A Cultural Self: Reflection
“What I have come to realize is that my authentic self, for better or for worse, is incapable of separating my personal/cultural self from my professional self.”
As an undergraduate student at a predominantly white institution (PWI) I was subjected to racial bias that I never labeled as such until I experienced it several times. I had to feel the silent heat buildup in my chest repeatedly before I could put a name to it. I was always the only Black woman in group projects and often the only person of color (POC). I can remember being ignored, talked over, and invalidated by white and non-Black acculturated students. There was one instance during my sophomore year that I will never forget because it was the first time that I felt a need to enlist my professor’s help, which turned out to be less than helpful.
The group consisted of myself and two white females who were friends or at least well acquainted with one another. Every time I suggested an angle for the project the most assertive of the two girls would find a reason to reject it without pause and without fail. None of my ideals were valid. Even when I made clear and concise arguments for why my idea would work even in tandem with her own, my ideals, an extension of me, were still overlooked and rejected. With two against one I didn’t seem to have a leg to stand on. I tried to go a different direction by harnessing the anger I felt for being unreasonably dismissed into creating samples of my ideas for our next meeting. If my words weren’t going to be listened to, my work couldn’t be ignored.
When I brought completed samples to our next group meeting, the most verbal of my group mates was shocked, but ultimately feigned disapproval. She decided that my ideas should be redesigned onto their computer instead of more simply using the file I had created. There was no logic in redesigning something verbatim that could more easily be used as is. It was like being given fresh baked cookies but refusing to eat them until you had a hand in the baking process. It was humiliating and frustrating to try so hard to work with people who clearly had no interest in working with me and for no valid reason. Sue, et al. (2019) discusses fabricated data that worked to support certain contentions that Black people inherited inferior brains and that that type of stereotype persists among white Americans with, “20% publicly [having expressed] a belief that African Americans are innately inferior in thinking ability...” (p.82).
In working with the mentioned group and experiencing how my ideas seemed to never be good enough while simultaneously good enough to be taken from me and recreated, I felt that I was being judged as being inferior despite the clear evidence (my work and effort) that I was not. This was only one of several times as an undergraduate student that I worked in a group and experienced this same unwillingness to be heard or taken seriously by my all-white and or non-black peers.
As a minority in the classroom, I viewed myself as being a part of one culture and the rest of my cohort as being a part of another. At that time, I viewed culture as acceptance, and I didn’t feel accepted until the end of my undergraduate career when I had gained enough confidence to accept myself and be myself no matter what. Today I view culture as either a barrier or an opportunity to acquire connection and understanding of other people and the world. As an undergraduate student culture felt like a barrier because there was no mutual respect. I offered my respect but often didn’t have that respect reciprocated. People who fail to see their bias are incapable of mutual respect. Because of the experiences that I have had as a student and professional, I have a cynical view of most people of different cultures that I meet, which involves me assuming that they are to some degree stereotyping me.
This is a bias that I have that is a result of being discriminated against. Steele (2010) refers to this type of as anxiety as stereotype threat. I am aware of many of my biases towards other cultures have to be aware of it in counseling settings to avoid countertransference. It is the complete opposite with people I view as like me culturally because those are people, I expect to have a camaraderie with. However, this is an assumption that people I view as like me will also be like me in thought and behavior, logically leading to the formation of a bond. This is an assumption that although has been proven false to me multiple times, is still one I find difficult to release.
Being conscious of these differences and my own assumptions means being honest with clients about what I don’t know or maybe don’t understand. It also means being my authentic self and not altering myself to fit their identity of needs. These concepts of honesty and authenticity are also two of my core values. This word is in many ways overused in self-help and self-esteem conversations and subsequently misused. I have seen authenticity used to rationalized individuals’ negative behavior, and that is what I refer to as misuse of the term. Being true to our authentic selves is not a moral excuse to do harm onto others. I view authenticity as a necessity in maintaining mental and emotional equilibrium. When we know who we are and can be who we are meant to be, personally and professionally, we can rid ourselves of the torture that is cognitive dissonance. The absence of cognitive dissonance means the presence of peace. Peace of mind in various environments including the most important which is our minds.
Prioritizing authenticity is a core value of mine, along with curiosity and honesty. Honesty coincides with authenticity in that to be our authentic selves we must honestly consider who we are and not merely who we want to be or who others say we are. Honesty is also about being honest with others. Curiosity is about adventure of learning. It is as Shakespeare & Furness (1963) wrote, “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” This coincides with the Socrates quote that, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” I relate to these proclamations of continual learning. I view the desire to continually learn as curiosity. Being wise is nonexistent if an individual believes themselves to be wise. Wisdom comes from the adventure of learning. I value the adventures that curiosity takes me on.
Considering adventures of the mind, I think of William James’s writings on belief and truth. He posits that we think to both avoid dupery and to gain truth, but that if we are ever seeking absolute truths, we are better off removing passion from our pursuits because passion is not conducive to receiving ideal resolutions (James, 1896). I take this to mean that curiosity is the passion to explore and to learn, not a need to get everything right. James (1896) stated:
“Wherever the option between losing truth and gaining it is not momentous, we can throw the change of gaining truth away, and at any rate save ourselves from any chance of believing falsehood, by not making up our minds at all till objective evidence has come.” (p. 28)
In my personal life I have chosen to go out on a limb and follow paths where the option between losing a truth that I held and gaining a new one was momentous. I have done this with jobs, professions, courses, and relationships. Much of the time it has likely appeared to my peers as indecisiveness, and I can’t say that isn’t a part of it. But more likely, it is my deep desire to follow where I haven’t gone; to discover where my curiosities can take me.
What I have come to realize is that my authentic self, for better or for worse, is incapable of separating my personal/cultural self from my professional self. There is an unshakable level of dissonance when I attempt to separate the two. In counseling I found this to be useful in connecting with people. Being able to be myself and not a replica of what therapy looks like in a book or in media has allowed me to better connect with clients. It has hopefully also allowed clients to better connect with me and to feel that they can be their true selves in sessions. My curiosity shows up in counseling when I am getting to know the client and not their problem.
What is a way that you can get to know yourself and not your problems?
References
Desmond, M. (2016). Evicted. New York: CROWN.
Frankl, V. E. (2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press.
James, W. (1896). The Will to Believe. In W. James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in
Popular Philosphy (pp. 10-39). New York: New Impression.
Shakespeare, W., & Furness, H. H. (1963). As You Like it. New York, New York: Dover.
Steele, C. M. (2010). Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Sue, D., Sue, D., Neville, H., & Smith, L. (2019). Counseling the Culturally Diverse. Hoboken: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.
