Section 4: Multicultural Perspectives
One of the ways I've demonstrated my multicultural awareness is through an ink drawing that I made in response to Luis Alberto Urrea's book, "The Devil's Highway." The book tells the story of a deadly border-crossing gone wrong where 14 people died. This drawing attempts to capture the experience of those humans - a line of men walking into a desolate landscape. This book and my art attempt to describe the terrible lengths that people will go in the name of hope. This experience reminded me that acts of desparation are caused by hopelessness. Through this artwork, I try to illustrate my concern both for the migrant experience and for the lack of empathy that society shows for it.
My reflection paper on intersectionality serves as a testament to my competency as a future counselor with a well-developed multicultural perspective. In this paper, I candidly explore the various aspects of my own identity and how they intersect, acknowledging both the privileges and challenges that come with them. Through this exploration, I attempted to understand my own biases and how they might impact my work as a counselor.
I recognize and honor the wide disparity in opportunity and privilege in our society. I also acknowledge that as a white male, much of that privilege is readily available to me. In all honesty, I do not know exactly how we can eliminate this disparity but I do think it begins with human connection, which in turn begins with the admonition that we can never truly understand someone else’s experience.
As a counselor I want cultivate human connection and help people feel less alone in a society that alienates so many. In my community I see many communities that are underserviced and I hope to cater to that need.
Final Synthesis Paper
David Miller
Southwestern College
Elia Khalaf
March 12, 2022
This course began with a look into our intersectionality, and so that is where this paper will begin as well. First, the basics: I am a white, American, man. This is my baseline, and because of the position of power that it comes from, it is not something I have to consider very often. I view my baseline as the standard for the rest of the world. If someone was to tell me there was a person in their front yard with no other qualifiers or descriptions I would assume they were describing a white American man. That is a huge part of my privilege. If I ever became a surgeon, people would describe me as just a surgeon. I wouldn’t be a female surgeon or Korean surgeon or a black surgeon. But just a surgeon. And that is probably why these are the parts of my culture that have the least amount of weight for me. They are the last things I would use to describe myself because, in my biased subconscious, they describe everyone.
The other parts of my intersectional culture can be divided into two groups. First are the parts that I have a certain amount of pride in. These are what set me apart from others in my mind and they are what I use to identify my community. First I live in a rural area. I am different from those who live in cities. And I like it that way. I have easy access to nature, I am rarely surrounded by crowds, and I have a feeling of independence that comes from providing many of my necessities. I also love the outdoors. I fish, ski, kayak, climb, backpack, and much more. This gives me a certain affinity towards anyone else who also enjoys the outdoors. Finally, I have an education beyond a high school degree. This is one that I try to be modest about and to check my biases, but a quick survey shows that almost all my friends also have at least a bachelor's degree. So clearly this is also a large part of my intersectionality.
The second group is the aspects of myself that I do not share as openly. These are things that, whether I like it or not, bring me some degree of shame. The first of these is the fact that I am bisexual. This is not something I share with everyone I meet. I have been in a committed relationship with a woman for almost a decade so most people just assume that I am heterosexual. My parents are open-minded by the standards of their generation, but my dad’s latent homophobia was still apparent to me as a teenager. I think that is when I developed the understanding that anything besides heterosexuality was something to hide. This is something I am trying to work on, but part of that is being honest with where I am now. The other part of my identity that I hide is that my parents are wealthy. Or at least that they are assumed to be wealthy by anyone who finds out that they are both doctors. My parent's actual financial situation is far more complicated than just being wealthy but people tend to assume I was born with a silver spoon where the sun doesn’t shine when they learn what my parents do for work. So, I tend not to advertise it.
Besides these two main groups, countless other parts of my identity fall somewhere in the middle. I am a partner in a relationship that has lasted longer than most marriages, I am a recovering drug addict and I am a self-declared sci-fi and fantasy nerd. These things and many more make up the larger picture of who I am and how I identify. And they dictate many different aspects of my life.
One aspect of my life that my intersectionality impacts are the people who I wish to serve. The people that I see need help and I believe I can assist. For me, there are two main groups that I hope to be an ally to. Both of which are largely dictated by where I live. The first is the Nee-me-poo, or Nez Perce, tribe. This is the tribe whose historic land I have spent much of my life living on and exploring. They are a prominent part of the central Idahoan community and from what I have learned they are seriously underserviced when it comes to mental health and social services. I have the understanding that working within the tribe can be hard to do for an outsider but it is something I am passionate about and hope to accomplish someday.
The other group around me that is underserviced when it comes to mental health is conservative men. In my area, they are usually white or Hispanic, and to many of them, therapy is too taboo to even consider. I know that men, especially white men, are not often seen as being underrepresented or unempowered and I think that it is exactly that idea that has kept them from getting mental health care. I believe that many of the men living in places like central Idaho are far removed from any privileges that may usually come with their gender or ethnicity. They have little to no access to education or well-paying jobs. Many of them struggle to feed and house themselves and their families and they are expected by their communities to handle these stresses with very few support systems. Addiction and suicide rates are incredibly high in rural areas and I hope that I can help to destigmatize the services that can combat that.
The concepts I covered this quarter were all things that I consider in some way to be opposites. Binary versus spectrum in regards to sexuality is definitively oppositional. By their definitions, binary and spectrum have entirely antithetical meanings. Other concepts, however, proved more difficult to parse out. Empowerment versus saving for example are easy to distinguish when they are at their extremes, but there are many situations where the line becomes blurred. The question of how best to help someone, with or without a disability, is an incredibly complicated one. And I don’t believe there is any formula or directive that could give someone a definitive answer to this. All we can hope to do is to be compassionate and open-minded and to avoid making assumptions about the needs or wants of others whenever possible.
Another concept that I found difficult to distinguish from its’ ‘opposite’ was religion versus spirituality. These are two concepts that I used to think of as the same but have grown to believe have a more complicated relationship. I think that someone can be spiritual without being religious if they believe that the universe is larger and more mysterious than can be explained but do not adhere to any one religion. And I have certainly met religious individuals who are somehow so dogged in their views that I would never describe them as spiritual. But, to be honest I still have a hard time even defining these terms. If nothing else, I have come to learn how little I know about either topic.
The strengths cards were perhaps the most difficult for me. I have a hard time identifying my strengths. My mind tends to point out the drawbacks of anything I might label as a positive attribute. But maybe that is a strength in and of itself. The list of personal strengths I have is adaptability, skepticism, awareness, and the desire for self-expansion. Reviewing this list I am pleased both with its accuracy and its positivity. Again, it is not easy for me to talk myself up so I am proud to have come up with these. The one I appreciate the most is my desire for self-expansion. I think that if I had nothing else going for me and I still had the drive to grow then I would be alright.
When it comes to exemplars in my life there is a wide variety of people with vastly different characteristics. There are many people I respect without necessarily wanting to emulate in any way. Some common traits of people I do try to mirror are empathy, compassion, self-awareness, confidence, and modesty. For me, these are the traits that allow someone to help others. Empathy and compassion grant the desire to help. Self-awareness prevents accidental harm when intending to help. And confidence and modesty allow for perseverance in the face of adversity. The work of helping others is not easy and requires mental fortitude. But it also requires a balance. I must care about others but not so much that their pain drags me down. I must believe I can help them but must avoid hubris. And most of all I must love myself enough to have some love left to give others.
The topic of multicultural awareness is nearly comprised entirely of unfinished edges. There are very few questions on this topic that I could give a confident answer to, and the number of questions I can answer seems to be dwindling daily. It seems that the only way to speak confidently about people other than myself is to use the broadest most general statements possible. I can say people want to be treated well and people do not want to be treated poorly. But, beyond that there are no certainties. What good treatment looks like for one person is entirely different for someone else. I could say that one should always ask people how they want to be treated, but in many cases, the act of admitting ignorance is enough to cause pain. There are no certainties when it comes to our interactions with the rest of our species. Maybe that itself is the only certainty.
While no topic is clear some are more opaque than others for me. These are usually the topics that are associated with the highest levels of emotion in our society. Topics like race, gender, and sexuality. And when it comes to these topics the questions I am struggling with usually revolve around how we should all treat each other. How do I refer to people with dark skin? How do I ask someone their pronouns without offending them? And is there any way to ask someone what country their ancestors are from without coming across as racist? I’m not sure that anyone can answer these questions, except in regards to themselves. And maybe that’s the point. We cannot truly know anyone other than ourselves, so we cannot ever guarantee we can avoid hurting someone else. Maybe the fact that at any point we could hurt another person without intending it is just part of being human.