Cultural Immersion: Racial Issues

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Introduction

Cultural immersion plays an integral role when addressing sociocultural issues. It is the process of immersing oneself in a culture other than one’s own to learn about that population (Patallo, 2019). Cultural immersion substantially expands a person’s intellect to gain a more in-depth awareness and comprehension of their environment and how it affects their skills as a counsellor. For example, the mass incarceration of African Americans is greatly influenced by cultural beliefs and traditions (Taylor et al., 2019). Based on this, therapists who deal with psychological issues caused by racism should start by understanding the history and use the information obtained to develop solutions. Therefore, there is a need for social workers, therapists and others involved in solving social issues to understand different cultures.

Description of The Documentary

The documentary “The 13^th” by Ava DuVernay, talks about the history of racial inequality in the US prison system. Individuals’ views and experiences of the world are greatly influenced by their culture, beliefs, and tradition. The documentary presents pertinent but frustrating facts on systematic racism, which is not addressed nearly as frequently as DuVernay and the interviewees would want (DuVernay, 2020). Throughout the program, she interviewed academics, lawyers, researchers, and politicians for comments on why the system is the way it is now, addressing its underlying concerns. Although the US has tried to end racism, it is still ingrained in the system. The documentary also explains the cause of mass incarceration and racism in the US and how culture has supported its existence. Therefore, culture plays an integral role in managing racism.

Why I Chose This Experience and How It Impacted Me Emotionally

I selected this documentary because it talks about racism and mass incarceration in the US, which has adversely impacted many people. This event reveals that each culture has perceptions and beliefs that impact people’s lives, policies developed, and relationships fostered. Due to culture, some whites believed that they were the only human beings (DuVernay, 2020). This has led to the development of a system against African American community. For example, in the existing criminal justice system, one out of four African-American males will serve prison time at one point or another in their lives. People of color are likely to suffer due to racism. In addition, the documentary has shown that the history and culture that whites were subjected to are to blame for all the predicaments caused by racism.

In the program, culture was presented as one of the issues affecting the attainment of a racism-free society. It was hurting to discover that there are people who continue to suffer from racism due to cultural beliefs and orientation. For example, many African American males are in prison or suffering because the system does not act in their favor (DuVernay, 2020). This means that people are likely to suffer in silence since they lack faith in the criminal justice system. Furthermore, the increasing bias and discrimination make it harder for those struggling to talk openly and ask for help. Therefore, it is unfortunate that the culture, which is supposed to improve people’s lives, is now a barrier to living a quality life.

The Impact On My Ability to Encompass Cultural Competence in Counseling

Cultural competency helps therapists to achieve good outcomes for a variety of clients. Developing cultural competency as a counsellor is a significant skill that necessitates training and education (Patallo, 2019). These experiences will be useful in my profession as a social worker when dealing with clients who have faced racism as well as those who have other social problems. Because each client comes from a distinct background, it is important to comprehend the many aspects of the people who have come for help as a therapist. Although the clients may appear to be similar, especially if they have comparable concerns, knowing their diverse cultures improve the provision of quality care.

The other way the experience has influenced my profession to include cultural competency in outselling is to increase open-mindedness, particularly about various cultures, and not discount diverse cultures to the patient. This helped increase my understanding of the influence critical in counseling and attaining positive outcomes (Patallo, 2019). The counselor should engage in cultural exchange regularly to develop cultural competency, which may involve a variety of values, beliefs, and backgrounds. In addition, encouraging others to embrace cultural immersion experiences will inspire them to learn and discover the negative impact of culture. Thus, with the information from the program, I have increased my understanding of the negative impact of cultural beliefs and traditions on racism.

The Impact of the Experience On My Ability to Encompass Cultural Humility Professionally

The experience increased my desire to learn more about cultural beliefs that could impact an individual’s perception and understanding of racism. It shows that cultures are distinct and should be treated differently (Patallo, 2019). It is also important to understand those variations regarding racism to develop an appropriate solution. I discovered the need to increase my knowledge of all the cultures, especially on the beliefs and traditions that might increase the prevalence of racism. For example, since not all cultural values are wrong, it is important to conduct extensive research to determine the ones that can be used when handling issues related to biases, and discrimination, especially in the US criminal justice system. Therefore, I need to increase my knowledge of different cultures to respond to my clients professionally.

The experience also informed me of the importance of self-assessment in the profession of helping people who have suffered or propagated racism. I am supposed to start by evaluating how my attitudes, socialization, and beliefs affect my impressions and relationships with people who are ethnically, socially, and culturally distinct from me. Many of the exams are part of my professional education and training (Patallo, 2019). Throughout the process, certified behavioral health practitioners and paraprofessionals are given a lot of help. Most healthcare practitioners want to make sure that race, education, language, and societal issues are considered to ensure that they can prevent misdiagnosis and offer the correct care in the right manner.

How This Experience Changed My Worldview of Oppression, Discrimination, Power, Or Privilege

Drawing the video, I discovered that oppression and discrimination emanating from culture are real. The experience has taught me how to use my status and expertise to understand and tackle social oppression, discrimination, power, and privilege. I learned that I should be able to teach a client a technique that allows them to fit into social constructions during the counselling process. To address multi-cultural challenges, I should offer training to improve appropriate cultural action, attitude, and aptitude, which clients can utilize to combat societal disparities. There are privileges that the whites enjoy that African Americans do not because they belong to different races. As a result, culture is one of the sources of oppression and discrimination that individuals experience as they embrace the existing cultural values and beliefs.

I now understand the role of power in developing appropriate strategies intended to address the impact of culture on racism. The documentary shows that culture has contributed to the prevalence of race-based discrimination in the US (DuVernay, 2020). Legislators can create laws to protect people, especially those in the minority groups such as African Americans, from racism. In addition, government officials can closely work with community leaders to ensure that no one is stigmatized due to their race. For example, they can organize public awareness activities to create a favorable environment for people to seek help whenever required. Therefore, power is an important tool that can eliminate barriers to attaining a racism-free society.

Social Justice Advocacy

The first strategy is to incorporate multicultural competency courses to fill a vacuum in attention to culturally competent counseling abilities. It is simple to integrate attention to advocacy needs, strategies, and challenges into established tasks like case assessments centered on Multi-Cultural Counseling Therapy and personal reflections on becoming a therapist (Swartz et al., 2018). This gives students a more comprehensive activity for creating ethical practices. Based on this, it is also suggested that course names be carefully reviewed, emphasizing the significance of understanding different cultures in advocacy. As a result, in schools, it is important to ensure that students understand cultural values and traditions that negatively impact their ability to foster a racism-free environment.

The second strategy is to integrate reflective practices in learning institutions. Reflective activities increase self-awareness and the processing of learning opportunities. These can be short articles or audio or video recordings in which students share their opinion, sentiments, thoughts, and concerns as they process new information and experiences (Swartz et al., 2018). For example, students can write their autobiographies and then debate injustice, privilege, and power as a strategy to enhance learning. Counselor educators can then have students rewrite their autobiographies to include these new variables and have them compare and contrast the two. Students could also create a biography for someone from another culture or conduct an interview with someone from a different culture, religion, race, sexual orientation, or socioeconomic level.

The third strategy is to engage social workers who understand the impact of culture on attaining a racism-free society as guest speakers in the school. The intention is to raise students’ understanding of the conditions and resources of their cultures (Swartz et al., 2018). In addition, the goal is for the individual to highlight a need or injustice in the community that can be brought to the learners’ attention. This could include their immediate reaction to the facts after investigating the issue, their strategy for applying this new knowledge, and what can be done to help or advocate for this issue (Swartz et al., 2018). Positive learning events that promote knowledge of privilege and oppression have been recognized as guest speakers, case vignettes, and videos.

Conclusion

Cultural immersion is integral because it helps a therapist and social workers address the issue of racism effectively. However, after watching the video, I realized that an individual’s culture could have a negative impact on their attainment of wellness. For example, cultural beliefs and history had profiled whites as superior and African Americans as inferior human beings. Based on this, people of color continue to suffer through imprisonment and torture from the police. Therefore, therapists need to understand the values and beliefs of a different culture to make informed decisions when addressing the issue.

References

DuVernay, A.V. (2020). 13th | Full Feature | Netflix [Documentary]. YouTube. Web.

Patallo, B. J. (2019). The multi-cultural guidelines in practice: Cultural humility in clinical training and supervision. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 13(3), 227. Web.

Swartz, M. R., Limberg, D., & Gold, J. (2018). How exemplar counselor advocates develop social justice interest: A qualitative investigation. Counselor Education and Supervision, 57(1), 18-33.

Taylor, E., Guy-Walls, P., Wilkerson, P., & Addae, R. (2019). The historical perspectives of stereotypes on African-American males. Journal of Human Rights and Social Work, 4(3), 213-225.

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