Running head: A JOURNEY TO MULTICULTURAL COMPETENCE

A Journey To Multicultural Competence

Melissa McCurry
Wake Forest University

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Abstract
Ones racial identity is formed through a lifetime of observation, experience, and exposure to
other cultures, races, and religions. This paper will explore how my childhood in the American
South and a father who stayed in the initial phases of racial identity development until pushed by
his adult children to change, formed my current racial/cultural identity. Through an exploration
of current literature and a comparison to older writings on multicultural counseling, I seek to
explain how I developed my current identity. I also examine how my increased exposure to
diverse cultures nurtured a healthier racial/cultural identity than that of my father who had
primarily negative experiences with people of color. In order to find relevant articles, I used a
keyword search within PsycInfo and ERIC through the Z. Smith Reynolds Library.
keywords: multicultural counseling, racial identity, culture sensitivity, White
consciousness, multicultural competence

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I entered in to this course with an idea that I am not at all racist, inherently or otherwise. I
have come to believe that we all have an inherent bias towards our own race. That does not
mean that we should rest within that bias, it means we should acknowledge it in order to move
past it. I had also become ashamed of the racial divide in our country, as though we are the only
ones facing the issue. Nothing could be farther from the truth. All over the world cultural wars
are waged every day. We still see genocide in 2014. That is overwhelmingly tragic. In as many
ways as we have grown and learned from our past, in others we fail to see that we are fighting
battles as old as the crusades, as old as man.
I have struggled these last few weeks to understand why I have felt a constant discomfort.
I have decided it is because I am being made to process issues that are so very emotional in us
all. At the beginning of this journey I thought I knew who I was on racial and cultural issues. I
have always been the bleeding heart Liberal in my family. This is a term I first heard my
family use to describe me around age 10. I couldnt have understood what that really meant then,
an insult. I went through a period, as a teenager where I really thought who I was couldnt be
right. I hated the way my father, uncles, and cousins sounded when they said the N word.
Again, I didnt understand its meaning exactly but I knew that one was pure ignorance and hate.
Those are two things I have never been able to understand or tolerate. How could I be so
different on anything that elicited such a strong reaction from those I love? I thought my liberal,
sensitive nature was something to be ashamed of, something to keep hidden.
Racism and bigotry has always been for me, an expression of ignorance and hate. I
internalized that visceral reaction to racism as a young child. I think that is why reading articles
like Helms, Toward a theoretical explanation of the effects of Race on counseling: A Black and
White model elicited such a negative reaction. It felt as if she was saying I am White therefor I

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must be racist. This issue is current in our society as much today as it must have felt in the height
of the Civil Rights Movement. That thought is tough for me. I want to live in my naivet that
things are better now. I know this because I have Black Friends, Laotian, Filipino, etc. or I
dont see color. I truly thought those statements were a reflection of my hatred and disgust for
racist attitudes. So, to read these articles, which tell me that is wrong and offensive, is tough.
They called into question everything I thought I was doing right. After all, if you asked my
daughter, at 6, to describe one of her favorite school friends she used every adjective except one
to denote color. She didnt do this because it was politically correct, but because it was how her
childlike innocence allowed her to see the world. I find that beautiful. So, while I do understand
that to be color-blind is to negate someones cultural identity, I still hold the innocence of the
sentiment out as an ideal. Shouldnt we do as Dr. King implored when he proclaimed, "I have a
dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by
the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
I have faced down this issue in my life since I was a teenager. One of the first times I
risked a family war over race was when I was in seventh grade. At 12 years old, my bedroom
was decorated with the pictures of friends more than anything else. My cousin was visiting and
we were playing in my room when he saw a picture of me with one of my best friends from
Kindergarten, Shawn. Shawn is Black. My cousin wanted to know why a N** had his arm
around me. I saw red. I didnt understand why he cared who my friend was. It had never dawned
on me that anyone thought Shawn and I couldnt be friends. We played soccer, swam on the
swim team together, and had been in the same class since our first year in school. Shawn was
never my Black friend. He was my friend, Shawn. Hearing that hatred from someone in my
family who I loved was scary and confusing. Even so, I couldnt stop being friends with Shawn

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and I couldnt avoid my cousin at age 12. So I decided that Scott was just ignorant. I had heard
that word enough to understand exactly what it meant too and I hated the thought.
When I was in high school some of my best friends were dating boys who belonged to a
group of Laotian friends. This meant I spent a large amount of time with that group. By that time
I was much more aware of the reaction it elicited for people to see a group of White girls with a
group of Asian boys. Over time I moved through every stage of fear, anger, confusion, and
hatred of the people who glared at us or commented loudly about us. We heard them called gang
members, and every racial slur imaginable. We even heard the names given to us for being
around them. I dont say any of this to say I understand what it is to be a minority or to have
been routinely discriminated against. What I do understand are the feelings of fear when walking
into a room with my homosexual brother and his partner. Is someone going to hurt them, or me
for being with them? Could any of this happen in front of my young children? I also know how I
felt when my Filipino boyfriend was pulled over for driving my car. The officer walked up with
his gun drawn though John wasnt speeding and there was nothing visibly wrong with the car.
He started to say he wanted to search it until he saw that it was my car and I was there by choice.
He didnt become civil; he just seemed to shift his aggression towards John as a perceived
criminal to the two of us as breaking his rules. The only thing scarier than that moment was
when my father found out I was dating John.
I knew my father would explode if I ever dated an African American boy but I think I
really believed he didnt feel that way about all minorities. I was shocked when he got angry and
tried to tell me I had to end it. I was a 21 year old entering her senior year in college! I was hurt
and very angry. I hated him in that moment. I hated everything he believed in and everything he
was. My father was raised in 1950s Rocky Mount, N.C., not the hotbed for racial harmony. He

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had a father who told him he couldnt go to college because he wasnt allowed. My grandfather
thought my dad only wanted to go because he wanted to better than him. Actually that is exactly
what he wanted but that didnt mean he didnt love him. It meant he had already seen a different
world than his father had at the same age. Just as I had Black friends in school from preschool
age whereas my father never attended an integrated public school. As a child I was able to
experience an environment where we were all the same. We all played sports together outside of
school, giggled together at third grade humor, and signed each others casts as crazy energetic
kids.
My father placed an enormous value on education because of the exchange with his
father. He seemed to have vowed that day to prove something to his father about always trying to
improve yourself. He spent 8 years putting himself through school by working a semester to have
the money to pay for the next. He instilled that value in my brother and in me. We were expected
to be small, polite, well-behaved adults at the age 5. Misbehaving or being noisy in public was
simply not acceptable. We were to be courteous and civil at all times. Ignorance was not to be
tolerated. In fact, I had a hard time because my brother was referred to as smart while I was told I
was pretty. It meant, to me, that I was less than Jon. Some part of me still believes that message.
I mention that to point out that the messages children receive are internalized for life if never
countered. Children are not born with hate or fear. They learn these reactions from the adults
around them.
I think it is because my parents had such a strict code that it always shocked me to see the
racist side of my fathers temper. It was the opposite of the way we were expected to behave.
Again, it scared and confused me to hear him like that. I think I knew, even as a child, it took
him back to being the ignorant, manic-depressive, white trash redneck he considered his father

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to be and fiercely feared becoming himself. It is important to understand that though I knew my
grandfather to be some of these things, I loved him intensely, with a childs ability to see past our
flaws and love innocently. Any situation that involved my family and race scared me. This
course has stirred a lot of that up for me. What I realize now, however, is that we have to work
through the things that scare and confuse us. We have to confront those monsters in the closet or
they continue to have power over us.
I had to choose so many times where to draw the line with racist or bigoted attitudes. My
father threatened to miss my college graduation because my Filipino boyfriend would be there.
He also disowned his son, declaring him dead when he found out that his son is gay. My brother,
Jon, lived a lie until he was 30 years old because he had grown up with that level of bigotry. He
was, in fact, the most homophobic person you can imagine when he was in college. I could have
told you when I was 13 that Jon was gay. When he finally admitted it to himself, he moved from
North Carolina to Oklahoma so that he could live without fear of our familys reaction. That
Christmas he arrived home weighing 105 pounds at 58, popping pills, and bouncing off the
walls according to both of my parents who picked him up at the airport. I didnt see him that
night but it was bad enough that it scared my parents. My mother knew about Jons
homosexuality at this point but Dad did not. He assumed Jon was on drugs and decided to search
his luggage. Instead of drugs he found a picture of Jon and the first boyfriend he had ever had.
The photo was not elicit but was clear in what it meant. My father went into a blind rage and left
home in the middle of the night. When my brother returned to the house and found out what had
happened, he left in a rage too, boarding a plane back to Oklahoma. The real reason Jon looked
so bad was that his first boyfriend had been killed in a fiery car crash as a result of driving while
high on cocaine. Jon was on the brink of collapse and then this happens when his father finds out

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he is gay. I thought my family was over. It was one of the worst times for us, and that is truly
saying something considering some of the other things we have faced.
I share all these things to explain why this course has meant so much to me. It has taken
me full circle. It has allowed me to finally process the terrible things that I have seen as a result
of racism and bigotry. It has increased my ability to empathize with a minority client. I thought I
was already at this point but I have opened my eyes wider on so many things in my graduate
education journey. Even my father has moved from an Avoidant stage of identity towards a
Conflictive stage. At the Avoidant stage, which espouse attitudes that race doesnt matter, he
thought he simply disliked his poor tenants because they were lazy or destructive. He didnt
acknowledge that he was biased to see them that way solely on the virtue of skin color. He is
moving towards the Conflictive stage where he does seem more open to the injustices minorities
endure but is still overtly pro-White. He does grow when faced with exposure to cognitive
dissonance. He loves his son but hated his sexuality, seeing it as a choice. He was also scared for
what it meant for Jon. In his time, gay meant dead. However, he wanted Jon home four days after
the blowup. He now sees the reality of Jons life. He has the best job he has ever had, owns a
beautiful home, and is obviously happier than he has ever been. My father cannot argue with
those facts. My brother and his partner now spend every birthday and holiday with us, we spend
weekends together as a family, and we even took a seven day cruise without incident this year.
My father has even tempered his attitude toward African Americans a bit as well. He will now
freely tell you the best doctor he has ever seen is not only Black, but also a Woman, as if to
say, Can you believe it? I hate that he is still so shocked by that but I realize that it is a far cry
from his attitude during my childhood. I also realize that even though I have had so many diverse
cultural exposures, he has still had very few and even those were primarily negative for him. The

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apartment complexes he owns have always been primarily minority, in low-income areas. He
was raised in the poorest section of Rocky Mount, on the wrong side of the tracks so to speak.
Most of his experiences with people of color were born out of bad tenant interactions or
neighborhood altercations. He saw that people of color destroyed his property, skipped out on
rent, and disturbed everyone with loud music.
As compared to my experiences, it is a little easier to understand that his attitudes were
also born out of fear and confusion, just as mine had been. I was about to become engaged to a
guy I had dated off and on for years when he brought up a friend of mine who was involved in an
abusive relationship with one of the Laotian guys we had known since high school. He made a
hateful, racist comment that amounted to saying that my friend shouldnt expect better for dating
a chink. I decided that very moment I could never marry someone like him. I couldnt stomach
raising my children with someone who could believe such a thing. I walked away from the
person I fully intended to spend my life with because I couldnt spend my adult life as I had my
childhood. Nor, I understood, could I bring children into the world hearing hate from their father
as I always had. I understand personally that there are 2 types of responses to hearing that hate as
a young child. You become that hate, as my father did, or you vow to be the opposite, as I did.
Having been raised in the south I have always been exposed to racial speech and
attitudes. When I was a child my father had very negative racial attitudes, and used the N word
constantly to describe the tenants in his apartment complexes. Usually, he used this term in
response to someone who had damaged an apartment, failed to pay rent, or left an apartment in
deplorable condition. Even as a very young child I hated that word even before I could have
possibly understood its true meaning. I recognized it as hate coming from a man I loved and
admired. I also had a childhood friend from Kindergarten who is Black and I knew Dad was

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talking about him in some way. As I entered my teenage years I remember telling him I never
wanted to hear that word again. He did not stop initially, but over time he knew I was serious
because I would leave the room, confront him, or show some other negative reaction to its use.
I should also mention that years later I dated a man who was Cuban/Italian. My father did
not seem to have a real problem with this. I never figured out if this was because he saw him as
more European and that was somehow acceptable or it was because of my earlier experience in
bi-racial dating. I have also dated African American men, which my father never knew. My best
friend was married to a Black man and my father reacted so viscerally that I knew we could not
weather that situation.
In examining my position on the continuum of racial/cultural identity, I found myself
struggling with Helms model of White racial identity. Instead, I prefer the ideas presented
within Rowe, Bennett, and Atkinsons White Racial Consciousness Model. It is concerned with
the differential socialization that people experience because of their socioracial classification.
The developmental issue for Whites focuses on the abandonment of entitlement in the quest for a
healthy, nonracist identity. (Behrens, LaFleur, & Leach, 2002) I like this model better because it
acknowledges that experience and exposure are central to our racial identity formation, whereas I
felt that Helms concentrates too heavily on an intrinsic belief system. I also reacted very
negatively to Helms model because I felt she was too focused on Whites attitudes towards
Blacks as opposed to a more all-inclusive cultural model.
The White racial consciousness model attempts to identify the commonly held
constellations of attitudes and attempts to determine which, if any, best characterize the racial
attitudes held by White individuals. (Behrens, LaFleur, & Leach, 2002) I particularly like this
model because it acknowledges a collection of attitudes. Using this model I would have to say

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that I move between Integrative, pragmatic, positive racial attitudes, and Reactive, strong prominority attitudes. (Behrens, LaFleur, & Leach, 2002)
The position is taken that attitudes are most frequently acquired through observational
learning, are rather impervious to verbal persuasion, and, subject to situational influences, tend to
result in intentions that guide observable behaviors. (Bandura, 1986) It is thought that the
attitudes of Whites toward people of color are acquired in the same manner as other attitudes and
that they most often change as a result of either direct or vicarious experience that is inconsistent
or in conflict with previous attitudes. (Behrens, LaFleur, & Leach, 2002) This passage speaks to
my personal experience in forming a racial identity. I watched my fathers bigotry as opposed to
my mothers open-mindedness. She was a teacher in a predominately minority school. The
children that she loved were Black, Asian, and Hispanic. In fact she even taught a family of
Hmong children in the late eighties. My fathers attitudes have improved slightly now that I am
running his apartments for him and refuse to allow him to use negative speech around my
children or me. He also surprised me a few years ago by declaring the best doctor he has ever
seen is an African American woman. His exposure to her seems to have tempered him somewhat
as well. His previous experiences with people of color had been limited to the tenants he had
problems with and thus allowed him to form only negative opinions. In contrast, most of my
negative racially related experiences came at the hands of a White person judging my
relationships with people of color.
In my adult life I interact with other races and cultures both professionally and socially.
The apartment complex my family owns, and I run, is predominantly minority. Out of 110 units I
currently only have 11 units occupied by White tenants. This is primarily a function of the town
where the apartments are located. Roanoke Rapids, NC is a small rural town in Northern North

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Carolina. The towns population is predominantly African American. It was initially a shock to
me how my husband, Tim, and I were received when we first started working there four years
ago. The tenants were very distrustful and even hostile towards us before having worked with us
on any issue. It was disheartening but now I am able to see that most of their interactions with
White people in authority had been very negative. Slowly but surely, they came to trust us and
things became much better. The previous property manager and maintenance manager were
openly racist and mistreated tenants daily. Tim and I try very hard not to dictate to our tenants
but rather to work together with them to solve issues whenever possible. Of course there are still
problems, which arise out of the landlord-tenant relationship, but I think most of our tenants
realize we expect the same of ourselves no matter who we are assisting. I will say that being in
the town is hard sometimes because those residents have not worked with us and instead simply
see a White face. It is evident the negative reactions they have to us some days.
The organization where I volunteer, Interact, provides domestic violence and sexual
assault advocacy, shelter, and support services. Our clients are predominantly minority, mostly
African American and Hispanic. On any given day, I may see as many as 6 clients from 6
different religious, racial, or cultural groups. I have encountered clients who are Jewish, Muslim,
Christian, Buddhist, Atheist, and even one woman who practices the religion of Santeria. These
differences are often harder to work with than racial differences. The religious beliefs a client
brings into the issue of domestic violence or sexual assault can be debilitating to getting her to
safety. It is particularly difficult to talk to someone who is in lethal danger but will not leave
because her religion/culture frowns upon leaving the marriage. Working within those belief
systems in difficult but necessary. Johnson and Williams discuss this in exploring multicultural
counseling competence. They share Sues assertion that a counselor must have skills for

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working effectively with culturally diverse clients including adapting interventions, and
identifying and intervening appropriately when a microaggession occurs. (Johnson & Williams,
2014) I recently had to adapt to help a Muslim woman who had been sexually assaulted. She was
terrified for her family to know about the assault because it would bring dishonor to them,
though the assault was obviously not her fault. She had been blitz attacked in a parking lot. My
usual skills could not help this client. I had to find a way to help her find support within her
cultural beliefs, which meant building her trust in our agency as her main support system. This
was 6 months ago and to my knowledge she has still not ever filed charges with the police out of
fear for her familys honor. This was particularly hard for me as a survivor to know that this
woman is potentially harming her recovery by excluding her husband from this knowledge.
Socially, I do have friends from multiple cultures and races. I do not see them as often
but that is more a function of being the mother to 2 young children, working full time,
volunteering 20 hours a week, and being a graduate student. I do not see many people socially
White or otherwise!
Johnson and Williams discuss the stages to becoming an effective multiculturally
competent counselor. They detailed 3 stages, awareness, knowledge, and skills acknowledging
the work of Sue in this area as well. Awareness comes through examining our own worldview
and the experiences that formed our racial identity. Having knowledge of other cultural groups
allows us to build our counseling skill set within the individual sensitivities to cultural belief
systems. Building skills comes from our awareness and knowledge of the needs of other cultural
groups. Having an increase cultural skill set allows a counselor to tailor interventions to the
religious, racial, or cultural belief systems of a client. In a highly charged situation like that faced
by Lias family in The Spirit Catches You and you Fall Down, a helping professional must find

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the balance between client safety and cultural beliefs. We like to think that other religions are
based in silly superstitions and rituals but what must they think of the Christian Communion
service? We claim to eat the body and drink the blood of our savior. Understanding and
appreciating another culture should not mean we negate our own. It simply means we value the
belief system of another in the way that we expect them to respect our own.
I will be specializing in trauma counseling for survivors of sexual assault. Culture, race,
and religion figure very heavily in this type of situation. The race of the first responders can
hinder the trust of a victim in the system, the religious beliefs of a family can scare a client into
not reporting the crime, and some cultures teach women that rape does not exist because she is
the property of any man who will have her. It is difficult to help these women see that someone
hurt them. There even enters the question: do we convince them they were hurt if they do not
feel hurt? Is that serving their immediate need? We know as counselors that we must meet our
client where they are. Culturally sensitive counselors must do the same. We must meet our client
where they are in regards to race and culture as well. I know now that I can never feel done with
my cultural education. I can only hope to stay open-minded and curious about how our actions
and beliefs shape our interactions with those around us.
Processing this course material has broadened my understanding of racism and
discrimination. I thought I was as self-actualized as I could be on cultural competence. I know
now how silly that was for me to believe. I am not sure anyone can ever be fully free of racism or
cultural mistrust. It is primal to prefer our own type; even animals seek out certain colorings as
favorable for mating. To my mind, the key is to acknowledge that primal instinct while also
acknowledging our ability to overcome our primal instincts. We have evolved and adapted for
survival. I dont know if it makes me nave or stupid but I believe we are still evolving on race. I

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know we have miles to go on racial understanding in this country but I also know that we have
come a greater distance in the last 100 years. Maybe, I am simple to think that it is inspiring that
we have overcome so much thus proving we can certainly do what remains. Despite the
multitude of reasons my family is dysfunctional, I have seen us grow and weather our storms in
very unexpected ways. They may have made me angry with their bias and hate, but they also
made me a fierce advocate for womens rights, a mother who refuses to allow her children to live
a white-only suburban existence, and hopefully a multiculturally competent counselor.

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References
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Behrens, J., LaFleur, N., & Leach, M. (2002, April). White racial identity and White racial consciousness:
similarities, differences, and recommendations. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development ,
66.
Chavez-Korell, S., Cunninham, N., & Townes, D. (2009). Reexamining the relationships between racial
identity, cultural mistrust, help-seeking attitudes, and preference for a Black counselor. Journal of
Counseling Psychology , 56 (2), 330-336.
Fadiman, A. (1997). The spirit catches you and you fall down: A Hmong child, her American doctors, and
the collision of two cultures. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Helms, J. E. (1984). Toward a theoretical explanation of the effects of Race on counseling: A Black and
White model. The Counseling Psychologist , 12, 153-165.
Johnson, A., & Williams, D. J. (2014, August 4). White racial identity, color-blind racial attitudes, and
multicultrual counseling competance. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology .
LaFleur, N., Leach, M., & Rowe, W. (2002). Reconceptualizing White racial consciousness. Journal of
Multicultural Counseling and Development , 30 (2), 148.