Racism and Cultural Diversity

Cultivating Racial Harmony through Counselling, Group Analysis, and Psychotherapy

M.J. Maher

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367326531
• eBook ISBN: 9780429918384
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

The author writes for all those interested in the dynamics of racism, from professionals in counselling, group analysis and psychotherapy working in multiracial and multicultural societies to those exposed to racism who need help in dealing with the impact of their experiences. She also addresses the concept of victims becoming perpetrators if support is not given to contain the process. Herself a group analyst, the author experienced at first hand racial discrimination within the system, but rather than succumb has instead produced an enduring and proficient work that draws heavily on personal experience. Combining years of counselling skill with a natural compassion, she makes the subject of racism approachable, thus motivating all those wanting to explore the issues. For people whose experience of broken attachments crosses racial lines, this book is possibly the first to use Bowlby's Attachment Theory as a framework for understanding racism.

Part I
Racial Discrimination: A Cry in the Wilderness?

Introduction

The Trade Union Congress’s “Root Out Racism” hotline: Exposing Racism at Work (2000) received 439 calls from ethnic minority people complaining about institutional racism at work. These calls were made between Monday 19th and Friday 23rd June 2000, a five-day period from which I chose the following information because at that time I was also complaining about institutional racism at my work place. The following details show the groups I belong to and one comparator for each group:

1. Among the 439 callers the Black (Afro-Caribbean) were highest with fifty-three percent calls, followed by Asians with twenty-six percent calls.
2. Analysing the callers’ occupations, I belonged to two categories: the professional was highest with twenty percent and the associate professional and technical (which included nurses) were fourth with twelve percent calls.
3. Concerning the type of employer, the public administration, health, and education had the highest with sixty-three percent calls followed by manufacturing, retail, hotel and catering, transport communications, with nine percent each.
4. Looking at the regions, London had the highest with sixty-two percent, followed by the southeast region with twenty-two percent.

I belong to four groups with the highest number of callers (ethnicity, profession, type of employer, and region). Is it any wonder that I also ended up complaining about institutional racism, racial discrimination, and victimization?

The American Psychiatric Association (July 2006) “recognises that racism and racial discrimination adversely affect mental health by diminishing the victim’s self-image, confidence and optimal mental functioning … attempts should be made to eliminate racism and racial discrimination by fostering a respectful appreciation of multiculturalism and diversity”.

The Trade Union Congress report states that the callers complained of suffering personal pain and anguish and seeing their job prospects blighted by institutional racism. They complained about being deliberately isolated at work; ignored, victimized, or sacked. They described how racism changed them—for example, they experienced feelings of self-loathing, self-destruction, and acquired an inferiority complex. Racism caused health problems such as physical illnesses, often resulting in long periods of sick leave due to stress, depression, and anxiety. The following are some of the manifestations of racism at work as experienced by these callers:

• being refused references, leaving jobs due to undue pressure;
• not being informed about training, overtime, or promotion opportunities;
• procedures not being clear, or being unfair or arbitrary;
• feeling unfairly monitored;
• being denied or consistently overlooked for promotion even though well qualified;
• being downgraded;
• feeling that they had to suffer in silence or risk being publicly isolated, and
• being labelled "troublemaker" or "having a chip on their shoulder" after making a complaint.

Some of these callers are the people we meet in our consulting rooms seeking psychotherapy to deal with the impact of the racism they experience. The fact that 439 people called within just five days begs us to take racism seriously. The aim of this book is to explore and try to make sense of these experiences using various theoretical concepts, vignettes and research findings in an attempt to understand racism, so that as therapists and counsellors we can offer informed interventions to victims of racism. For this reason I have decided to reflect on my personal experiences of institutional racism.

In my culture we have a saying: Chinoziva ivhu kuti mwana wembeva anorwara. The literal translation is, “Only the soil can tell that the baby of a fieldmouse is ill” because a fieldmouse nests in the bowels of Mother Earth. Hopefully, my contribution as an insider who has walked the tough walk will inform on what ails the baby of racial harmony, so that those offering therapy can contain and work more effectively with racism and cultural diversity. I also aim to improve the therapists’ and counsellors’ understanding of racial processes that might take place, or be recreated and re-enacted, in the consulting rooms.

Part One also explores issues around institutional racism, racial discrimination and victimization in a residential democratic therapeutic community. The community draws on Maxwell Jones’ therapeutic community principles and the principles and theories of Tom Main, who worked with Foulkes in the Northfield Military Hospital in Birmingham. This therapeutic community uses methods similar to those used in the Northfield Experiment.

I explore the concept of projective identification, looking at what was projected into me and how I had to take legal action through the Employment Tribunal in order to give back these disowned projections. The psychological processes, conflicts and group dynamics evoked are discussed. Using the events of this first Employment Tribunal, the book highlights conflicting ideas between the legal system and group analysis in dealing with conflict. I also attempt to identify factors that perpetuate institutional racism.

I developed this paper further to illustrate how the Zimbabwean tradition of totems, in the use of animal metaphors, was embraced by this White therapeutic community. However, about four years later some of the senior clinicians banned the practice, claiming that I was working against the ethos of the therapeutic community because they perceived giving animal metaphors the same as giving concrete gifts to individuals. They also argued that it was potentially risky as they worried that I was placing myself in danger of attack by the residents. The book looks at how democracy was exercised by the residents to challenge this ban, and the fight to reinstate the animal metaphors demonstrates the power of democracy in a residential therapeutic community.

I then discuss a second Employment Tribunal focusing on issues of Black-on-Black betrayal and how that led to regression. The second Employment Tribunal highlights what happens when past and present collide. I also talk about what I believe to be the possible consequences of complaining about institutional racism: I suffered further victimization long after leaving the therapeutic community.

In the final chapters I discuss a third Employment Tribunal, looking at the impact of shame and guilt evoked in me by an incident I witnessed of a Black junior clinician whom I believe was racially discriminated against. None of her colleagues, either Black or White (including me), offered her much support. Feelings of shame and guilt are important to understand as they are often experienced when witnessing racial injustice. The significance of the third Employment Tribunal was in giving me an opportunity to recover from the damage I had suffered during the second Employment Tribunal.

Part One concludes by bringing all the different threads together.

Chapter One
What is racism?

1.1 Racism

The American Psychiatric Association (APA, July 2006) defines racism as a set of beliefs or practices that assume the existence of inherent and significant differences between the genetics of various groups of human beings, with these differences resulting in racial superiority, inferiority, or purity and in one group taking the social, political, and economical advantage over another by practicing racial discrimination, segregation, persecution, and domination.

1.1.1 Individual racism

Individual racism takes place when an individual degrades, ignores or ill-treats another person on the grounds of their race: for example, using racial jokes, unfair hiring, promoting, and firing of individuals.

1.1.2 Micro-aggressions

Chester Pierce was a psychiatrist who drew attention to micro-aggressions as a form of individual racism in the 1970s. The American Psychiatric Glossary (8th edition cited in American Psychiatric Association, 2006) defines micro-aggressions as:

“Offensive mechanisms or actions by a person that are designed to keep other individuals in an inferior, dependent or helpless role. These actions are nonverbal and kinetic and they are well suited to control space, time, energy, and mobility of an individual (usually non-white or female), while producing feelings of degradation”.

Some of these behaviours stem from unconscious attitudes of racial superiority and are not always intentional. However, they are unpleasant, shocking, depressing, and can grind down the individual’s self-esteem.

1.1.3 Institutional/structural racism

This type of racism takes place at organizational or group level and can be built into policies in such a way that one group is favoured while excluding another on racial grounds. The Trade Union Congress report “Root Out Racism” hotline: Exposing Racism At Work (2000) defines institutional racism by quoting the definition in the Macpherson Inquiry Report into Stephen Lawrence’s murder (Appendix 1):

“The collective failure of an organization to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin which can be seen or detected in processes, attitudes and behaviour which amounts to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minority ethnic people”.

The law holds employers responsible for any racism at work, therefore employers have to ensure that their employees behave appropriately. The law states that:

“Things done by a person in the course of his/her employment are treated as done by the employer whether or not done with the employer’s approval or knowledge” (section 32 of the 1976 Act).

1.1.4 Racial discrimination

Racial discrimination occurs when power is used in acting out racial prejudice to control, deprive or exclude an individual on the basis of their race. It is unlawful to discriminate against any person, or group of people, on racial grounds. The law states that:

“By sections 1(1)(a) and 4(2) of the 1976 Act it is unlawful for an employer to treat an employee less favourably than he treats or would treat other employees on grounds of race. This is commonly referred to as direct race discrimination. An employer must not discriminate on racial grounds by subjecting the person to dismissal or any other detriment. Discrimination in the way that an employer affords an employee access to opportunities for promotion, transfer or training, or to any other benefits, facilities or services or by refusing or deliberately omitting to afford her access to them is also made unlawful under section 4(2)”.

Complaints of racial discrimination can sometimes result in further victimization. The Law attempts to protect individuals from such victimization. It states that:

“Where a person alleges that there has been race discrimination or takes further action in pursuit of such an allegation, they have done what is referred to as ‘a protected act’. If as a result within their employment they are treated less favourably because of having done the protected act, then they have been victimized within the meaning of the 1976 Act. It is unnecessary to establish that the original allegation of the breach of the Act was made out, as long as the allegation was made in good faith”.

1.1.5 Stereotype

One of the oils that lubricate racism and racial discrimination is the way people are put into boxes, then stereotyped using this generalization as a standard measure of what we expect of an individual and what we associate with their particular group of people. Stereotyping stems from a process of categorization (for example, into social groups) which gives the individual a sense of belonging by identifying with that specific group. Historically, most groups have had an identified group they perceive as less superior, allowing for promotion of their own group as superior. There is a tendency of developing an in-group—belonging, and an out-group—not belonging (Dovidio & Gaertner, 1986).

Stereotypes are cognitive structures that people form about social categories in order to help them process information about people who are different from them. Therefore, stereotypes can only exist when differential beliefs and values become associated with the differentiated social categories created by the individual or group of people. Hamilton and Trolier, cited in Dovidio and Gaertner (1986) discuss the development of stereotypes and how they are perpetuated as a result of the following processes (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1981):

Motivational processes: stereotypes serve the intrapsychic needs of the perceiver: for example, using degrading terms for Black people (calling an old man “boy”) which promotes some White people’s self-esteem and helps them cope with their own feelings of inadequacy. Sometimes the way the media reports events motivates the way a society processes that information, which then affects the perceptions and judgments formed about specific groups of people.

Socio-cultural orientation: these stereotypes are learnt through the process of socialization, such as learning from one’s parents, family members, various social groups one belongs to, influential people in one’s life (pop stars, footballers, notorious criminals) and the media. We learn about various groups and what to associate them with: Zimbabweans, Irish, English, Americans, Polish, Germans, Americans, Zambians, Nigerians, Jamaicans, Welsh, Scottish, French; Jews, Muslims, Roman Catholics and Jehovah’s Witnesses. What associations come to your mind with each group? Where and what did you learn about them? What influenced your perception? What negative associations are attributed to your own group of people?

Stereotypes can be challenged and altered, for example through relearning from new or different experiences. Counselling and group psychotherapy offer the opportunity of having a new or different experience and a space for improving one’s self-awareness by reflecting on what one has internalized from one’s environment.

Cognitive structures and processes: Hamilton and Trolier define stereotype from a cognitive perspective as cognitive structures that hold the perceiver’s knowledge, beliefs, and expectancies about other groups of people. This information may be distorted or inaccurate but will still have an impact on how we behave towards that group of people. For instance, if one believes that a certain group of people is inferior one is likely to be patronizing in the way one speaks or what one speaks about.

All stereotypes have a cognitive component and some have all three components. For example, racism is influenced by cognitive, motivational, and socio-cultural learning processes resulting in judgmental and behavioural manifestations.

Hamilton and Trolier discuss how stereotype influences what information we choose to hear and how we make sense of it based on what we have encoded in our brain and how we encode new information which will be used for future referencing.

They also demonstrate the effects of racial stereotyping on encoding information using Sagar and Schofield (1980), who studied the reaction of school children to drawings of cartoon stick figures of two boys sitting one in front of the other. These cartoons were accompanied by the following description:

“Mark was sitting at his desk, working on his social studies assignment, when David started poking him in the back with the eraser end of his pencil. Mark just kept on working. David kept poking him for a while, and then he finally stopped”. Dovidio and Gaertner (1986, p. 143).

The participants were asked to rate David’s behaviour on how playful, friendly, mean and threatening his behaviour was. Initially the David character was White, then changed to Black. What was interesting was that when David was Black his behaviour was perceived as more mean and threatening and less playful and friendly than when he was White, proving that stereotyping motivates how we perceive and interpret what we witness and what we become blind to.

Dalal (1997) states that stereotyping serves two functions, firstly of categorization and secondly as a means of instructions. There are two sorts:

1. stereotypes seen as a template that has coded into it what one may become. He gives an example of how Blacks become nurses but not psychiatrists.
2. stereotypes directing the mind as to what is to be seen. In my case, for instance, the institution I worked for ignored its scoring criteria, and the fact that I had scored highest in an interview, in favour of a White candidate who came third and scored the lowest. In a staff meeting where they discussed who to offer the job to they acknowledged that I had scored the highest. The Employment Tribunal later ruled this decision as racial victimization.

1.1.6 Internalized racism

It is important to acknowledge that we all have racial feelings, prejudices, beliefs, and stereotypic thoughts. The question is, are you aware of yours and are you aware of when you are likely to act them out? Although we have no control over how we feel, we are responsible for how we behave, even if the action is a direct result of how we feel. Stereotyping is not only about what others project onto you, but what you introject from around you—from the family and society at large.

Dalal (1997) suggests that stereotypes are strengthened because they are shared by a society as a whole. For example, I was brought up in a Black community in Zimbabwe (then known as Rhodesia) where it was socially accepted that Blacks and Whites lived in racially segregated areas and attended racially segregated schools. It was accepted that Whites were a privileged, superior race while Blacks were underprivileged and inferior. Although I was not conscious of this racial discrimination till my early teens, I w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• FOREWORD
• INTRODUCTION
• PART I: RACIAL DISCRIMINATION: A CRY IN THE WILDERNESS?
• PART II: ABANDONMENT: HIDE AND SEEK UNTIL YOU FIND YOURSELF
• PART III: CAN PSYCHOTHERAPY PENETRATE BEYOND SKIN COLOUR? TRAINEE COUNSELLORS' RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS OF SKIN COLOUR
• PART IV: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT