They Said What?!?: Responding Adeptly to Racial Comments and Questions to Advocate for Social Justice

While most psychologists and educators adhere to principles of social justice, even the most well-intentioned among us may struggle to initiate or respond to racial dialogue, fearing that we may do or say the “wrong thing”, particularly in our current political climate. Yet with knowledge and practice, we can become skilled in using microaffirmations, addressing racism directly, and avoid the “trap” of color-blindness (Castro-Atwater, 2008, 2016). Using a tiered multicultural response framework, this webinar will provide participants with the chance to practice culturally-affirming racial dialogue and learn how to directly confront microaggressions in order to advance values of social justice.

• Acquire a new, reflective understanding to addressing racial comments using a tiered Multicultural Developmental Response Framework (Castro-Atwater, 2008, 2016).
• Discuss the adverse impact of adopting a colorblind (“I don’t see race”) philosophy in order to shift toward culturally-affirming, race-conscious dialogue and microaffirmations.
• Facilitate dialogue addressing two main categories of racial comments: the “they-didn’t-know-better” microaggression (“teachable moment”) vs. the “How Could You?” macroaggression (intentionally hurtful or deliberate comments) using real-life vignettes.

Sheri Atwater, PhD