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Fam Proc: 41: 619-623, 2002
Discrimination within family members is often rooted in racism that is embedded in culture and history. However, racism is not only expressed in open behavior, but also in subtle and sometimes invisible ways. Internalized racism has a powerful influence on our thoughts and actions, but we are largely unconscious of it because it is nourished continually by ideologies and practices of the culture in which we live, constructed through social and symbolic interactions with present and past generations-compares us with "others" in terms of good or bad, superior or inferior, dominant or dominated. The ideological roots of racist prejudices that emerged of segregation often permeate and are reproduced in the family environment. Thus, the perception of differences, such as skin color, often associated with domineering and dominated social classes, leads to internal discrimination. These processes have a strong influence in the construction of individual identities through the relations established within the family as well as with other social groups. For example, conflictful relations of submission, violence and abuse can be the expression of this internalized racism.
Family therapy becomes a means to unveil these ideological constructions, to make individuals aware of their"unconscious racisms" and of the race-based distribution of privileges and restrictions that prevail in our white-dominated society. The therapist plays an important role in identifying and defying the racism that becomes manifest in the course of the therapeutic work.
The ideological processes involved in family conflicts may be observed in the family members' narratives, in their jokes and offenses. Racism is also expressed through the affective reactions and observations of the therapist and the supervisory team. Working with the ideological processes of racism allows the therapist to deconstruct the process of domination to which individuals have been subject.
It is important for therapists to recognize their own inner racist voices that can reverberate in the course of the therapeutic process, and risk confirming and amplifying racist discrimination. As therapists, we need to question our relationships with others and to inquire what the "other" (person, group, or trait) means for us. Is the other representing that which needs to be separated from me in order to confirm my self-image; or that which I don't recognize in myself and needs to...