Announcer: Welcome to the Voice of Counseling presented by the American Counseling Association. This program is hosted by Dr. S. Kent Butler. This week's episode is Antiracist Counseling in Schools and Communities, and features Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy.
Dr. S. Kent Butler: Welcome to the Voice of Counseling from the American Counseling Association. I'm Dr. S. Kent Butler and joining us today is Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy. Cheryl is a Dean of School of Education and a professor at the American University in Washington, DC. She is an ACA fellow and is actively working to develop an anti-racist curriculum for teachers in training. Will you all help me welcome Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy?
Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy: Hey, Kent. Thank you, I'm so happy to be here and by the way, congratulations on such a wonderful and momentous appointment of election as ACA president. I'm just, elated for you and for all of us that we get to be a part of your presidency. This is wonderful.
Dr. Butler: Well, thank you. Thank you. You know we've been, I guess you can call it partners in crime for many, many years since our start in the American Counseling Association. I'm just excited to be a part of your life, seeing you do the things that you've been doing, especially with regards to school counseling, you, then becoming a dean, you elevated yourself to the point where we are like, "Hey, if Cheryl is becoming a dean, we need to be looking at what we are doing as well."
I'm excited to talk to you today about your upcoming book. That's titled Anti-racist Counseling in Schools and Communities. This is going to be a phenomenal hour and I'm just excited to be able to talk with you so [unintelligible 00:02:01]
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: [laughs] It is. It's phenomenal, well, I guess you can say this is a moment in history that just everything that's happening in our world right now, it calls for, I think not only innovative thinking but revolutionary thinking. As I said about your presidency, what you're doing, and your thoughts and ideas about where the counseling profession can go, I can't think of a better leader for right now. That is what this book is all about. It's about this moment and what does this mean for us? We can no longer be counseling status quo, like what we've been doing for the last 30, 40 years.
This book is about challenging us as a profession to rethink not only just not even rethink, let's back up, not rethink, we need to dismantle and get rid of old practices that just perpetuate the status quo. That's what this is all about. It's about this moment and time, and just really challenging us as counselors to do the right thing and to get rid of some of those old practices that just perpetuate racist systems and oppressive behaviors.
Dr. Butler: What led you into from being a school counselor to becoming a counselor educator, now being a dean, has this been your roadmap to this type of awakening for anti-racism? How do you see yourself getting here?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: That's a good question. It was not a roadmap. I did not set out to become a dean. Actually, I did not set out to become a professor and I did everything possible not to become an educator. I don't think people understand, both of my parents were educators. I grew up in a family of educators and ministers. It was either you became a teacher or you became a minister or/and for women, that left us, you become a teacher. My mother was a counselor. She was a member of the old, APGA, the Association for Personnel Guidance and Association. My very first conference, professional conference was with my mother.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: She finished Hampton University, HU, and became a long-term counselor until her retirement. My father was a principal, but I didn't want to, I wanted to do something different. When my father helped me to get a summer job, and I worked with a group of second graders that were behind in their reading and I did a lot of tutoring that summer for this group. It was a small group of five or six second graders. I just fell in love with this process of helping them and helping them. Helping them overcome this barrier of learning how to read.
It just then became like, "I'm good at this. I love it. I want to do more of it," so I became a teacher and I became a kindergarten teacher. I went back and became a counselor. A point of an interesting fact is that when I went back to the University of Virginia as a counseling student, Courtney Lee was in his first year of being a counselor educator at the University of Virginia and took my first multicultural counseling course from Portland during his first year at the University of Virginia.
Dr. Butler: Wow, well, of course.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Yes, it was this roadmap, it was just accidental. Things just fell in place. I tend to believe that my purpose in life is to do what I'm doing. It's not so much as a roadmap, as much as it is follow where your career leads you and wanting to do the right thing.
Dr. Butler: It's funny because I think that that's similar to my pathway as well. I was doing all this work in counseling that led me to become a counselor, then become a counselor educator. I can see like similar pathways in regards to that. What was it like following in the footsteps of your mom? You said your mom was a counselor, so what was that like?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: My mother was wonderful and every day, I think about my mom every day and every day, I realize how many pearls of wisdom she was giving me along the way and I didn't understand it but I understand it now. My mother was before we started talking about cultural competence and issues of equity and anti-racism, my mother grew up in the South, Jim Crow South, in Virginia, and this was her lived experience.
Her notion to fight racism was a natural part of her. My mother was not afraid. I mean, she used to just speak up and speak her mind. I'll never forget at her funeral, many of her students came forward and said, "If it were not for your mother, I would not have gone to college. I would not have done this." It was her life work. I see myself as continuing her work, but just in a different time.
With the beauty of having these pearls of wisdom that she gave me along the way, I think about that every day. It was again, like every kid, you don't want to be like your mom. You're like, "No, no, I'm different, I'm different," but there's so many similarities, so many similarities between what we both value and valued in life and in our life's work. I'm proud of the fact that I'm a lot like her.
Dr. Butler: That's really nice. That's a great tribute to her as well, because in following her footsteps, you've been able to, and I think this is what most parents want for their children, they want us to surpass even the greatness that they've been able to do and obtain. You being a dean, you having this new book that's coming out shortly, showcases that you not only learned the lessons that she was teaching you, you were able to then go and move forward and do those same things in your own career. Not only that, you're a mentor.
You have brought people along with you. You say and you give the shout-out to Portland Lee, but in a very real sense, Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, ACA fellow has been out there doing the work as well and so I'm so-
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Thank you.
Dr. Butler: -proud of the work that you have been doing-
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Thank you.
Dr. Butler: -because I feel like we're brothers and sisters in counseling.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: We are. We are.
Dr. Butler: -[unintelligible 00:09:28] because when we met and we just started to hang out and get to know one another, and one of the things that you always do, and then I don't know if this is part of your nature because of how you were raised or just because you're just being Cheryl, but you always, always, always give people the kind of a gratitude or a kind of you know, I've watched you grow, I've seen you do this work. I've seen something that you put through and helping them to stay balanced and on top of their game. I don't know if that makes sense.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Yes, yes.
Dr. Butler: When we meet, you say, "Well, Kent," and one of the things that you will always say to me was, "Kent, I saw how you did this or you did that." I'm like, "Wow, Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy is watching what I've done." Then, that inspires me to continue doing the work that I'm doing. What is that? Where did you get that? You know--
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Isn't that just good counseling? That's what we do when we talk about empowerment, strengths-based counseling where you know, counseling to me it's not just all in a session where you're sitting there. It's about giving people what they need, the fuel that they need to keep going. That happens all the time. That can be just meeting someone down the hall and noticing them.
I see that as being a part of the work that I have done around cultural response, cultural competence, and counseling. I have written a lot about that a part of being culturally competent is being able to help people feel empowered. I can't empower Kent, but I surely can say those things that will help you feel more empowered to do and so that's--
Dr. Butler: It helped with your self-efficacy?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Yes, it's all about--
Dr. Butler: Let me help with your self-efficacy because it's like--
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Yes, I can do it. Yes.
Dr. Butler: You know you can publish things, and you can do certain things, you can say certain things in public spaces, but you don't have that confidence that everything that you're saying is really thriving. You see somebody who's accomplished come back and say something to you about something that you've done and it's like, "Okay, well, maybe there is something about this." Most people don't know this, but you and I communicate pretty often.
I call you on purpose sometimes to get that Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy wisdom in terms of, "What do you think about this?" or "What do you think about that?" If you can't answer them, "I'll call you right back," or whatever have you and you do. There's something about being there for one another in regards to helping possibly [unintelligible 00:12:36].
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: We all--
Dr. Butler: It's difficult as an African American-
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: It is.
Dr. Butler: -to navigate these circles.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: We need that. Just like you say I do that for you but you also do that for me. We reciprocate that. We need that. I don't care how strong one might appear to be to others, but we all have that need to feel you're doing the right thing, that it's okay. When you called me and you said, "Well, I didn't get the presidency this time." Remember I told you, "You're bigger than the presidency of ACA."
Dr. Butler: You did say that.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: You don't need ACA to validate you as a human being, as a person. ACA is lucky to have you. You are far beyond the organization. The great work that you're doing for the students at UCF, the wonderful things that you do for your family, and the thousands of students that you have touched either in a classroom or through your writings, it goes far beyond a presidency. I just wanted you to know that. Sometimes, we need those people that remind us that sometimes it's not just this little narrow thing, it's much larger. We need that, both of us. Everybody needs that [unintelligible 00:13:55].
Dr. Butler: What you're talking about too is community.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Community, yes. It sounds so simple, but it's so difficult.
Dr. Butler: It does, right?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Sometimes, it's hard because not everyone is as fortunate as we are. To be able to make it to an ACA conference, we would get together, see each other, hang out, talk about our lives as tenure track professors then tenured professors. This notion of meeting someone is something that we all need. No matter what, we need someone that will ground us and remind us of that we're much bigger than an organization or that one class where, "Oh, I think I messed up in that class." It's larger than that. We need--
Dr. Butler: Right. It's about the intent behind all the work that you're doing and what you're hoping to get accomplished. Cheryl, when we first met was through ACA, through the conferences early on in our career. We got to know one another by hanging out at the conference, of course, but also recognizing what each other were doing in school counseling because we both come from this with counseling background.
One of the things I've noticed in your career was that you always help people along. You want people with you with regards to the work that you were doing, but also the work that your students were doing and the work that your colleagues were doing. What was that like for you, especially when you think about how your mother entered you into the counseling world? What was the importance of you bringing people along with you once you got started?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: I see that as being just a part of the job. Also, if you really think about it, it's also part of the legacy that I leave. You know the people that my students, colleagues who have, I wouldn't say that I've helped them as much as it is, be willing to collaborate with them, that we have shared interests and we come together, I think they strengthen that. Part of my willingness to help students along and to help colleagues, bring colleagues along, I see that as being strength, and that I am weaker if I'm isolated, right?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: That there's strength and collaboration, there's strength in numbers. We're all much better off if all of us move. That's always been a philosophy that I live by, especially in this area of writing about cultural competence, systemic and structural racism in the world, social justice. These are huge topics. There's enough of these topics for all of us to take a piece of it. I've always encouraged others to come along and be a part of the movement.
I see it as a part of a movement, a part of, in our counseling world, it's mobilizing people together. That's how I see it. There's so much talent in the counseling profession. When I was working at Maryland, the doctoral students that would come to Maryland were so very talented and brilliant people. It was, I thought it was I was just on for the ride. It's just like, "Come on, let's go. You all are brilliant." These wonderful ideas, this notion of multicultural self-efficacy, I have an instrument around self-efficacy, around multicultural topics, that all came out of a doctoral seminar with these wonderful doctoral students.
They know who they are out there. Just brilliant. I see my role as just facilitating brilliance. It really is, that's how I see it. We're all better off if these brilliant emerging scholars blossom. We're all better off. That was always my philosophy behind my job. That has had rewards for me to see Eric Hines, Paul Harris, Ileana Gonzalez, Carlos Delgado, Hipolito Delgado. These are brilliant scholars in our field now. They're doing such wonderful things. That, to me, brings me great satisfaction that I could be a part of their journey. It's really a lot.
Dr. Butler: One of the things that I always wonder about is how do we help people who don't get it, understand the importance of cultural competence and why we're doing this work, why it's important for us to talk about anti-racism, why is important for us to really showcase that we belong, that we have a right to be at the table? What comes up for you when I say something like that?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: How do we get people to come along? By the way, I didn't mention all the brilliant students that were at Maryland and other places. I didn't go down, there's a long list [unintelligible 00:19:42] serve others.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Just wanted folks to not feel left out because there were many. This notion of changing hearts and minds of people is that was behind my very first dissertation. My first dissertation and only dissertation, in which Jayne Meyers was my chair. I remember talking to Jayne [unintelligible 00:20:09] one day and saying we were trying to figure out what happens during this process of becoming culturally competent and trying to figure out developmentally what happens over time. I remember telling her because we were studying the different types of activities that people were engaging in to become culturally competent, where they're going to professional development, they had a course, they were engaged in some type of activity, where they were in meshed with other cultures.
I remember I said to her, "This is not going to happen like in the course of two years in the counseling program." People-- this is a lifelong journey. The only thing we're doing in counseling is really putting some fire under people to find out more. Right?
Dr. Butler: A lifelong learning piece, right?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: It's a lifelong learning piece. I do think we take ebbs and flows depending on what's happening around us. For instance, last summer with the murder of George Floyd, and for many of my White friends who witnessed his murder, nine minutes on his neck, and they saw that it was on TV over and over again. It was one of those experiences that created this increase in one's cultural understanding of racial justice.
It was one of these events that the entire world was experiencing together and probably, if I had given my scale [unintelligible 00:21:56] there, they would have had an increase, they would have rated themselves higher cultural, racial understanding because of that event. Then what happens over time is that if they're not seeing those kinds of events anymore, and they're not being reminded, then their level of cultural competence probably goes back into this comfort zone of understanding my own, "I don't have to understand my own whiteness anymore. I don't have-- I'll just go."
This notion of cultural competence, I believe, has its highs and lows, depending on what's happening to us at that moment. For people of color, our experiences with being Black, being Latino, being Latinx, being from a different, oppressed, historically oppressed group, we live with that all the time.
Dr. Butler: All the time.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: It is a part of our ordinary, everyday existence. That, in many ways, is what the tension is, is that you find Black and Brown counselors people saying, "I live with this every day." I didn't need the murder of another Black man on the streets of Minneapolis to remind me of issues of racial injustice in this country. That is the tension, often in classrooms and with the work that we're doing around cultural competence, is that our students of color often come in with lived experiences that are quite different from their White colleagues.
As instructors, we're then trying to help our students of color grow and their understanding of what's happening to them but also, White individuals who never had to really understand that they are cultural beings or that they live in a society that has harbored racial injustice. It is a very difficult task. I do want to take some time too as we talk about the book, I can't wait to talk more about the book and why this book is so important and how is this book different from the books before around cultural competence. It really has moved me into this different place.
Dr. Butler: Good, good, we'll get there. Definitely get there because that part of a book like this sometimes scares people or it makes people say, "Well, I'm not racist, or I'm not this, or I'm not that." What I think the work is about is actually soul searching and finding out how you may have been benefiting or what those privileges might look like or what implicit biases and how it has impacted not just your life, but the life of those who are around you, especially our clients, and how we can make those changes.
In transitioning to the book, I'm hopeful that the book is actually looking at how people can tap into their own inner workings so that they understand just how important it is for them to have a self-awareness of who they are and how they represent sometimes oppression even though they think that they are not oppressing others.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Right, right, yes. The book does do that. The book focuses though on the fact that as counselors and our clients, students that we work with every day, are a part of system, systems, whether it be criminal justice systems, education systems, health systems, that we've seen with the pandemic. We're reminded of the inequities and the racial injustices within those systems. This book is more about understanding structural and systemic systems that have worked to get-- One of those things that really upsets me sometimes I used to think about a lot when I was a counselor, a school counselor, I was an elementary school counselor.
I used to see young Black boys in my school lined up outside the principal's office after PE every day. They were third grade, fourth grade, lined up because they had supposedly had done something that they shouldn't have done during recess. This had become an everyday occurrence, it was my job as the counselor to help them go back to recess. What didn't sit right with me is that it wasn't the boys, these boys that had the problem, it was the adults and how they saw these boys within this education system. It's the counselor's job to just help these boys be a part of the system that's working against them.
The faulty assumptions about Black boys that they're starting trouble, that they are about trouble, that they aren't smart, they are somehow going to do something that others are not going to like. It was all of these assumptions about, it was not a mistake that they were all Black boys. One of the problems that I see in counseling is that our job isn't just to acknowledge the cultural differences of these boys, our job is also to name the systems and the racist ideas about who these Black boys are. That's where this book comes in, it's not about boys that are the problem, it's the system is the problem.
Dr. Butler: Is the problem.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: It's the people who perpetuate the system. That is where this book comes in. My entire career, I've talked about the beauty of cultural difference. I love that we live in a colorblind, that the goal is for us not to be colorblind anymore but is also, our goal is to understand that our systems perpetuate oppressive outcomes.
Dr. Butler: I think about it, even as an adult, I was standing with one of my Black colleagues the other day, this is about a year or so ago, and we were standing and somebody in a pretty high position, walked by us, we were standing like close to the hallway near a stairwell. It was like, "There comes trouble." We looked at each other like, "Why is that acceptable?" We're just two colleagues talking in the hallway, why does trouble attach to that?
That's part of systemic system, that people see Black individuals as problematic. We've had that joke that we have a lot of times where when there's a bunch of us gathered, it's be like, "Well, hey, we better not hang out too close together because they're going to think we planning something or we're up to something." Thank you for what you're bringing forth in the book, because I think that is really important. How do you want people to experience the book? When they read the book, what is it that you want them to take away?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Well, the beauty of this book is that I edited the book, and I do an introduction to the book and giving the context of this moment after what happened to George Floyd and many, many other Black men, Black women, women of color, men of color that have been a part of these faulty systems. I build a case for why we need to focus on dismantling racism in our racist history from starting with chattel slavery in this country.
We've had racism has been what this country has been built upon. I start the book off, but they are 20-some authors of these wonderful chapters who are laying out their soul as far as how to be an anti-racist counselor. Those chapters are wonderful. There's a discussion from college and career readiness to how to do supervision through an anti-racist lens. How to take apart the counseling Canon. What do we see as counseling? How does it sit within this racist structure? That is the chapters are by these wonderful authors who have done all of the work.
I want people to start thinking about their work, and how it does affect even the cultural competence work that we do. How does it not address issues anti-Black racism? How does the work that we do not address these racist policies, and systems? I believe that we can be culturally competent, and be blind to these issues around racism. We're continuing to perpetuate the same outcomes because we're not dealing with the real inequities and the real racial structures that lift up racism. That is [unintelligible 00:32:04]-
Dr. Butler: I will need--
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: -the challenge.
Dr. Butler: You said something that was really, I think powerful in that we can't just think that we're doing good stuff.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Right.
Dr. Butler: We have to be actively engaged in the work that we're doing.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: We have to name it. We have to name it. We can't be quiet anymore either. There's a book out saying that, "We can't be just nice, and kind counselors anymore to challenge racism." Anti-racism is taking an active stance against racist ideas. It's not a comfortable stance to take, because you're going against what the norm is. It requires us to be a little tough and to create some discomfort. I'm not going to be surprised when the book might create some discomfort. Again, I go back to the authors of the book. A lot of the authors, they invoke themselves.
It really like personal essays about how they have experienced issues around race and racism, White counselor educators, practicing counselors. The reason why I didn't want to just say school counseling because I think schools are a part of communities. I am really tired of separating schools from community. Schools are a part of communities. If we're not addressing the community issues, then we're not getting it right in schools, because our kids are going home. They go into their communities and they come back, and to school. I purposefully titled the book, Anti-racist Counseling in Schools and Communities.
Dr. Butler: That's a perfect segue for us to take a break and we'll come back and talk a little bit about some of the essence of this book. I'm Dr. Kent Butler, and this is the Voice of Counseling from the American Counseling Association. Our conversation will continue in a moment.
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Dr. Butler: Welcome back. I'm Kent Butler, and we're continuing our conversation with Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy. We left off on a really high note in terms of talking about the book and the essence of the book. Cheryl, can you tell me a little bit about what's different about this book this day, this time? Why now? How's it different than the work that people have been doing around social justice and multicultural counseling with regards to helping people see themselves, or work with their clients? What's different about this particular book?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: I get that question a lot, because this work around anti-racism isn't a new term. It was first brought to life by Angela Davis, who's one of my heroes and who talked about, "It's not good enough to be not a racist. You have to be an anti-racist." Then a good colleague that was here with me at American University, Ibram Kendi who has written even more about anti-racism. In one of my first conversations with Ibram, I told him, "I said I've been talking about this for a while social justice issues, and counseling and whatever."
In my conversations with him, I realized that the anti-racism work is a part of the social justice movement. Social justice is much wider. There's so many aspects of social justice. It can be social justice around LGBTQ issues. It can be social justice issues around immigration issues. That's all good. We need that. We still need social justice advocacy and work. The anti-racism movement. It's all about seeing George Floyd on that street in Minneapolis. It's about Black and Brown people being subjugated to criminal justice systems, education systems, health systems that ultimately do not give them a chance to thrive.
It's really about racism, and the history of racism in this country, acknowledging that identity, naming it for what it is, and then actively working against it, changing those policies and those practices. It's a part of social justice advocacy, but there is a focus on fighting back and pushing back on our racist past. There's so many, so many issues in education that are propped up by racist ideas about intelligence. Who's smart, and who's not based on tests that are testing that based on a very Eurocentric sort of perspective and framework.
Dr. Butler: You got to break that down. What does Eurocentric perspectives mean to you? When you say that, how does someone connect that to the fact that it doesn't necessarily resonate with other populations?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: This is part of the cultural responsiveness too, but we know that intelligence in this country was defined by White men to elevate intelligence in the eyes of White people and pretty much White men. Those characteristics of, or better yet, let me say it this way, in order to propel a society in which one group of people is perceived as being smarter than others, the tests, how we test, and how we view intelligence had to align with the group that we want to propel as being superior in that area.
Dr. Butler: There you go, thank you for that. That's a really-
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: That is--
Dr. Butler: -simplistic way of looking at how that comes about.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: In our country, who are the people making those decisions were White European men. That's where this is coming from. The whole premise of anti-racism is that to be anti-racist is to see all groups as being equal, and not to propel one group over another. Think about it in schools, we're categorizing and sorting kids every day-
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: -according to these ideas about who's smart, who's gifted, and that's where our work as counselors to disrupt that, to dismantle that and say that this is wrong because we're not giving students, Black and Brown students an opportunity to thrive.
Dr. Butler: I want to give you some kudos for something that you and American University did not too long ago. I had an opportunity to participate in the teaching you all had not too long ago. You had a very phenomenal speaker there, Dr. Bettina love, who talked about abolitionists' way of teaching. Can you talk a little bit about what that narrative was and that success that you had with that? Because that was what counselors and others, but other people could look at that and really grow from that experience. Can you talk a little bit about what that teacher has meant to you, and how-
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Oh, it was beautiful.
Dr. Butler: -powerful it was?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: It was. It was powerful to me. I've always dreamed of having a teach-in from reading about in the '60s and early '70s when there were teachings on the campuses of University of Michigan and Berkeley and other places where faculty would just teach about these issues that the country was struggling with around racism and issues about the war and Vietnam and what this freedom really mean, and these new ideas were generated at many of these teach ends.
I'd read about these for years, and it was my dream to have a teach-in for counselors. We did, we had it. Bettina Love if folks haven't read her work around abolitionist teaching, you're missing out because it's wonderful. Her work is steeped in an anti-racist grounding and she calls it abolitionists because it's really freeing people from the chains of educating in the same way.
Dr. Butler: [unintelligible 00:40:58].
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: She's just really nailed it for us and gave us a really good kickoff. We intend to have that teach-in every year. It's a chance for counselors, professional counselors, counselor educators, counselor advocates, people who are just interested in counseling and changing systems around counseling and in schools and communities to come together and share their ideas and their frustrations.
Actually, what I think one of the most powerful parts of the day was counselors sharing their frustrations and trying to do this work and how difficult it is and how do I look after myself when people are constantly telling me that I shouldn't be doing this work and often, we forget that if you're promoting social justice, promoting cultural competence, promoting anti-racism in any field, people are going to take shots at you. Right?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: They are going to throw all kinds of stuff at you. It really does mean that we have to look after ourselves and that piece of the day was very powerful that we have this community of people, you have your people, this is your community to also take care of yourself.
Dr. Butler: The thing you said people are going to throw stuff at you and you have to pick your armor up and really be ready for this. This is not easy work. No, it's really something, I don't think anybody in their right mind will go into something and just go into this firestorm of the criticism and other things that are coming up but the flip of that is we're doing it for everybody, we're doing it for equity for all but yet, people are so against it seems because of mindsets that have been drilled into folks for eons. How do you break that cycle? the teaching is it available for people who have not been able to see it or is that something that people will be able to still see?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Yes. It's available, but you cannot see Bettina's, Dr. Loves part but you can see the other parts, I believe on our website for the Center for Postsecondary Readiness and Success, there are snippets of the day, we're excited next year, having some other speakers and really maybe more than one day.
Dr. Butler: Are you doing it in person this time or I know one of the things that we did [unintelligible 00:43:33]?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: We'll see. We'll see. I don't know.
Dr. Butler: [unintelligible 00:43:36] both ways.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Yes. It's nice doing things virtually because people have more access, right?
Dr. Butler: Well, that's right.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Instead of coming to DC for it but we're thinking about brainstorming how we can do it and maybe not just making it one day but let me just tell you, let me add on to what Beltina Loves work, why we chose her to be our speaker. Not just because of her abolitionists' teaching framework but also because she talks about joy and that this is all about love, and all of us can relate to finding joy or wanting love.
This notion that this work is not all about fighting others and pushing back and challenging, it's also about recognizing our love for one another and finding joy in this work. That's what made her work so suitable for what we wanted to accomplish and the teach-in. We wanted there to be togetherness, building community, and to really sit this bit of work within this overall feeling love for one another because that's really what justice is.
Dr. Butler: Do you see the teach-in as something that taps into the book or how do you see those two things colliding with regards to [unintelligible 00:45:04]?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Interestingly enough, I don't know if you knew this, but most of the authors from the book were also at the collective. We call ourselves a collective, a school counseling collective. They are those authors were a part of the organizing workgroup that put the teach-in together.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: We came together organically. We were, again, I keep going back to that summer of 2020 and just being overwhelmed with grief, but overwhelmed with, "Just we got to do something. I don't want to be helpless anymore. I want to do something." It was a group of counselor educators that just came together. We were just friends and we just said, "Let's get together and do this." We've been meeting, we meet every week or so and the book came out of those conversations.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Yes, it is beautiful but this shows you the power of togetherness and it goes back, Kent to what we talked about in the beginning, we are stronger together. These are big topics. We didn't become to have these racist structures overnight. We're not going to get rid of them overnight. We need more people to dismantle and it's been beautiful to work with a diverse group of counselor educators who are coming at this in different ways but have the passion and they have the commitment. It's just been one of those things that I have just enjoyed in my career.
Dr. Butler: One of the questions I ask students when they are finishing their dissertation is what did they learn about themselves? How have they grown through this process? Editing this book, you had to have had people in your head from various walks of life, reading through what they've shared, and how has that inspired or made you see yourself differently in this whole process and getting this book to be ready for production?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: I'm very humbled. I realize I don't know everything, I've learned through every chapter, I learned new things. I learned experiences that my colleagues had never shared with me. I learned about interdisciplinary connections between some of the work that folks were doing. I learned so much about how to think about counseling and what we're doing every day and through their eyes.
I think I'm a much smarter person as a result of editing this book because I've learned so much from the chapter authors, but I'm also just humbled again, it goes back to there are such brilliant people in the counseling profession. Brilliant, and passionate, and when you put brilliance and passion together, oh my God. It's like, "Wait, it's just wonderful."
Dr. Butler: The people who are in the field who don't care, who gets the credit, they just want to put the stuff out there to get [unintelligible 00:48:12]?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: They just want the stuff out there.
Dr. Butler: Thinking about it and changing the way that they're seeing it?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Yes. It's our own way of maybe possibly changing our world, changing our profession. I say in the book, I think in the introduction that I became a counselor because of the power of counseling to change the world. We're helping people, problem solve, become better people. What better place to have this conversation around anti-racism than in counseling and so-
Dr. Butler: Which is so important.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: -so important.
Dr. Butler: So important and so I think in terms of that, so many times we wait for the savior to come and we are the savior.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: We are it.
Dr. Butler: We are the ones that we've been sitting here waiting for. We can't wait for Martin Luther King or President Obama or whomever, Gandhi.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Kent Butler to come and save the day. [laughs]
Dr. Butler: Or Kent Butler. You can't wait for me to change the world. We are in this together in terms of the work that we need to be doing and it's really important. This book that you put forward, Anti-racist Counseling in Schools and Communities seems to be a gateway to people recognizing that. I think what I would want to say is read it with yourself out of the way, and what I mean by that is read it for what the purpose of it is. Don't read it to try to make it be about you and now your guilt or you feeling uncomfortable because these are people's truths. These are things that people have gone through in life so allow that to be what feeds you. You can be making the changes that are necessary as opposed to, "I can't, I don't do that at all, I don't do this," this is not-- Don't read this verbatim as to this is what you've done in your life but read it with the intentionality of knowing that, "I may be oppressing people, I may have had a hand in how this has been done to hurt other individuals." That's how you can read this without becoming guilty or fragility playing a part of what you have to now go through in order to help change what we're talking about. We all have a vested interest in making sure that we all find equity [unintelligible 00:50:44].
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Absolutely, couldn't have said that better, and thank you for saying that and you said that at the end of our teach-in too, which I think was very powerful, that we come to this work having to humble ourselves to listen, right?
Dr. Butler: Yes, [unintelligible 00:50:58].
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: To other's experiences and I think that is so true. I think it's also important as you read this book to read it with colleagues, to have book clubs around it, take each chapter and read it, but it's also important to just breathe, okay, just breathe, right? There's some tough things to hear I think in this book and about our profession possibly perpetuating some of these racist ideas, but we have to just sit and breathe and think and reflect. It's not about hating White people.
Often here now, the critical race theory is about hating White people or hating your country. No, it's about loving our country and wanting it to be better. This is about loving our neighbors who are White, our friends who are White but wanting our White friends and colleagues to understand the history of this country and what our lived experiences have been, and how counseling can help possibly fix and correct some of the damage that's been done so that's--
Dr. Butler: [unintelligible 00:52:02] that. What brings up for me is that yes, this is not about trying to make you feel bad about yourself.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: No, it's not.
Dr. Butler: It's not, it has never been about that and it's been about helping you see the world for what it is through the lenses of other individuals who haven't had the same type of experiences that you've may have had. You can't say that everybody has a right to, or they can do this, when you don't understand the disparities or the obstacles that have been in their way that stopped them from being able to do this, right?
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Right.
Dr. Butler: There's not just one person who can make it through, right? You know, "Oh, I'm so glad you made it out. You're an example for your community." "No, there are many examples within the community who could do the same thing."
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Absolutely.
Dr. Butler: There's too many roadblocks or that are there in the way that stopped them from being able to move forward. You have been a phenomenal person in my life.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Thank you.
Dr. Butler: I appreciate you so much. We're coming to the end of our time together but I really want people to go out and get this book. Like you said, start reading clubs and reading times with your colleagues and friends and just really think about how you can contribute. Nobody says you have to do it all but you can do some things that help make the changes that are necessary to break the barriers down, to help dismantle the racism that's there. That's having a belief, right? You have a right behind you.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Believe, you see it? You see it?
Dr. Butler: There is a belief, yes, I do. You have to have a belief that you can help make an impact and the things that are necessary in this world. I think this book is really something that's going to help us get there so Dr. Cheryl Holcomb-McCoy, thank you for the [unintelligible 00:54:03].
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Thank you Dr. Kent Butler.
Dr. Butler: Thank you so much.
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: Thank you so much. I just want to you know, back at you, you are a phenomenal human being. Thank you so much for all that you're doing for everyone else in our field by having these conversations by opening yourself up to have these conversations and opening yourself up to be a leader for us all. I just want to thank you. This has been just a wonderful conversation.
Dr. Butler: [unintelligible 00:54:29].
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: We got to do this again, it's funny having this conversation on tape but-
Dr. Butler: Yes, yes, yes, yes. We definitely [unintelligible 00:54:33].
Dr. Holcomb-McCoy: -we usually have these just on the phone, right?
Dr. Butler: On the phone.
Dr. Butler: There's nothing like how you say people, we don't get nefarious or whatever that word is where people get there and say, "Oh, what are they talking about over there in a corner?" No, this is really about impacting all of us for the better, right?
Dr. Butler: We don't get there and we don't sit and think about it. When we have time together, we're not sitting there trying to beat down people who are doing this bad stuff. We are sitting here saying, "Okay, how can we make the change?" We know that they're there, we know that this happening but we're not focusing in on individual people, we're looking at the systemic system at play and how we can break down those barriers and so thank you all for being here today.
Cheryl, I really appreciate you having the time to be here, to share your story, to put people on the direction of your book and this coming out through ACA, but from ACA also is the Voice of Counseling. This is Dr. Kent Butler, thank you for being here today and we'll see you next time.
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