It sounds like this guy spends way too much time on Twitter/Tumblr (Twitter is essentially Tumblr circa 2013 since everyone left their porn blogs behind). America is definitely racist still. I experience suspect shit from white people all the time, but I don't let it bother me because I don't have the power to change anyone. It sounds like this guy doesn't realize that you can't live a healthy life (mentally) and non-ironically be radical about certain social issues IRL.
> Where are you headed, [REDACTED]?” another teammate asked with an innocuous timbre as the restof our pod curiously awaited my response.
He even acknowledges the fact that they weren't purposely being mean or anything, they just don't understand how the ex-Googler is feeling. I'm not taking up for his co-workers, but I bet if he spoke up in a chill way, they would've corrected themselves and explained what they really meant. But instead, the ex-Googler drops his head, leaves the office, and writes a slander essay like a passive aggressive little [redacted].
To wrap this up: Yes, there are some fucked up cops out there who are shooting unarmed black men, but the majority of cops aren't terrible people, and expecting privileged white people to understand us is counter-productive. White people will NEVER understand how it feels to be a black man in this country, and it's not worth trying to explain it. All we can do is be the best we can be, and hope the kindness, smiles, and compassion are reciprocated. If not, fuck em.
I have to say something deeply unpopular here - yes, I know in America maybe it's different, but there's only racist people I've ever met have been people engaging in this kind of casual racism against whites. I never saw the opposite. Most accusations of it turn out to be bad statistical assumptions, like "percentage by race of people experiencing a bad outcome differ from the general population, so it must be racism" - ignoring all other factors.
Personally, I'd prefer to change things so that "how it feels to be black in this country" is no longer a thing that needs to be understood. Yeah, I know this isn't going to happen in my lifetime, but even a white boy can dream.
That probably depends on what kind of “counselor” is involved; the same term can be used to refer to a variety of to licensed mental health professionals or to people who are basically peer counselors with minimal specialized education. The latter is relying very heavily on their own lives experience, so it clearly matters.
Even for the professionals, psychological safety of client with the counselor is going to be a significant factor, and someone who is coming from a place of perceived pervasive hostility and neglect from outside of their own racial group that leaves them metaphorically curled up in a ball of fear and silence around people outside their race is going to be hard for someone who triggers that reaction in them to help.
If I, a person of color, am having emotional difficulty processing the anxiety I feel about police persecution after being exposed to information that my race is being disproportionately persecuted, I really need a healthcare professional that (at the very least) has knowledge on when to engage in trying to direct me from my anxieties vs acknowledging that I am experiencing a normal amount of anxiety for the situation. Part of this may in fact be wanting a healthcare professional who is of my race because I have been harmed in the past by professionals who did not share my race practicing inappropriate treatments on me.
Similarly, there are plenty of female patients that ask for a female doctor, even in non-therapy medicine, because plenty of medication, illnesses, etc. show differently for women.
This is not to say that you shouldn't judge a counselor by their behavior after you've started working with them. But I think it's possible for a person with black skin to be just as insensitive to the concerns of black people as someone with white skin, e.g. Clarence Thomas.
There's a rather small but critical lack of nuance in your sentiment.
The idea isn't that you judge the person because of their skin color. Nobody is saying being white or black makes you a worse or better counselor or person. The idea is that you merely judge the likelihood that the person will be able to relate to you about something in your own personal life. There's nothing "problematic" about making that kind of judgment. It doesn't need to be justified or rational to anybody else. It's your personal life that you're looking for someone to open up to. Nobody else has any right to anything in your personal life, and you have every right and responsibility to make it better by your own criteria. If there's any problem here, it's the sentiment that other people have a right to dictate whom you should and shouldn't involve in your personal life.
But doesn't that mean race can potentially become extremely important when the treatment is via a form of structural socialization?
An emotional barrier that is part of the problem for which a person is seeking treatment:
(1) is not a judgement, and
(2) indisputably is part of the problem.
But, in any case, whether either or both of those are true or not doesn't change the fact that it is a real issue impacting the likely treatment outcomes that is sensitive to whether the counselor is in the group triggering the negative response or not.
Are women who have been abused by men odious for seeking female therapists?
Yes, but you need to trust them as a professional, not as a personal confidante who shares your life experience.
As part of the session the therapist asks you to rate a few different categories of your mental life (e.g. "How content are you with your life/relationships/family/future on a scale of 1 to 5?) The ratings then can be used for data to develop better questions and techniques and marketing claims (people with 1 or more Virtual Therapy seasons a week experience an X% improvement in indicators of mental health).
Subscription model: 10 bucks a month gets two one hour virtual therapy sessions a week.
Respectfully, are you sure you didn’t mean “Black?” “African American” doesn’t accurately capture e.g., Caribbean and Latin American identities.