Harvard University’s Project Implicit provides another useful approach to addressing our implicit biases. Guidance from supervisors can help us effectively work through these implicit biases (Pieterse, 2018). Among clinicians, implicit bias can negatively affect communication and decision-making with clients (Gonzalez, Deno, Kintzer, Marantz, Lypson, & McKee, 2018).

We all have implicit bias, which refers to the unconscious preferences and judgments we make about people based on race and gender. In addition to accepting and learning about racism as experienced by POC, social workers must be mindful of our own prejudices and emotional reactions when working with racial minority clients, as uncomfortable as this process may be (Reynolds, 2017). Instead, social workers can ask clients about their history of racial trauma, validate the experiences for what they are (trauma), address self-blame, and incorporate these disclosures into culturally competent treatment plans (Burkard & Knox, 2004 Sue, 2013 Plaut, Thomas, Hurd, & Romano, 2018).

This is a change from the outlook of “I’m colorblind” and “I don’t see color,” which research indicates is neither helpful nor realistic. When Caucasian clinicians accept that people of color experience discrimination in ways white Americans do not, we improve our cultural competence. Microaggressions include racist jokes, inappropriate comments, and prejudice (Polanco-Roman, Danies, & Anglin, 2018 Malone & Malone, 2015 Jerniga & Daniel, 2011). Microaggressions are another form of subtle racism.

These covert forms of racism can include institutionalized racism, conflict with teachers while growing up, unnecessary placement in special education, and disparities in access to healthcare and housing. However, more subtle and covert forms of racism can also lead to a trauma response. Racial trauma can take the form of violence committed against POC. For this reason, research indicates that applying treatment approaches for PTSD also works for survivors of racial trauma (Polanco-Roman, Danies, & Anglin, 2016 Robert, Gillman, Breslau, & Breslau, 2018). Social workers can provide support to clients by validating their emotional reactions and identifying racial trauma as what it is- trauma. Symptoms can include anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, somatization, and rumination. People who experience racial trauma can develop the same post-traumatic symptoms as physical trauma and sexual assault survivors. I believe it is important for social workers to be aware of the ways in which people of color experience racism, the ways in which our own personal biases can affect the therapeutic process, and how these relate to the NASW Code of Ethics. Within the last several years, there have been numerous studies linking racist acts, both violent and nonviolent, to symptoms of trauma in people of color (POC).

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