RACIAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY, POWER AND SYSTEMIC RACISM:

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RACIAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY, POWER AND SYSTEMIC
RACISM

• THE IMPACT ON OURSELVES, OUR CLIENTS AND OUR WORK
• Joan Adams, LCSW-R
• Director
• JBFCS Anti-racism and Multicultural Consultation
  and Training Service

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Overview

• Assumptions
• Awareness of ones own racial, cultural identity
  and the meaning of that identity
• Hearing the clients racial and cultural identity
  and the meaning of living in that skin
• Impact of race, culture and systemic racism in
  the work with clients and staff

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Some Assumptions

• One important perspective on the development of
  the United States of America is that the USA is a
  race-constructed society
• Race is a socio-political construct (not
  biological)
• People who are statused as white have privileges
  - access to opportunity and resources because
  they are white
• People of color are not privileged do not have
  the same access to opportunity and resources
  and are disadvantaged as a group
• It is important to assess and understand the
  power relationships related to race in
  understanding and dismantling systemic racism.

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Definition of Anti-Racism

• Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements,
  and policies adopted or developed to oppose
  racism. In general, anti-racism is intended to
  promote an egalitarian society in which people do
  not face discrimination on the basis of their
  race, however defined. By its nature, anti-racism
  tends to promote the view that racism in a
  particular society is both pernicious and
  socially pervasive, and that particular changes
  in political, economic, and/or social life are
  required to eliminate it.
• Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved March
  11, 2008, from Reference.com website
  http//www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Anti-racism

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Relevance of Anti-racism

• Key concepts derived from anti-racist framework
  relate to the explicit discussion of power and
  privilege and how they are subtly manifest in
  organizational structure
• The ability of administrators and clinicians to
  understand the dynamics of power and privilege
  related to race is critical to effective
  management and clinical practice.

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Dynamics of Power and Privilege

• What aspects of your identity have empowered you
  or contributed to feelings of powerlessness?
• White Privilege
• Power in Cross - Racial Relations
• Making sure all voices are heard, and all talents
  are encouraged
• Using a race lens to understand clients and staff

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Acknowledging race and culture in providing
social services

• It is important for the worker, supervisor, and
  director to acknowledge the impact of race and
  culture on themselves, clients, and supervisees,
  whether they are from different or similar
  racial/cultural backgrounds
• It is also important for each person to be aware
  of the power associated with their role

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Intake to Discharge clinical practice that is
anti-racist

• Potential clients initial contact with
  organization
• Assessment asking about race, culture and its
  meaning to client
• Understanding the clients social identity and
  context
• The importance of the clients network family,
  community, faith
• Attending to impact of immigration or migration
• What if the client is uncomfortable, angry re
  worker assigned?
• Ongoing work with client importance of worker
  acknowledging the elephant in the room i.e.
  racial, cultural, religious differences
• Validating clients experiences of oppression,
  hurt, danger
• Workers own anger, fear, hurt, position of power
  or powerlessness
• Common themes for client and worker in dyads of
  different and similar backgrounds (see Comas-Diaz
  article)

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To provide anti-racist, culturally competent
services Workers need

• Knowledge and awareness about
• Own racial, cultural, ethnic identity and other
  aspects of social identity
• The meaning, attitudes and feelings about ones
  racial and cultural identity and context
• Ones stereotypes and prejudices toward people of
  same and other racial/cultural groups
• Impact of social identities and cultural/racial
  values of the client, their family and community
• Advantages and privileges based on skin color for
  those statused as white
• Disadvantages and lack of access for people of
  color

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Workers need to 2

• Pay attention with each client/family to the
  complexity of the interaction of the
  psychological, interpersonal, social identity and
  the impact of racism and other oppressions
• Learn the specific experiences of a client/family
  in terms of race, culture, class, systemic racism
  and other forms of social oppression, e.g.
  anti-semitism and homophobia
• Recognize the reality and impact of
  intergenerational group trauma, economic and
  political disadvantage as a cost of systemic
  racism for people of color

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Workers need to 3

• Work at not being color-blind if one does not
  see race/color in a society that reacts
  systemically to groups based on race
• Be aware of the impact of the power differential
  related to the respective roles of care-giver and
  client combined with the impact of
  racial/cultural similarity or difference
• Become aware of the racial micro-aggressions
  experienced by clients and staff who are not
  considered white

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Workers need to 4

• Understand the concepts and real life
  manifestations of internalized racial/cultural
  superiority and inferiority and address them in
  treatment
• Become aware of the affirmative action that has
  existed historically in the U.S.A. for white men
  and their families, and the cumulative,
  intergenerational advantage afforded them

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Workers need to 5

• Become aware of the knowledge base on Racial
  Identity Development for Blacks (William Cross),
  Whites (Janet Helms), and others (see Beverly
  Tatums Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting
  Together in the Cafeteria?)
• Understand some of the common treatment issues
  for clients and worker in cross-cultural,
  cross-racial treatment (See Lillian Comas-Diaz
  article)

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Supervisors Work

• Continually work on own awareness of systemic
  racism as issues of organizational power, white
  privilege and internalized racial inferiority
• Use the clinical guidelines for workers
• Understand the existence of racial
  Microaggressions in the experience of staff of
  color (See article in May-June 2007 issue of
  American Psychologist, Racial Microaggressions
  in Everyday Life Implications for Clinical
  Practice)
• Learn the supervisees cultural and racial
  identity and the meaning of those experiences for
  the work

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Supervisors Work 2

• Make explicit to the supervisee that
  understanding the impact of race and other social
  identities and the impact of various social
  oppressions is a crucial part of the direct
  service and the supervision work
• How to address in supervision the subtle and
  complex issues of race/culture/class that arise
  in the work
• Space for difference in voice, style, lived
  experience in the supervisory relationship
• Be aware that it is necessary and can be
  difficult to sort out the impact of racism,
  especially micro-aggressions, from the
  supervisees individual responsibility for
  professional growth and that both should be
  addressed in supervision

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Supervisors Work 3

• Make space in supervision for differences between
  supervisor and supervisee in voice, style and
  lived experience
• When a supervisee is a cultural or racial only
  or one of a few in a work setting invite the
  workers voice into case conferences and other
  discussions about clients and the work
• In group supervision or case conferences help the
  staff group look explicitly at the impact of
  race, culture, racism and other isms in
  understanding the client and in developing
  strategies of intervention

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Supervisors Work 4

• Always explore the impact of race, culture,
  racism and other aspects of identity and
  oppression without blame, shame or judgment
• Process with other supervisors the way they
  handle these issues in supervision

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References re Jews of Color and the Israeli-Arab
worker-client dyad

• In Every Tongue The Racial and Ethnic Diversity
  of the Jewish People, Diane Tobin, Gary Tobin and
  Scott Rubin, Institute for Jewish and Community
  Research, San Francisco, 2005
• Countertransference in Cross-Cultural
  Psychotherapy The Example of Jewish Therapist
  and Arab Patient, Michael Gorkin, PhD,
  Psychiatry, Vol 49, February 1986