Racism and Friends: The Relevance of Racial Literacy in Clinical Spaces

Abstract

Racial literacy is presented as a framework for bolstering clinical skills among mental health providers, particularly when racism and/or other sources of oppression need to be addressed within clinical spaces. Traditional multicultural psychology training is intended to build upon students’ diversity awareness. There are, however, gaps that contribute to the predominantly White population of counseling trainees exiting their training with limited capacity to address racism and other sources of oppression. This manuscript maintains that racial literacy is a tool that can be used intersectionally to address the problem of racism and racism's friends (e.g., patriarchy and heteronormativity). A case study approach is used to center the discussion of the three domains of racial literacy. The first domain is recognition and refers to detecting, noticing, and observing sensory experiences and environmental stimuli (verbal and nonverbal). Reading is the second domain of racial literacy and describes an accurate naming of the sensory experience detected. The third domain is resolving which describes taking action, problem solving, and intervening.