The Challenge of Racial Difference: Skills for Clinical Practice

Race continues to have significant--some times volatile--effects on personal relationships, both in society at large and in professional practice. This reality often surprises and disappoints well-intentioned social workers, many of whom have worked actively for civil rights. Although much progress has been made over the past three decades, serious problems and inequities remain. And just as racial injustice continues to negatively affect the plight of minorities in society, racial tensions continue to impede professional helping endeavors. This article explores societal factors that contribute to the intrusion of race on personal relationships and identifies three concerns that clients experience about working with racially dissimilar practitioners. Case examples illustrate how these concerns are typically mishandled by practitioners and demonstrate how workers can effectively handle those concerns in ways constructive to the helping endeavor. Social Context of Race A number of factors contribute to the sustainment of race as a salient issue for practice. First, minority groups of color are growing faster than the white American population. During the 1980s the African American population grew by 13 percent, the Native American population by 38 percent, the Hispanic population by 53 percent, and the Asian population by 107 percent (Barringer, 1991). In 1980 one in five Americans was nonwhite; by the end of the century, one of three Americans is expected to be nonwhite (Davis, Haub, & Willette, 1983). As America becomes more diverse, the likelihood that practitioner and client will be of different racial backgrounds increases each year. Second, despite the growth in their numbers, nonwhites continue to be largely segregated from whites and from mainstream America (Farley, 1991). Although illegal, racial segregation in employment, housing, and education is still more the rule than the exception (Dewart, 1991; Wilson, 1987). By and large whites and nonwhites continue to go to different schools, live in different neighborhoods, attend different churches, and socialize in different pans of the city. Because they live in different worlds, some argue that racial groups have different worldviews (Sue, 1981). When minority and majority populations do interact, the toll of segregation is apparent in their personal relationships. Those who live separately neither know nor understand each other; in turn, they do not trust one another. White people, in particular, know very little about the social realities of nonwhite cultures. Many white practitioners have virtually no meaningful contact with minorities before seeing them as clients. Although schools of social work provide students with content on minority groups, that exposure is too often superficial and abstract (Proctor & Davis, 1983). Knowledge of the cultural nuances of a people depends on meaningful personal interactions. Thus, cross-racial professional interactions are hampered by the pervasiveness of segregation and separation in society. Third, historically and at present, majority--minority relationships in the United States are negatively charged. Throughout U.S. history, contact between white and nonwhite groups has been fraught with injustice and exploitation, typically on the part of whites toward nonwhites (Cunningham, 1930a, 1930b; Daniels, 1971; Daniels & Kitano, 1970; Ginsburg, 1962). Awareness of this social--political legacy leaves both groups uncomfortable discussing race. Each fears that acknowledging race and its effects will arouse anger or ill will in the other. In particular, nonwhite people often fear renewed rejection from white people, and white people fear some form of racial retaliation or "reverse discrimination" from nonwhites. Of course, as the economic status of most minority groups and African Americans in particular continues to deteriorate, racial hostility and degradation are perpetuated (Dewart, 1991; Wilson, 1987). …