I did not begin to feel comfortable until I attended the Multicultural Counseling course later that week. Students were assigned a number of textbooks as part of this course, including CCD … I never imagined a textbook would bring me so much comfort. I vividly remember reading each chapter and vigorously taking notes in the margins. I also remember the energy I felt as I wrote about my reactions to the readings each week. I felt like the book legitimized the experiences of racial and ethnic minorities and helped me understand what I was encountering in my Midwest surroundings. It became a platform from which I could explain my own experience as a racial and ethnic minority from Southern California who was transplanted to the Midwest. The personal stories, concepts, and theories illustrated in CCD resonated with me and ultimately helped me overcome my feelings of isolation. CCD provided me with the language to engage in intellectual discourse about race, ethnicity, social class, privilege, and disparities. I remember the awareness that swept over the class as we progressed through the textbook … I felt that they were beginning to view things through my cultural lens, and I through theirs. We were gaining greater understanding of how our differing cultural realities had shaped us and would impact the work we conducted as therapists. (Sue & Sue, 2013, pp. 17–18)
Le Ondra's story voices a continuing saga of how Persons of Color and many marginalized individuals must function in an ethnocentric society that unintentionally invalidates their experiences and enforces silence upon them. She talks about how the text provided a language for her to explain her experiences and how she resonated with its content and meaning. To her, the content of the book tapped into her experiential reality and expressed a worldview that is too often ignored or not even discussed in graduate‐level programs. Le Ondra found comfort and solace in the book, and she has been fortunate in finding significant others in her life that have validated her thoughts, feelings, and aspirations and allowed her to pursue a social justice direction in counseling. As a Person of Color, Le Ondra has been able to overcome great odds and to obtain her doctorate in the field and become Chief Executive Officer of the California Council of Community Behavioral Health Agencies and the Executive Director of the California Access Coalition without losing her sense of integrity or racial/cultural identity.
A WORD OF CAUTION
There is a word of caution that needs to be directed toward students of marginalized groups as they read CCD and find it affirming and validating. In teaching the course, we have often encountered students of color who become very contentious and highly outspoken toward White classmates. A good example is provided in the reaction of the African American student in the fourth scenario. It is clear that the student seems to take delight in seeing his White classmates “squirm” and be uncomfortable. In this respect, he may be taking out his own anger and frustration upon White classmates, and his concern has less to do with helping them understand than having them feel some of the pain and hurt he has felt over the years. It is important to express and understand one's anger (it can be healing), but becoming verbally abusive toward another is counterproductive to building rapport and mutual respect. As People of Color, for example, we must realize that our enemies are not White Americans, but White supremacy! Moreover, by extension, our enemy is not White Western society, but racism and ethnocentrism.
Second, because the book discusses multicultural issues, some students of color come to believe that multicultural training is only for White students; the implicit assumption is that they know the material already and are the experts on the subject. Since many students of color have not explored their beliefs about other groups, and sometimes their own, such a perspective prevents self‐exploration and constitutes a form of resistance. As will be seen in Chapter 8, People of Color, for example, are not immune from prejudice, bias, and discrimination. Further, such a belief prevents the exploration of interracial and interethnic misunderstandings and biases. Multicultural training is more than White–African American, White–Latinx American, White–Asian American, White–Native American, and so on. It is also about African American–Asian American, Asian American–Native American, and Latinx–Native American relationships; and it includes multiple combinations of other social identity differences, like gender, sexual orientation, disability, religious orientation, and so forth. Race, culture, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation/identity are about everyone; it is not just a “minority thing.”
REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1 As you continue reading the material in this text, you are likely to experience strong and powerful reactions and emotions. Being able to understand the meaning of your feelings is the first step to cultural competence. Ask yourself, why am I reacting this way? What does it say about my worldview, my experiential reality, and my ability to relate to people who differ from me in race, gender, and sexual orientation/identity?
2 Many marginalized group members find that their voices are silenced or unheard. Are their perceptions correct? If not, how do you explain their feelings? If so, what are factors prevent their voices from being heard?
3 What do you think “understanding yourself as a racial, ethnic, cultural being” means? Some questions to guide you in finding the answer are the following. What does it mean to be a Person of Color? What does it mean to be White? These questions are best answered in a group activity.
4 Do you think it is possible to “leave politics” outside of the classroom when discussing issues of racism, sexism, and homophobia? Is it possible not to consider the sociopolitical nature of counseling and psychotherapy when working with marginalized group members?
RECOGNIZING AND UNDERSTANDING RESISTANCE TO MULTICULTURAL TRAINING
As a counselor or therapist working with clients, you will often encounter psychological resistance or, more accurately, client behaviors that obstruct the therapeutic process or sabotage positive change (Ivey, Ivey, & Zalaquett, 2018). Clients may change the topic when recalling unpleasant memories, externalize blame for their own failings, fail to acknowledge strong feelings of anger toward loved ones, or be chronically late for counseling appointments. All of these client behaviors are examples of resistance or avoidance of acknowledging and confronting unpleasant personal revelations. Oftentimes, these represent unconscious maneuvers to avoid fearful personal insights, to avoid personal responsibility, and to avoid painful feelings. In most cases, resistance masks deeper meanings outside the client's awareness; tardiness for appointments is unacknowledged anger toward therapists, and changing topics in a session is an unconscious deflection of attention away from frightening personal revelations. In many respects, multicultural training can be likened to “therapy” in that trainees are analogous to clients, and trainers are comparable to therapists helping clients with insights about themselves and others.
As we shall see in Chapter 2, the goal of multicultural training is cultural competence. It requires trainees to become aware of their own worldviews, their assumptions of human behavior, their misinformation and lack of knowledge, and, most importantly, their biases and prejudices. Sometimes, this journey is a painful one, and trainees will resist moving forward. For trainers or instructors, the job is to help trainees in their self‐exploration as racial/cultural beings, and the meaning this has for their future roles as multicultural counselors. For trainees, being able