The art of unmasking racism with White clinicians: From bystander to upstander

Abstract

ABSTRACT Racism has been woven into the fabric of American life for centuries, and social work practice is not immune to its pernicious effects. Recently, the field has acknowledged the need for White clinicians to become more culturally competent, leading to anti-racism training that attempts to address and acknowledge privilege and biases that interfere with providing ethical and just services. This paper examines reactions to anti-racism training in multi-racial group settings, identifies the absence of trauma-informed practices in such trainings, and proposes separate anti-racism training for different racial groups incorporating expressive art and journaling as an effective method to educate White clinicians.