A therapist explains the underlying conflicts that can lead to racist beliefs and one patient’s realization that we are born loving, not hating.
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TRIGGER WARNING and EDITOR’S NOTE: This content might be triggering to some as it contains strong racist language. This is shared as an therapist’s perspective into the mind of a person who has racist beliefs, not as an indication that we, or the author, in any way condone the racism expressed.
As a psychotherapist, I view racism as a symptom, a clever adaptation the mind makes to deal with unmanageable emotional distress and conflicts.
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With all the news about Donald Trump and his racist, populous rants against Mexicans and Muslims, I keep thinking about how people become racist.
As a psychotherapist, I view racism as a symptom, a clever adaptation the mind makes to deal with unmanageable emotional distress and conflicts. As with any symptom, I welcome it into the therapy room and engage my patient with a stance of curiosity and compassion above all.
My relationship with Jordon started with a phone call. He wanted help with overwhelming anxiety and low-self esteem. He was also depressed. This 30-year-old accountant described his childhood as a “normal middle-class upbringing.” But the way he described his parents, irrational and violent at times, made me think Jordan suffered from childhood trauma. At the end of our phone consultation, Jordan made an appointment to come in.
Jordan started our first session with a ten-minute rant about African American people.
Believing his prejudice was connected to the symptoms of anxiety and depression for which he sought help, one of my goals was for us to understand the racist part of him—both because it was so strong and because he lead with it.
I wondered to myself: What were the circumstances that gave birth to this way of being? How did it “protect” him? What psychological solution to an unbearable conflict was his racism providing? Once the reasons for the “symptom” were clear, we could work to find more adaptive ways to deal with the underlying emotions and conflicts.
Jordan reported the mere sight of African Americans was angering. He complained about how they pushed, shoved and blocked him from walking at a pace he felt comfortable while just on the subway traveling to my office. He described them as “entitled” and as “beneath him.” The gross generalizations that came out of his mouth shocked me so much it was all I could do to stay connected to him. I was disgusted and I felt myself shutting down. As a therapist, however, my job was not to judge, but instead to remain curious and empathic to the suffering underneath. I tried to foster a connection with Jordan searching hard to find my empathy.
“Jordan,” I asked in our first session, “I know this sounds strange but I wonder if I could get you curious about this racist part of you. It sounds like it uses up a lot of your energy.”
Referring to a symptom as a “part” implies it is not fixed but subject to change or healing, which it is. At first Jordan said it was not a “part,” it was ALL of him.
I explained that people are not born hating.
“You were not born feeling this way about black people. It was something you learned. Does that make sense?” I inquired.
He thought for a moment and nodded in agreement. I validated him and shared, “This part of you must have good reasons for being so angry!”
When Jordan was a child, his parents frightened him. When they fought, they were violent. They threw plates at each other. Then when the fights ended, it was like nothing ever happened. Neither of his parents checked to see if he was all right. They seemed not to realize the affect the screaming and aggression would have on their young boy.
His father and mother frequently criticized Jordan. They were equal opportunity humiliators, however, criticizing and judging every one they knew. His father often bragged about his own superior intelligence and how everyone else was an idiot. The closest times Jordan had with his parents was bonding over their judgments of others. I imagined the relief Jordan must have felt when his parents’ focused on someone else’s inadequacies and flaws as opposed to his own.
I assumed from the beginning that Jordan’s depression and low-self esteem was from early emotional neglect like when his parents didn’t check on him after their fights. Jordan’s hate was redemptive for those weak and fragile neglected parts — the hate gave him a feeling of being powerful. The hatred would come to be the antidote to his deep-seated feelings of inadequacy and weakness.
I hoped to help Jordan understand how the entirety of his healthy anger towards his parents had been displaced onto an entire race. I asked Jordan what were some of his earliest memories of black people. He reported a few negative encounters with people who happened to be black. A lunch lady in elementary school yelled at him once.
To find out more, I suggested he imagine the racist Part of him on the chair between us. “Can we welcome this part of you into the room and get to know it? I am sure it has something important to share or else it wouldn’t be here with such a vengeance.” Anthropomorphizing parts of us that hold symptoms helps us learn about them and communicate with them as if they were separate people. I hoped to create safety to explore something new.
Jordan relished the invitation. His racist part shared how black people were inferior and he had contempt for their inferiority — it’s there fault they have it so bad.
I wondered, where was his compassion?
Racism is more about our personal stories than hatred of others. Racism is the cover story. The real story is this: “I’d rather hate a group of people than my father, my mother, and myself.”
I asked him a few more questions. My questions were intended to ignite the neural networks that could lead us down the road to primal memory — the historical moments when Jordan’s racist parts first came into being. I wanted to understand what were the deep emotional conflicts he was struggling to manage and how did becoming racist help.
I asked, “What emotions do you feel as you rant about back people?”
“Superiority,” he said.
I asked him if he could float back in time and access a memory of when he first had this feeling in his chest and felt anger and disgust?
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That gave me an opportunity to explain that superiority wasn’t an emotion. It was more like a state. Then I listed the core emotions for him so we could see what he might be feeling when he rants about black people: sadness, fear, anger, joy, disgust, and excitement? Jordan identified with feeling anger and disgust.
“Where in your body do you sense the racist Part with its anger and disgust?” All emotions are really a combination of physical sensations.
“In my chest,” he reported.
I asked him if he could float back in time and access a memory of when he first had this feeling in his chest and felt anger and disgust? He landed on the memory with the lunch lady.
“It started when the lunch lady yelled at me.”
I asked why she yelled at him. He couldn’t remember that but he vividly remembered the humiliation he felt.
“I hated her for yelling at me in front of everyone. But I was better than her so I don’t know why I cared.”
When I asked Jordan how he felt when the lunch lady yelled at him, he said, “Like a worthless piece of crap.” A few sessions later when I asked him how he felt when his father criticized him, he said verbatim, “Like a worthless piece of crap.”
Superiority was the way Jordan defended himself against the unbearable feelings of shame the lunch lady triggered. But the root of the toxic shame originated in his home and stemmed from the emotional neglect and abuse he endured.
Projecting the part of him that felt like a worthless “piece of crap” on to an entire race was the only way Jordan had to expel the unbearable feelings caused by his childhood traumas. Take rage, shame and contempt, add in some anxiety and despair — it all mixes together to form a toxic soup that has to be projected outward, as it is intolerable. I refer to it as the hot potato of shame — now it’s yours: African Americans, Muslims, Latinos, etc.
Jordan’s racism offered him protection from feeling weak, powerless and vulnerable. When he was ranting about black people he felt powerful and superior. But, as I explained to Jordan, there was a cost for the protection that racism offered. The energy that goes into hate could otherwise be used for vitality and positive connection.
“That humans are not born hating. They are born loving.”
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I explained, “The racist parts of you offer protection from hard feelings but they are also maintaining your depression and low-self worth. The cure is to help you deal with the underlying insecurities and emotions directly.” I shared my impression that he had been a victim of childhood trauma and the fact that he felt badly was not his fault. His parents had hurt him, whether they intended to or not. Black people were just the scapegoats.
Creating curiosity is the first step to change.
Jordan was willing to get curious about his racist parts because he was desperate for relief from the misery he felt. His desire to feel better over-powered his racist defense. We worked together for several months until he moved away. I helped him process some of the old stuck feelings from his childhood. Even though our work ended prematurely, by tending to younger wounded parts of Jordan and giving them compassion, love, and care, the racist parts of him loosened their grip. The little bit of space we created opened up the possibility that his hatred was a reaction and not a reality. Before he left treatment, he said he would always remember what I said that first time we met.
“What was that?” I asked.
“That humans are not born hating. They are born loving.”
Patient details have been altered to protect privacy and confidentiality.
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Photo: Getty Images
BTW. Did it ever occur to anyone that humans are the ONLY species on the planet that can, and will, annihilate all of us over a belief. Not a fact but a belief. A dolphin, or a dog or cat, an elephant or a shark can’t do this. But we can and will if desired. Does anybody not see how frickin odd this is??? And we are to somehow believe WE’RE superior. Nan this is stupid nuts.
The more I know of people the more I like dogs.
Great story dj. Great wisdom there. Just to clear the air, I don’t think Trump is a racist at all. He attacks social problems we’ve ignored for so dang long. The media and his opponents try to make this label stick because it suits THEIR agenda. I personally think Trump sees everything as green.
Trump see everything as power and ego as well. If he wasn’t a racist, he would not be making all these stupid remarks. Politicians and business people use labels to suit their agenda as well.
“humans are not born hating. They are born loving.”
No, no and no again. Sorry, but your starting premise is all wrong, and though your intent is surely noble, misunderstanding cause will lead you nowhere fast. Yours is the Noble Savage and blank slate approach.
I’m afraid to say that you don’t really understand racism, or you’re tool bias has overtaken your ability to identify and resolve issues.
If the author does a piece on a person becomes a racist devoid of hate, please send me an e-mail. The hate filled ones are probably a minority among racists.
It is truly interesting how hate manifests itself. This would be a case in point. There is a warning label because there may be racial slurs involved, yet we constantly see such as, Toxic masculinity, white male privilege, white male hate, and now white male terrorists, yet do not recognize it for what it is. We make excuses, assume it to be true, just as every other purveyor has in the past. I spoke to a pastor once. He told me that the Devil takes many forms, wears many colors. He even redirects and re-targets, and that’s how he is… Read more »
Love that story DJ.