No More Building Resiliency: Confronting American Psychology’s White Supremacist Past to Reimagine Its Antiracist Future

Abstract

This paper introduces a historically informed antiracist approach to psychological practice aimed at disrupting American psychology’s legacy of racism by first saying “No More” to the whiteness engulfing it. Its end goal is to detour psychological practices away from enduring legacies of oppression, reimagine psychological practice as an antiracist endeavor, and extricate the deep-seated structural whiteness rotting the profession at its core. No more building resiliency takes aim at the White discourses directing people suffering under the weight of White supremacy to bear it instead of compelling mental health professions to dismantle the systems of oppression causing the harm. Seven historical themes reveal how organized psychology has shaped and been shaped by racism and whiteness since its inception. By identifying the language and strategies used to cover up and sustain the racist harm by design, the themes provide starting points for antiracist psychological practices that interrogate and dismantle both forms of oppression. They issue the imperative for a critical, transparent, and transgressive psychology of the future, one that requires not a revision of existing practices, rather a complete redo. The closing section imagines where we go from here by offering immediate action steps for bringing this antiracist future closer within reach.

Addressing mass incarceration amid a pandemic: Psychology informing decarceration as a racial justice and public health response.

“…It is not enough to study how race and ethnicity relate to treatment and outcomes in criminal justice, legal, and carceral context using perspectives and methods established by a predominantly White field. (p. 3) Legha and Martinek (2023) also remark, "American psychology's claims to objectivity served multiple White supremacist objectives. In positioned White experts with White knowledge (and power) to study and control racial minority others configured as ignorant and lacking such White expertise" (p. 6).…”

“…Legha and Martinek (2023) also remark, “American psychology’s claims to objectivity served multiple White supremacist objectives. In positioned White experts with White knowledge (and power) to study and control racial minority others configured as ignorant and lacking such White expertise” (p. 6).…”