Racial Justice in Psychoanalytic Communities: Translating Antiracist Dialogues into Racial Equity

This essay examines contemporary antiracist discourse in psychoanalytic communities, in particular its emphasis on challenging whiteness and implicit bias among analysts primarily through education, such as holding study groups and workshops on racism and changing curricula. The author explores the ways in which anti-black racism has been approached and challenged in these conversations and offers her own thoughts while keeping in mind the question: how can we challenge whiteness without using the tools of whiteness (e.g., coercion, disparaging vulnerability)? The author argues that while challenging white privilege through dialogues and education is necessary and useful, it is not sufficient to achieve cultural diversity and racial equity in psychoanalytic communities. An alternative vision for psychoanalytic racial justice is proposed. This vision, informed by works in moral and political philosophy, social psychology and anthropology, entails a two-pronged approach to racial justice based on both mutual recognition - through dialogue and education—and equitable distribution of resources. While the former approach highlights the role of the individual in challenging anti-black racism, the latter addresses its more insidious, systemic, structural nature. This paper explores how we might apply the concept of distribution to psychoanalytic communities.