Multicultural Competence: Learning, Reflecting, and Doing

Through the months of January 2021 to the end of April 2021, I was enrolled in a class at Utah State University named PSY4240: Multicultural Psychology. The purpose of this class was to expand the average individual’s range of knowledge, experiences, skills and self-awarness in regard to other cultures and the world. Dr. Tehee explains it well when she said, “This course is designed to promote the development, maintenance, and evolution of cultural competence in psychology. The course will utilize didactic and experiential activities that are relevant to developing your self-awareness, knowledge, and skills across relevant areas of professional practice and in the context of psychological science.” In this paper, I will be writing about my gained knowledges and skills through experiences, exposure, research, and listening.

Stories are the most effective means for humans to share, influence, teach, and inspire. Storytelling is a powerful tool for learning, because it creates connections among multiple people and ideas. A story can communicate deeper concepts such as values, culture, and emotions through the words shared. This semester, I opened my ears and my heart to many stories and perspectives of people and groups different than myself and my own.

I watched the documentary on Netflix titled “I Am Not Your Negro.” I listened to the stories of James Baldwin and his peers. I learned that the struggle for equality has always been happening and is still happening. It wasn’t just that 20-year stint in the 1900’s. I learned what the experience was like to be Black in America from multiple points of view. I learned more about the life and philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, James Baldwin and Medgar Evers. I was really struck by James Baldwin’s words, both written and spoken, and how the issues he was discussing back in the 1960’s are still problems today, in 2020. Change has been slow moving. A frequent response by a privileged, white person is something like, “Racism doesn’t exist anymore!” - a form of gaslighting, and nods to the concept of color-blind racial ideation. I learned the many ways our justice system contains institutional racism. I learned that “the black man is angry, and the white man is afraid” (Peck et al., 2016).

Podcasts are one of my favorite forms of exposure to different perspectives, concepts, and opinions. I listened to a couple episodes of the podcast “Mormon and the Meth-head”, a show hosted by a man who grew up in the Mormon/LDS church and his journey with the ending of his faith, and a woman who experienced a meth addiction for 5 years before becoming sober and re-entering society. I learned about the personal experience of these two individuals who had very different childhoods and early adult lives, but how they’ve come together as friends through their experiences. I learned about the experiences and stories from a man who grew up in the Mormon church, and his journey through leaving the church, and everything in between. I learned about a woman who was born into a family who did meth and other drugs, and who struggled with a meth addiction for 5 years before becoming sober (Woodall & Reed, 2018).

I am also going through a faith crisis of sorts and hearing the experiences of this man who has left the church was important for me. I learned the reasons he left and what he went through, which has helped me become more aware of my own reasons. I felt more included in my experience that often makes me feel isolated. Hearing the experiences of a person who I’ve never met, but who has gone through similar things and has had similar thoughts, adds to my feeling of belonging in this human community. Hearing about the experiences of the woman who has gone through an intense drug addiction opened my eyes to the radically different childhoods that exist outside my own. How intimately our childhoods affect our adult lives and selves! I learned that a lot of people with addictions have a history of family use and highly influential, sometime negative, social relationships in their early lives. I learned more about the reasons why this woman got so deep in her addiction, and how it had a lot to do with inner psychological pain and the desire to escape. This reminds me to be kind and respectful to everyone, even if their lifestyle and choices confuse, scare, or are starkly different than my own.

IAT, or the Implicit Attitudes Test, is the device which measures implicit attitude. Implicit attitude is the non-conscious, automatic, associative depositions, feelings, and elevations an individual has towards someone or something (Ratliff et al., 2011). I believe that the IAT does not measure prejudice, rather it measures the strength of association between an attribute and a social group. The measurement of this association does not equally measure how racist a person it. It is an indirect measure of the mind, using the differences in time and number of mistakes made when comparing two examples of associations. Because it looks at a mostly subconscious part of our minds, it is not directly correlated with prejudice, because prejudice is a more conscious mental function. Prejudice is a feeling/preconceived opinion an individual has towards another person based on their perceived social group membership, often not based on reason or actual experience (Mio et al., 2016). Prejudice can turn into discrimination, which can turn into racism or racist behaviors if left unchecked.

The Black Lives Matter movement is the manifestation of many past events, pain, hope, sorrow, loss and steps forward. “Black Lives Matter” is the mantra of the modern civil rights movement of equality and rallying cry against the current casual acceptance of Black deaths. Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi are three women who decided they were done watching the country ignore their cries seven years ago, and since then have helped create the movement as we see it today. The BLM movement is intended to bring awareness and visibility to Black people who’ve been marginalized, gaslighted, brutalized, killed, and ignored. BLM brings this fight for equality to the mainstream media, utilizing platforms like social networks and image and video sharing applications. The public now recognizes the reality that is police brutality and racism in our country through the use of smartphones. Once the ideals and concepts of Black Lives Matter is accepted, practiced, and popular, can we then begin to talk about WHAT and WHO is threatening Black lives, and begin to create change (Smith, 2020).

MLK once said that the investment of the militarized complex of the American police system must be reinvested into communities if there is going to be change around equality (Smith, 2020). Police systems in America are fairly recent, with the first being officially created in Boston, MA to guard and protect goods and shipments in the port town. The fresh idea began to show hints of metaphorical rot after the Civil War, when the Southern states had police forces that patrolled slaves, enforced segregation and disenfranchisement of now-freed slaves. In the 1800’s, all major US cities had police forces to monitor labor-union organizers and large waves of immigrants, who were seen as a cause of concern. Politicians would often delegate and assign police captains and sergeants who would benefit their political agenda. It wasn’t until the early 1930’s that President Hoover increased professionalism in police forces. That was less than a century ago. Samuel Walker, an author and crime historian, argues that the push for professional police forces since then has increased tensions between cops and communities, isolated policemen from the public and encouraged an “us vs. them” mentality, and has not done much good (Waxman, 2019).

An ally is a person who recognizes the oppression experienced by groups other than their own, who recognizes their own privilege, and who actively supports others in oppression to make positive change (Mio et al., 2016). Education on the issues that pertain to Black people is needed in order to be an ally and stand with the Black community. The knowledge and understanding of the real pain and suffering that many generations of Black lives have endured is crucial, because then what you’re standing for and why you’re standing, is clear. Hopping onto the platform of equality and ally-ship should never be about the bandwagon of social trends, because it is about human lives. Raising awareness of the oppression that has been happening in America for hundreds of years, and is still happening, is a key action in being an ally. A White person holds the invisible power of privilege, because the color of their skin has not contributed to the difficulty in their life. They can live most of their life unconsciously, with no need to be wary if they are ever a threat to others. White people had a head start in the race of equality, safety, privilege, and opportunity. The Black man and woman were held behind the finish line for hundreds of years through systemic and systematic racism (Acho, 2020).

I am a 20+ year old Caucasian female. I identify as queer, as I am exploring my sexuality, but I grew up identifying as heterosexual. I grew up in Idaho, USA, and currently live in Utah, USA. I am an artist, a student, a maker, a healer, a poet, a friend, sister, partner, daughter, a foodie, a girl, a Subaru-driver, a bisexual, a listener, an animal lover, an average cook, and a hugger, among other things.

My worldview is heavily influenced by my childhood and nurture environment, being raised in a white-dominated, middle class, Christian religious, suburb town in Idaho, USA. My personal values are compassion, health, adventure, acceptance, ecology, sexuality, growth, purpose, independence, knowledge, mindfulness, spirituality, genuineness. These values do differ from my parents and aren’t completely in line with every individual who also has the same cultural identity and background as myself.

I am in the immersion stage of the European American Identity Development Model. Immersion stage is defined as “Begin to form a more positive White identity and to focus on changing Whites, not Blacks” (Mio et al., 2016). I identify with this stage because I have not yet grown into the next stage, which talks about actively addressing all forms of oppression, because I am still learning about oppression and the complexity of it all. I have not yet made action to change those examples of oppression, though I have a desire to. I feel like until I am 100% perfectly educated and calculated in my actions, I can’t start. Which is silly. I also think that means I have to do something big and incredible, which I believe I absolutely have the capacity to do, but I fail to give credit to the small actions I do every day to address oppression. I still have some anger and shame around the ancestors of mine who are white and some of the ignorant and discriminatory actions they did, as well as my affiliation with White people in general, because I am white. I do think that White people could make a lot of positive changes, and I’m beginning to understand that EVERYONE can make positive changes as well.

I am in the introspection stage of the Racial and Cultural Identity Development Model. Introspection stage is defined as “Anger lessens; emotions are less intense across the board; still some inner conflict” (Mio et al., 2016). I am learning and more often am able to neutralize my intense emotions about being a white person, a woman, a queer, a moderate liberal, an ex-Mormon, a middle-class person, etc. I definitely have more acceptance work to do, especially around my religious culture. I am no longer angry at myself for my ignorant beliefs and actions from my past, but I have a lot of work to still do before I believe that every race/culture has good AND bad features and that none is better than the other. I still hold judgement and anger towards cultures/groups of people that act on their own prejudices and hate or have different beliefs about the world than I do.

I am in the tolerance state of the Gay/Lesbian Identity Development model. Identity Tolerance stage is defined as “Fully recognizes his/her same-sex feelings but attempts to hide them from others and from him/herself; believes it’s a phase” (Mio et al., 2016). I’m just beginning to release the shame and guilt I held onto about my sexuality from years of conditioning from religion, parents, and conservative culture. I am not quite ready to tell the whole world about my sexuality because of fear of judgement, or fear that I could be wrong about myself. Am I just confused? Will this pass? I’m not sure yet, which is why I haven't taken public action yet. I have shared with close friends about my idea of my own sexuality, and I support LGBTQ+ rights and movements. In regard to my sexuality, I can confidently say I am not straight. As a child, I questioned a lot, but mostly went with the flow to avoid conflict with my parents about issues regarding religion. I also was definitely influenced by my environment to have prejudices regarding people of color, because they were such a minority group in my childhood world in Idaho and often associated with lower class, drug abuse, crime, etc. Being exposed to more people of diverse backgrounds has helped. Traveling across the country and throughout the world has helped.

Attending university and becoming more educated has helped. Learning to cultivate a sense of care, respect, and empathy has helped. All of these experiences, some hard but most good, have presented me with an opportunity to look at my uncomfortableness or lack of love and decide to change, learn, and grow. I’ve always been pretty open to change, and I do have a desire to be a good person, and to always be improving. I think through learning more in this class, I’ve realized that even though I may be more developed in my cultural competence than other people my same age, race, religion, or social class, I still have room to grow and change. I believe that I can, and I like to believe that other people can too.

I would love to come to a point in the next 5 years with my Race/Culture Identity and my European/American Identity where I no longer feel shame for my background or the past and present actions of my group. I’d like to release the anger as well. This will allow me to move onto the last stage in both identities, where there is more acceptance, love, knowledge, and positive actions towards my OWN group and other groups. My Gay/Lesbian Identity definitely is in the beginning stages, and sometimes I feel like a child when I’m learning how to work through my questions, problems, and stresses about being queer. I would like to grow to a point where I have clarity and confidence in my sexual identity and am able to be authentic in that way in all of my social and family relationships. The next stages are Acceptance, Pride, and Synthesis, and I think that my progression through those stages as I put in the work to improve my self-awareness and release of guilt, shame, and confusion will allow me to have a stronger and well-rounded sense of self, an improvement in my mental health, and feel safe and secure in my authenticity.

Through my participation in the Implicit Attitudes Test, or IAT, the results showed that I have a moderate automatic preference for European Americans. I was slightly surprised by my IAT test results, because it showed me having a "moderate" preference towards White people than towards Black people. I was hoping my results would show me having less of a bias towards White people, but I am white, and I grew up around White people, and I am still surrounded by White people, so that stimulus is familiar to me. It makes sense. I have many associations in my head with positive attributes and White people, because that is the environment in which I have most of my memories and experiences. I know I do not consciously hold negative prejudice's towards individuals who are not white, or who are not in my same social group memberships, because I have never felt ill towards these people, nor have I acted/behaved negatively towards them. That is why I was surprised to find my test results showing a more concrete affinity towards White people.

From the self-evaluation questions provided by the class curriculum my results show improvements from beginning to end of the course. My perceptions of discriminations were made broader, with education and exposure. Now, I have a pretty average amount of multicultural experiences, and I have a desire to have more kinds of these experiences going forward. I have an above average attitude towards diverse groups other than mine. My desire to explore my own culture is average, my affirmation to my culture is average, I have an average ethnic identity. I score high on empathy with my feelings and expression towards other ethnic cultures, discrimination, prejudices, emotions and experiences of diverse cultures. I score high on the empathetic perspective taking, because I want to understand other’s emotions and experiences. I score high on accepting cultural differences and empathetic awareness. I score very high on my personal beliefs of openness and acceptance to diversity, and I score high on my professional beliefs of openness and acceptance of diversity. I score average on color-blind racial ideation.

Through self-reflection and new knowledge, I learned that the environment I’ve lived in for the past 20 years is a specific way for a reason. I have the agency to not be that way, but those are my roots, and I should not ignore or fight their existence. I explored more about my shame/guilt around white culture and our history. I was exposed to more information about female, queer identities. I learned about my privilege as a white person an as an educated person. I realized that I’ve never thought of myself of an ethnic, unique, or diverse person. I’ve always seen myself and my culture as average, middle, bland, etc. nothing special. I learned that my experiences, my life, my childhood, my home are all unique to me and different than other’s – and that makes me diverse, unique, ethnic. There is so much to still discover about my identity, my ethnicity, and my own culture.

As a female, I was often pushed towards feminine things, activities, clothes, hobbies, colors, etc. I was told how I should look, act, and dress in order to be a “lady” and attract the male gaze, so that I may one day have a husband. Personally, I grew up finding the whole stereotype and female expectation as comical and silly, but that didn’t make it less loud in my ears. I was treated differently in male dominated environments, like the time when I worked at an all-boys summer camp on the east coast of the United States. I was one of just 5 female staff, while the rest of the 100+ staff team was males, and with all male minors attending the camp. I experienced sexism, misogyny, and catcalling. It was the first time I remember feeling a sense of being trapped in my own identity, and anger at those who treated me differently or poorly because of my sex. This experience has allowed me to empathize with others who experience oppression or discrimination. This experience has been important in the development of my allyship.

While learning about racism in America, I felt a great deal of negative emotions. I am able to empathize as much as I can with the characters media and anecdotes from real humans experiencing racism, even though I have never been a black person in America. I look at my own experiences where I’ve been treated unfairly, categorized, stereotyped, judged, discriminated, disrespected, and hurt. I try my hardest to imagine that pain multiplied by a lot, and then maybe I can get a glimpse into the Black American experience. Anger comes quickly after, for the injustice of it all. Quickly I realize that it’s an incredible feat of patience, maturity, and maybe even “biding time” for the Black American to not retaliate in a cloud of rage. How stiff and suffocating that must feel. I also fest shame, and guilt, for my whiteness, and the behaviors of my fellow white people and ancestors. I wonder if I would have acted the same in each of their situations (where they were being overtly racist) or if my thoughts on equality and love now are specific products of my 21’st century experience, where I am more educated, have access to more resources, diversity, and learning. Or am I just a better, morally just (white) person? Through exposure to more voices in media, I learned that I am not alone in my experiences with religious trauma, or trauma of any kind. I think it’s interesting that so many humans have similar experiences and psychological scars through different life contexts, situations, and childhood. Even different demographics of people can relate to each other in some ways. I was surprised by my feelings of relief as I listened to this ex-Mormon man talk about the pain he was experiencing, because it made me feel justified in my own pain. I have stereotypes and judgements towards very devout religious people (especially in the Mormon church), because I think they’re dense, ignorant, and unintelligent enough to ask questions or realize that something isn't right. This is largely because of the pain, anger, and sadness I have yet to work through, and that is how it projects itself. This man was very devout growing up, and he still came to a point where he changed his beliefs and his mind. It also is important for me to realize that everyone deserves respect and love despite what they believe or do not believe.

I now know the ways I can stop the racism cycle from continuing in my own head, and potentially in the heads of those I raise up in the future. I think a large part of our opinions and biases we hold are easily influenced by our parents, and our environment as we are children. What I teach my future kids will be important in continuing the progression of equal rights, and love for everyone. I learned a lot about history of the civil rights movement. There are intricate details and immensely purposeful action and planning from those fighting oppressions. Knowledge about the past mistakes we have made can help us live the present and the future in a more successful way.

I’m learning to develop the skill of asking more questions to different people about their early lives and childhoods, especially if I want to get to know them better and/or relate to them in some way, which grows relationships, community, and respect. I understand with more compassion the complex issue that drug addiction is, and how I can do things today to help end the stereotypes and assumptions that we as a society make about people who are struggling with addiction of any kind. My realizations are hopefully shared, and I’d love to be a part of the movement that changes the way society “deals with” drug abusers/addicts - instead of punishing and removing them from society, we can look towards a more healing-based action and treatment plan. My own experiences with drugs and addictions of other kinds helps me relate and empathize with these people, but it’s definitely not necessary to take a more respectful approach to solutions like this. I love using the skills I’ve learned to actively participate in learning experiences like this one. I’ve learned to ask myself more questions, take time to reflect and develop self-awareness, and make conversations about the subject with other people. These skills are becoming more natural to me as time goes on, and I'm hopeful for the future and what else I can learn as I continue to be educated and grow intellectually and emotionally. Multicultural competence is for everyone, not just therapists and psychologist. Anyone can become competent in this area through education, training, experience, and practice.

Cultivating a sense of curiosity, discovery, and openness can help make the unfamiliar more familiar, aid the process of working through discomfort and anxiety, and sustain life outside of our comfort zone. I know that most of my behaviors, beliefs, biases, attitudes, and other behaviors that block me from growing in multicultural competence are merely biological responses. Whether unconscious or conscious, these responses are designed to protect me. I don’thave to be hard on myself for my past mistakes or behaviors, but I can choose to recognize this and begin to have more self-mastery and agency.