Psychologically correct race baiting?

Psychologically Correct Race Baiting?

Kenneth R. Thomas, Robert E. Wubbolding, and Morris L. Jackson

Whiteness and ethnocentric monoculturalism are powerful and entrenched determinants of worldview. Because they are invisible and operate outside the level of conscious awareness, they can be detrimental to people of color, women, and other marginalized groups in society. Both define a reality that gives advantages to white Euro-American males while disadvantaging others. Although most

Americans believe in equality and fairness, the inability to deconstruct these 2 concepts allows society to continue unjust actions and arrangements toward minority groups. Making the "invisible" visible is the major challenge to liberating individuals and society from the continued oppression of others.

--Derald Wing Sue I

T he American Psychological Association (APA) recently conferred one of its most prestigious awards on Derald Wing Sue, Ph.D. for his, "outstand

ing contributions to multicultural issues in psychology." Although we have no problem with APA recognizing Dr. Sue for his long and distinguished career as a counseling psychologist who has focused on multicultural issues, we take considerable exception to the remarks he made in accepting the award. 2 Those remarks were, quite frankly, among the most racially biased we have ever seen in the professional psychology literature. Regrettably, Sue's article reads less like an article derived from psychological research and more like a litany of personally perceived slights that he and other people of color have received living in America. He accused white people of committing all sorts of unconscious indignities toward people of color and possessing what he called un-earned "White privilege" (763). He did not spell out what whites would need to do to earn this "privilege," but founding a nation that continues to attract millions of immigrants from all over the world was certainly not acknowledged

Kenneth R. Thomas is professor emeritus in the department of Rehabilitation Psychology and Special Education, University of Wisconsin, 432 North Murray St., Madison, WI 53706-1496; [email protected]. His coauthors on this paper are Robert E. Wubbolding of the Center for Reality Therapy, Cincinnati, OH, and Morris L. Jackson, of American University, Washington, D.C.

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50 Academic Questions / Fall 2005

as a significant achievement. In fact, the history of the United States, according to Sue, is so replete with racial...