toward racial/ethnic minority clients.”(2002).
However, what is often left out is the white counselor simply dealing with the understanding of the privileges that come with being part of the dominant culture. It is only a rather recent component, (in the past decade or so), of these programs for whites to confront what it means to be white. Clearly, before I can understand anything about how you are different (or similar), I need to really be able understand myself. “According to Helms (1995), for White counselor trainees to develop a nonracist White identity, they must accept their ‘Whiteness’ and acknowledge those ways in which they collude with and benefit from racism.” (Utsey & Gernat, 2002).
Now that I have acknowledged my whiteness and the privileges that come with it, does this make me non-racist or does it just mean that now I clearly see that I am indeed a racist. What is the next step? How do I address the institutional racism in the counseling profession itself? Undoubtedly, as with all other professions, counseling has been embedded in the racist systems of our country and must be approached with this in mind.
History of Counseling in the United States
As we look at the history of the counseling field, we find that it was not until the civil rights movement of the 1960’s that “multicultural concerns” actively entered the field of counseling. In the Handbook of Multicultural Counseling, the authors cite the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a major turning point in the counseling of minority groups. It was a time when America [presumably white America] “began to listen closely to its conscience and reflect on past mistreatment of members of minority groups.” The authors point out that “the multicultural movement gained support because of Whites’ new sensitization to racial issues, and in the counseling profession this sensitization took the form of concern over the profession’s failure to provide ‘guidance for all’- that is, counseling that addresses the diverse needs of all the people who seek it.” (Ponterotto, Casas, Suzuki & Alexander, 1995, p.9).
The control that whites’ have had in the evolution of multicultural counseling sounds strangely like a path to assuaging white guilt by helping those “less fortunate.” The people that are making decisions and educating professionals regarding multicultural practices continue to be primarily white. Here are just a few statistics cited in the Handbook for Multicultural Counseling (1995), that reflect this imbalanced practice: [These statistics are from 1992, so hopefully things have progressed since that time.]
Less than 1% of the chairpersons of graduate counseling programs in the United States come from non-White groups (89% of all chairpersons in counseling training programs are White Males).
No Hispanic American, Asian American, or Native American person has ever been elected president either the ACA or the APA.
Only one African American person has been elected president of the APA.
None of the five most commonly used textbooks in counselor training programs in the United States lists ‘racism’ as an area of attention in its table of contents or index. (p.23)
My Agenda
It is with these statistics in mind that I begin to recognize that even as I partake in this dialogue on multiculturalism and being a non-racist white counselor, I must ask myself what my agenda is. Even in my very ability to become educated as a counselor, am I reinforcing a type inequality or dominance? How did I come to be in such a powerful position of even being able to ask a question about being a non-racist white counselor ? How does the asking of this question in itself maintain a system of dominance and suppression? Subsequently, my question of how to be non-racist and help all, comes across as type of white man’s burden. Is my job to help all?
What is the job of a multiculturally competent white counselor? I begin to wonder, if I truly believe that I am to be an agent of social change, is it possible to achieve this through a profession that exists as a product of a dominant system and its related ways of thinking and acting? Inherently, there is a power dynamic in the counseling situation; I am the counselor here to provide new information and to facilitate change. I am beginning to wonder if part of my job is also to normalize people, to help them to fit in, and to adapt to the realities of life. This sounds acceptable until placed into the context of multiculturalism, when it all of the sudden seems that in reality, I am being asked to help people fit into the dominant culture, to help people to adapt and to acculturate.
Of course, I have a choice. I have a choice about my own awareness. I have a choice about what I will leave buried and what I will dig up about my whiteness. I am reminded now of Audre Lorde’s words, when she wrote In Sister Outsider: “your silence will not protect you.” (1984). In fact nothing will protect me, being protected from the reality of race means being defended and being defended means that I am hidden behind a wall. I can not make contact with anyone of any race if I am in a defensive stance. Instead, I need to be vulnerable, and accept that there are many answers that I do not have.
I feel as though I have just begun to scrape the surface of this enormous topic, nevertheless, I do feel that my own awareness is continually expanding. As I was finalizing my writing, I went back to Adrienne Rich’s book searching for a poem to try to encapsulate the complexity of my feelings and my thoughts on this immense topic, instead, what I found was my own voice:
I am afraid
I am afraid that I will not know how
to just be.
I am afraid that I will not be able to simply
see you.
I am afraid that the system will get in the way and be a barrier to
just us.
I am afraid of the color of your skin as I am afraid of
my own.
I want us to make a space together where your voice
is your own.
And I listen
without the filter of privilege.
I want every moment to be a creation
with no rules but reality
I want to face my fears
because I must.
I am afraid and I want.
Rich writes: “We go to poetry because we believe that it has something to do with us. We go to poetry to receive the experience of the not me, enter a field of vision we could not otherwise apprehend.” On writing a poem Rich says: “…that an ‘I’ can become a ‘we’ without extinguishing others, that a partly common language exists to which strangers can bring their own heartbeat, memories, and images.” (85).
It is in this field of vision that I wish to meet future clients of any race/culture, where we are both the same and different, and neither one less of an individual then before.
References
Adelman, L., Smith, L.M. (2003). Race: the power of an illusion, Episode Three: The House We Live In. California: California Newsreel.
Gernat, C.A., Utsey, S.O. (2002). White Racial Identity Attitudes and the Ego Defense Mechanisms Used by White Counselor Trainees in Racially Provocative Counseling Situations. Journal of Counseling and Development, 80.
Jay, G. (1998). Who Invented White People? Retrieved February 11, 2006, from
http://www.uwm.edu/%7Egjay/Whiteness/Whitenesstalk.html
Lorde, A. (1984). Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. (p.41). Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press.
Ponterotto, J.G., Casas, J.M., Suzuki, L.A., Alexander, C.M. (1995). Handbook of Multicultural Counseling. (pp. 9, 23). California: Sage Publications, Inc.
Rich, Adrienne (1993). What is Found There: Notebooks on Poetry and Politics. (p.85, 30-31). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
©Copyright 2008 by Allison Weliky. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry.
Click here to contact Allison and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile