ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that our identifications and idealizations often make it difficult for us to think about most matters, including race. For even if some interesting and useful psychotherapeutic theory of race and racism could be constructed, the argument of it would still apply to it, in that this theory or model could easily become a way of evading thoughtful engagement with notions of race, ethnicity, and culture and the part such notions play in what we say, do, and believe. The chapter appears to fail to provide convincing definitions of the terms it uses, and to discuss directly and compellingly notions such as “racism”, “the racist”, “racist states of mind”, “the internal racist”, “institutional racism”, and so on. It attempts to value small nets, attentiveness, and patience and to be wary of smothering our thinking in theoretical constructs. Although the chapter is concerned with notions of race, ethnicity, and culture, what it has to say goes beyond these matters.
