Introduction: Can We Speak to the Ism in Racism?: Changing the Conversation1

Abstract

The articles in this special issue represent a range of experiences and a collection of voices reflecting on race and ethnicity from psychoanalytic perspectives and in psychoanalytic contexts. Together they illustrate how macro- and micro-aggressions, racial traumas and divisions—whether perpetrated wittingly or unwittingly—result in feelings of diminishment, pain, and humiliation. In addition to bringing a psychoanalytic perspective to racism and racial subjectivity, the goal here is to foster new and more effective conversations addressing the structural, educational, and interpersonal issues that contribute to racism in psychoanalytic training institutes. The ongoing interaction between racism at the cultural, organizational, and individual levels extends to the cultural context outside the consulting room. This, in turn, raises important question as to how we—as psychoanalysts—can contribute not only to greater awareness, but to change, where change is sorely needed.