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The Enduring, Invisible, and Ubiquitous Centrality of Whiteness
A comprehensive collection on the topic of whiteness from writers in the field of mental health and activism.
Whiteness is a pervasive ideology that is rarely overtly identified or examined, despite its profound effects on race relationships. Being intentional about naming, deconstructing, and dismantling whiteness is a precursor to responding effectively to the racial reckoning of our society and improving race relationships, addressing systemic bias, and moving towards the creation of a more racially just world.
In this collection of essays, scholars from a variety of backgrounds and trainings explore how the longstanding centering of whiteness in all aspects of society, including clinical therapy spaces, has led to widespread racial injustice. Contributors David Trimble, Lane Arye, Jodie Kliman, Ken Epstein, Toby Bobes, Cynthia Chestnut, Ovita F. Williams, Gene E. Cash Jr., Carlin Quinn, Christiana Ibilola Awosan, Niki Berkowitz, Jen Leland, Mary Pender Greene, Hinda Winawer, Bonnie Berman Cushing, Michael Boucher, Robin Schlenger, Alana Tappin, Timothy Baima, Jeffery Mangram, Liang-Ying Chou, Irene In Hee Sung, Ana Hernandez, Robin Nuzum, Keith A. Alford, Hugo Kamya, and Cristina Combs.
Whiteness is a pervasive ideology that is rarely overtly identified or examined, despite its profound effects on race relationships. Being intentional about naming, deconstructing, and dismantling whiteness is a precursor to responding effectively to the racial reckoning of our society and improving race relationships, addressing systemic bias, and moving towards the creation of a more racially just world.
In this collection of essays, scholars from a variety of backgrounds and trainings explore how the longstanding centering of whiteness in all aspects of society, including clinical therapy spaces, has led to widespread racial injustice. Contributors David Trimble, Lane Arye, Jodie Kliman, Ken Epstein, Toby Bobes, Cynthia Chestnut, Ovita F. Williams, Gene E. Cash Jr., Carlin Quinn, Christiana Ibilola Awosan, Niki Berkowitz, Jen Leland, Mary Pender Greene, Hinda Winawer, Bonnie Berman Cushing, Michael Boucher, Robin Schlenger, Alana Tappin, Timothy Baima, Jeffery Mangram, Liang-Ying Chou, Irene In Hee Sung, Ana Hernandez, Robin Nuzum, Keith A. Alford, Hugo Kamya, and Cristina Combs.
631 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 17, 2022
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 30, 2023
This is the HARD STUFF.
STONG MEDICINE.
It BURNS as it CLEANSES.
Transformative.
Eye opening.
Critical.
Liberating.
This text is essentially a multi-perspectival deconstruction of whiteness, and white centrality (the pervasive, ubiquitous, invisible, implicit baseline assumption of white normativity, superiority, entitlement and privilege).
This text ATACKS white exceptionalism wherein liberal white people assume that they are the GOOD white people, and as such, project the shame and guilt of white racism ENTIRELY onto those BAD white people who voted for TRUMP.
The text demarcates and RELENTLESSLY challenges issues of white privileged, such as the privilege to intellectualize issues of racist and systemic oppression in the abstract, without sacrificing comfort or risking status by standing up to proximal racism at home, school, or work.
The text also addresses white gilt and the intense emotional labor BIPOC undergo in order to psychologically caretake white people in moments of shame, and patiently educate them (us, me) regarding race and antiracist behavior.
The text is edited by the the AMAZING Dr. Kenneth V Hardy. The articles are mostly authored by therapists and social workers discussing their experiences, perceptions, beliefs, theories and praxis for recovery from white centrality and white supremacy.
ESSENTIAL READING FOR THERAPISTS.
Our cultural competence and sensitivity training (however improved) doesn’t go anywhere NEAR far enough. Western psychology and psychotherapy assume white, middle class phalogocentrism as a universal baseline, and hold Anglo centric values of objectivity, rationality, normalcy, individualism and self reliance at its foundations.
This is not to say that there is anything inherently wrong with all that, or that white liberal therapists are bad people. These cultural biases are neither good or bad. But it is (at minimum) demanding that everyone who undertake the work of psychotherapy understand and interrogate their own racial and cultural positions, or invariably subject culturally different clients to iatrogenic harm.
GREAT BOOK.
No idea how (precisely) I will enact these crucial insights. But I will. And I will continue on in this critical process.
5/5 STARS ✨
STONG MEDICINE.
It BURNS as it CLEANSES.
Transformative.
Eye opening.
Critical.
Liberating.
This text is essentially a multi-perspectival deconstruction of whiteness, and white centrality (the pervasive, ubiquitous, invisible, implicit baseline assumption of white normativity, superiority, entitlement and privilege).
This text ATACKS white exceptionalism wherein liberal white people assume that they are the GOOD white people, and as such, project the shame and guilt of white racism ENTIRELY onto those BAD white people who voted for TRUMP.
The text demarcates and RELENTLESSLY challenges issues of white privileged, such as the privilege to intellectualize issues of racist and systemic oppression in the abstract, without sacrificing comfort or risking status by standing up to proximal racism at home, school, or work.
The text also addresses white gilt and the intense emotional labor BIPOC undergo in order to psychologically caretake white people in moments of shame, and patiently educate them (us, me) regarding race and antiracist behavior.
The text is edited by the the AMAZING Dr. Kenneth V Hardy. The articles are mostly authored by therapists and social workers discussing their experiences, perceptions, beliefs, theories and praxis for recovery from white centrality and white supremacy.
ESSENTIAL READING FOR THERAPISTS.
Our cultural competence and sensitivity training (however improved) doesn’t go anywhere NEAR far enough. Western psychology and psychotherapy assume white, middle class phalogocentrism as a universal baseline, and hold Anglo centric values of objectivity, rationality, normalcy, individualism and self reliance at its foundations.
This is not to say that there is anything inherently wrong with all that, or that white liberal therapists are bad people. These cultural biases are neither good or bad. But it is (at minimum) demanding that everyone who undertake the work of psychotherapy understand and interrogate their own racial and cultural positions, or invariably subject culturally different clients to iatrogenic harm.
GREAT BOOK.
No idea how (precisely) I will enact these crucial insights. But I will. And I will continue on in this critical process.
5/5 STARS ✨
Displaying 1 of 1 review