At the 2010 APA Convention in San Diego, over 36 SCP members attended a Conversation Hour on Exploring Privilege in the SCP Hospitality Suite. This one hour session was designed to begin a conversation about our own experiences with privilege as well as our experiences in working with privileges as psychologists and psychologists in training. We began with reflections on quotes to stimulate discussion followed by ideas for resources.

These are the quotes that provided the stimulus for the conversation hour:

Thoughts on Privilege: SCP Conversation Hour APA 2010
Society for Counseling Psychology, Special Task Group on Exploring Privilege          
APA 2010

“*%&* you for wanting to talk about homophobia while you exploit the desperation of undocumented immigrants to clean your hallways bathe your children and cook your dinner
for less than you and I spend on our tax deductible lunch!” (from Stacyann Chin's speech at the Gay Games VII)

"Even if people from dominant groups are aware of their social status, they don't feel privileged or powerful. Most people are struggling to live their lives. They worry about their jobs, their families, their health. They personally don't have access to great amounts of resources or make decisions that affect the nation. More people feel controlled, rather than in control." (Goodman, 2001, p. 33)

"Resistance stems from fear and discomfort. Because we are asking people to question their fundamental belief systems, it makes sense that people feel threatened and act resistant." (Goodman, 2001, p. 63)

"When it comes to privilege, it doesn't really matter who we really are. What matters is who other people think we are, which is to say, the social categories they put us in." (Johnson, 2001, p. 35)
"If you have come to help me you are wasting your time.  But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together."  Aboriginal Activists Group

"Like many other Maori undergraduate students who attended university in the 1970s I read some texts for my formal course of study and another set of alternative readings to keep sane, to keep connected to the rest of my life and, more importantly, to make sense of things that were happening around me. Much of that alternative reading course is now collected in anthologies labelled as cultural studies." (Linda Tuhiwai Smith).
 “One frustrated woman voiced the nagging worry of many. ‘I want to do something, but what can I do? I’m just one person, an average person. I can’t have an impact. I live with the despair of my own powerlessness. I can’t bring myself to do anything. The world is so screwed up, and I have so little power. I feel so paralyzed’… The problem is not that we have so little power. The problem is that we don’t use the power that we have” (Goska, 2004, pp. 47, 49)

For more info regarding the STG, please contact Rebecca Toporek, STG Chair, rtoporek@sfsu.edu

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