STOPPING. LISTENING. LEARNING.
June 4, 2020
Development of racial identity and understanding
As a therapist, I have training to explore dominant discourses with clients in order to deconstruct them and find alternative story lines. As a human, I have a story of how my racial identity has developed. I have my own dominant discourses that have impacted my experiences and created biases and assumptions. These assumptions and biases that we operate on are often developed surreptitiously throughout our childhoods. As a child, we don’t know any different unless we are told that what is happening is not normal or not ok. For example, I have had many clients tell me over the years that it wasn’t until well into their adult years through conscious reflection that they realized that what was happening or messages that were being perpetuated were not typical or acceptable (e.g. verbal abuse, excessive alcohol use, etc.).
I am in no way excusing racist behaviour, language or systems in saying that. The recent events surrounding George Floyd’s death are part of a system that is designed to support prioritization and privilege in an oppressive and racist way. As a white woman, I am appalled at what happened to him. As a white woman, I have been working on how to be more aware, how to understand privilege, learning more, and how to use my privilege, my voice to take and influence action. But this has been a journey to date and I have a long ways to go. I am working on uncovering the years of development of biases and assumptions, and increasing my awareness of them in order to assess and change as needed.
“When we know better, we do better.” – Maya Angelou
So, I am learning. I am building awareness. I am talking to my kids about the challenges, about privilege, and differences (which is an interesting conversation since they are only 5 and 2!). And while I feel inadequate given my ignorance and my lens of privilege, I will continue to try. The uncomfortableness and bumbling that is sure to ensue in some cases will be hard. But it will be nothing compared to what people of colour have experienced. And it will offer more opportunities for learning.
In the coming weeks, I will continue to do my work and encourage you to do the same. Given my learning space and needs, I encourage people to seek out resources that can support their own learning rather than me pretending to be a good source at this time for these issues. This platform will continue to offer support and ideas related to therapy and mental health related challenges, while also being responsive to current issues. If you have questions related to these issues, please do not hesitate to reach out, but know that my support will be to help you find good resources and ask questions about how you can challenge your assumptions and biases (because we all hold them!).
Be safe and journey well!
Laura