Anything I might have written about Paris these past weeks would have been grievously frivolous and 
trivial, given the immense racial violence exploding once again in America and the aftershocks in European countries.
Perpetual racism, racial disparity, white privilege, and white supremacy remain scourges that are firmly rooted in white-dominated cultures.
Being silent about the matter can easily be interpreted as complacency and nonchalance. True, I am by nature conflict-avoidant, but not when racial injustices are blatantly exploding, being minimalized, or ignored.
I am deeply disturbed by the continuing racism obviously at play in all aspects of white-dominated societies. Being white means that I have been a part of white privilege too, whether I was aware of it or not.
Not being aware of it is no excuse. White privilege is the unspoken, often unacknowledged reality that is indigenous to those born with white skin.
Maybe you have been blind to your white skin advantage or how it might have helped you in unseen ways. Maybe you pride yourself on disowning racism within yourself and have strived to eliminate racial inequalities.
Many of you may be quick to point out how hard you fought to climb your own ladder of success, overcoming many obstacles, without any affirmative action.
I am not diminishing any white person’s hard-earned accomplishments, but the fact remains that if you had to achieve all that you did with brown or black skin, even with affirmative action, your path would have presented more potholes along the way.
Unacknowledged white privilege paved a smoother path because your whiteness was viewed as the normative or even preferred race in the eyes of others who might have taught you, mentored you, or opened doors to you.
You never had to confront the daily fears/doubts and reality that other different shades of skin people have staring them in the mirror. Will I be seen other than my skin color? Worst, will I be diminished in some way because of my skin colour?
Black mothers live in constant fear that their children will be misjudged as suspected criminals needing to be brutally gunned down.
Developing cultural sensitivity to other cultures that have brown, black and all other shades on the human skin spectrum is an essential part of being a compassionate human being.
Developing cultural humility is your willingness to acknowledge that you don’t know what it is like to grow up in another culture other than your own.
It is a self-examination of your own cultural biases and how they may negatively affect interaction with different cultures who have grown up with legacies of violence and oppression.
It can be expanded to also mean that you don’t know what it is like to grow up with a different sexual orientation or gender differences.
It means that you cannot assume with any certainty the unique perspective of how someone culturally, racially, or sexually different sees you, others, and their own world.
As a therapist, these are fundamental to practicing in a multicultural city. Again, I find it essential in trying to understanding each individual person.
After all, each of us is shaped and molded by our cultural environment. Adding to that psychological stew are the cultural and sexual biases, including racial perspectives of our parents, relatives and peers voiced throughout our formative years.
I personally have been troubled by collective guilt that I feel having grown up in the deep south. The past history of slavery embraced as a right, the waving of Confederate flags, and the statues, streets, and places named after confederate generals continue to inflict painful reminders to black Americans.
Some people with whom I have voiced that quickly defend their opposing opinion saying they don’t feel responsible for the sins of their ancestors. So be it.
I have no intention of imposing guilt on anyone else by stating my own disturbance. I am an empath and my feelings also stem from my own spiritual and religious beliefs.
Developing cultural sensitivity and cultural humility means you are more into listening to understand someone else’s reality and worldview, rather than presuming you know.
Once again, being the therapist that I value being means I try to put myself in “the skin” of my patient. This by the way is ideologically aligned with the humanistic person-centered approach and modality of Carl Rogers.
True, we can never get a real feel of someone else’s situation unless we have walked in their shoes, but we can at least develop an intent to do so by active and intensive listening to them!
It is presumptuous for any of us to presume and assume that we understand what someone who is culturally, racially, or sexually different feels about themselves vis a vis the society they live in.
It is emotionally abusive and insensitive to tell them how they should or should not react. Lifelong oppression, indifference, and racial injustices /disparities in white-dominated societies will lead to a rage-filled reaction, like a pent up volcano.
Being culturally sensitive is all about learning and understanding from different cultures and implementing that knowledge to facilitate honest exchanges to achieve peaceful interaction.
Understanding the inherent hardships racially different peoples have to live with promotes compassionate awareness and allows you to see them and their worldview in a new way, not dominated by your own cultural biases.
Racism stops with you. Developing cultural sensitivity and humility starts with you. We can all do our part to build bridges of peaceful empathetic understanding.
PS. Cultural Sensitivity and Humility are theories developed by Tervalon and Murray-Garcia in 1998, now generally included in health care provider curriculums.
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How true. It’s not guilt I feel, but rather responsibility to make sure my generation understands and that younger generations not perpetuate the privileges and discrimination due to skin color or whiteness.
Thank you so much Ellen for your comment! Thank you also for pointing out the need for us to propagate cultural sensitivity to the younger generation in an effort to diminish racial discrimination.
As you say silence is not the answer or a viable position. Racial discrimination is just one of the many forms of “discrimination” that occur in society. Abusive, sociopathic cops tend to be abusive towards most people. The lesser educated and poor people tend to get the brunt of the law enforcement attention. At other times in history it has been against the Irish and other nationalities.
The police slowly developed their practice of using overwhelming tactics, in part, as a protective means for themselves;. I think that it is somewhat reasonable when they are confronted by dangerous violent criminals; but too many officers and police departments seem to have adopted that astheir SOP; and that has become disastrous for everyone really. There are just too many bad cops and the unions usually support and protect them . . . the unions’ political influence is another part of the problems.
But one thing that I find missing in all of this media and social coverage is the lack of stressing that a lot of these incidents are caused by the unruly and often response of people, unnecessarily escalating situations. Now we have gone from law enforcement unwarranted callous murdering suspects to accusing apparently “good cops” of their apparent “defensive” actions in adrenaline driven episodes that only last a matter of a few seconds.
The recent killing of the guy in Atlanta is, I think, an example of such a case. The officers and the suspect seemed to conduct themselves appropriately initially. Then the suspect suddenly started fighting with the policemen, grabbed an officer’s weapon, and then fired it at the officer as he was attempting to flee . . . what would he have done if he had the officer’s pistol? Would he have fired at them with gun? It all happens in a matter of seconds; and it is all reflex actions. Should the officer tried to shoot him in the legs or just let hm go. It is difficult to know what one would do in the officer’s situation in an intense few seconds. I suspect that instead of just rooting out the “bad cops”, it is going to be difficult to retain and hire good cops. Who is going to work under these conditions? The problems are not as simple or one sided as the media and others like to claim.
Society expects the law enforcement personnel to handle things appropriately; but isn’t the media and others missing (or ignoring) the opportunity to send the message that people should be respectful and cooperative with law enforcement people also? Then it might be a lot easier to root out the “bad cops” too.
Poorly educated and impoverished people usually commit more crimes than others; and there are becoming more such white people also.
Thank you David for your in-depth comment and pointing out your concerns around media coverage. Since my post focused on developing cultural sensitivity, I feel more capable and in line to comment on that in regard to any police reforms needed.
Perhaps having police programs that go out to black communities to establish more interaction with the intent to learn from them would help. Obviously there is much distrust and fear about police using excessive and inappropriate force in dealing with people of colour. Police departments might want to engage more comprehensive psychological testing of recruits and weeding out salaried police persons with poor anger control, racist views, and public complaints already filed demonstrating aggressive tendencies.
Chère Cherry, Je partage entièrement ta vue concernant la sensibilité culturelle et l’immense humilité dont il faut faire preuve, pas seulement d’ailleurs dans le domaine de la psychologie et de la culture mais tout à fait généralement. Etant moi même issu d’un mélange culturel et religieux, sans toutefois être croyant, j’ai pu à diverses occasions ressentir le rejet ou le racisme qui me semblent être présents dans l’ensemble de l’humanité et qui selon mon humble avis sont dus à la crainte de ce qui est inconnu. Par ailleurs rien, absolument rien ne permet à mes yeux, les excès des porteurs d’uniformes quels qu’ils soient. L’uniforme semble donner à celui qui le porte un droit qu’une bonne formation devrait éliminer. Malheureusement on trouve souvent sous l’uniforme des personnalités instables ou frustrées. Toutefois renverser des statues et tenter de refaire l’histoire en jugeant les actes passés avec une optique actuelle me semble ne pas être souhaitable car jusqu’à à quelle période devrions-nous remonter? Devrions-nous demander aux Romains d’aujourd’hui de demander pardon pour des actes horribles commis envers les Chrétiens il y a deux mille ans? Ou aux Allemands des générations d’après-guerre de demander pardon pour les atrocités nazies? Je n’y vois pas de grande différence dans le principe et je ne crois pas que cela arrangerait les choses ou feraient changer d’avis les racistes, hélas… Seule l’éducation peut parfois mais sans garantie remédier à ces erreurs de jugement… Je me souviens d’un de mes camarades chinois pendant mes études qui m’avait confié que les Chinois voyaient les Européens comme les Européens voient les Africains, ce qui m’avait profondément choqué et entrainé des heures de discussion à ce propos. Un manque d’humilité conduit à ce genre de pensées depuis toujours…
Pardon d’écrire en Français mais mon Anglais n’est pas assez subtil pour ce type de post…
Merci encore pour ton exposé!
Merci Georges pour ton commentaire qui explique avec beaucoup de sagesse tes propres testimonies et points de vue. Ne t’inquiet pas que ton commentaire c’est en française! C’est normal et toujours bienvenu!
C’est moi qui à honte avec ma Française. Je trouve aussi que pas mal de personalities qui à les caractères agressif sont attiré de devient un gendarme. C’est vraiment dommage que ces gens-là ne sont pas éliminés par les examens psychologiques ou par les complaints enregistrer contre leurs.
Comme tu a écrit, la vielle continente d’Europe est engorgent des endroits et monuments qui sont les souvenirs des régimes cruels et oppressifs, mais c’est leur histoire et peut servir pour nous rappeler de ne pas répéter. En plus, l’architecture comme celui des Romans sont magnifiques! Hugs
You give exactly the right argument for not destroying the figures of the past. It’s just the reason for reminding also the negative aspects or events of their era. Anyway brutality, intolerance and racism are not more acceptable in the XXI century, neither from the police nor among the populations of the “educated” countries
Bises (= hugs)
Cherry, this is so sad that relationship between people have come to this social unrest .
If people of all race would just understand that peace begins in the heart and a smile and PRAYERS And putting GOD first in your life and obeying the laws . It seems as trouble starts when drugs, excessive alcohol ,and disobeying the laws happen.
But we can not have just plan old bullies on the police force.
Hugs to you
🎼DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY
🎶BECAUSE EVERY LITTLE THING IS GOING TO BE ALRIGHT
Thank you, dear Isham, for sharing your always welcome commentaries, especially right now when you don’t feel good. You are so right that peace starts in the heart.
In a perfect world, all that you mentioned would certainly help. History of violence on planet earth from eons seems to be a constant that humanity has not been able to eliminate. Each generation is confronted with dealing with the immense variances of human personalities, some extremely twisted. Unfortunately, many who say they embrace certain religions, including Christianity, have committed cruelities towards others. Perhaps planet earth is a training ground that enables us to choose good over evil in
order to grow spritually.