Race is a core construct and core reality for American individuals and American culture. Believing both that psychoanalysis has much to offer the discussion about race, in and out of the consulting room, and that psychoanalysis has paid too little attention to race in the past, we have edited a three-part special section, “Conversations on Psychoanalysis and Race,” for TAP, on the subject.
The first part, consisting of our introduction and articles by Annie Lee Jones and Kirkland Vaughans, was published in the Fall 2016 issue. Our authors shared their powerful experiential perspectives on racism for African-Americans.
No conversation can evolve in discussing race in America without lifting the veil of white privilege. Our authors in this second part, tell us of their journeys to come to a deep and lasting understanding of the defensive uses of white privilege with a rare moving, sensitivity and humility. Warren Spielberg, in “Am I the Only Black Kid That Comes Here?,” writes about some of the challenges of being a white psychoanalyst working with a black male adolescent who challenges the analyst from the outset. Michael Moskowitz and Richard Riechbart write about their personal experiences with white privilege in “How I Came to Understand White Privilege” and “On Racism and Being White: The Journey to Henry’s Restaurant,” respectively.
“Conversations on Psychoanalysis and Race: Part Three” will be published in the Winter/Spring 2017 issue with articles by Beverly J. Stoute on “Race and Racism in Psychoanalytic Thought: Are There Ghosts in Our Nursery?,” Anton Hart on “From Multicultural Competence to Radical Openness: A Psychoanalytic Engagement of Otherness,” and Dorothy Holmes on “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Will Institutional Psychoanalysis Answer the Call to Psychoanalytic Understanding and Treatment of Racial Disturbances among Us?”
Editor’s Note:
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