2022 ECP Representative Candidate Statements
2022 SCP ECP Candidate Statements Question: How would your skills and vision help you to contribute to and lead SCP’s efforts to uproot anti-Black racism in SCP and beyond? My identities as a queer, disabled, cisgender, White woman have significantly influenced my work. For example, my disabilities have led me to understand how our world is organized by ableist ideas that support and reinforce other systems of oppression. It also led me to the disability justice movement, an intersectional disability rights movement created by queer folks of color, that shapes how I think, practice, and embody social justice. I will continue to dismantle anti-Black racism in SCP by following the leadership of Sins Invalid and the Harriet Tubman Collective. Both organizations have rectified the exclusion of disabled people the way that they were advocating against anti-Black racism. If we do not understand how Blackness intersects with other marginalized identities, we are not fighting for all Black lives. Through my own experiences and activism, I understand that I am both oppressed, and I am complicit in the oppression of others. I have been fortunate enough to learn from others how to hold this dialectic and use it effectively to create change. I have strong skills in presenting and advocating in a way that invites others to join me. If elected, I will use it to invite my fellow White folks to practice and embody anti-racism. I will do so by emphasizing systemic analysis, focusing on the how and the what. I practice incorporating social justice values in every interaction, including when I have not upheld my ideals and need to repair harm I caused. I hope to model and similarly lead the SCP ECP committee if I were to be elected. In the words of Audre Lorde "There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives" (2007, p. 138). The ability to constantly work towards an improved definition of what a just and caring counseling psychologist can be is something I really appreciate in Counseling Psychology. We engage in self-reflection, are open to feedback, and thoughtfully work towards improvement. I hope to be part of the leadership team that ensures counseling psychology is a space where all can be liberated.
2022 SCP ECP Candidate Statements Question: How would your skills and vision help you to contribute to and lead SCP’s efforts to uproot anti-Black racism in SCP and beyond? I come to this question with humility and commitment, knowing that uprooting anti-Black racism is a lifelong process and I will always be learning. I have a deep value and commitment to social justice and liberation, which entails centering the experiences of those most marginalized (e.g., Black trans women). I aim to do so by continuously evaluating how my actions may have racist impacts and through collaborating with and learning from Black feminist scholars. I also aim to be open to feedback and hold myself accountable when I’ve caused harm or colluded with anti-Black racism. Over the past few years, I have specifically focused on expanding my own critical consciousness about anti-Black racism and have grown in my critical thinking and advocacy skills through my work on the SCP Everyday Reparations special task group and by attending several webinars and workshops on liberation and addressing anti-Black racism (e.g., Academics for Black Lives, Big Ideas in Counseling Psych: Uprooting anti-Blackness). I am eager to apply this knowledge and take action. Within the ECP committee my hopes would be to help SCP with initiatives that would begin to repair the harms being done to Black counseling psychologists and trainees and to change the systems that perpetuate harm. One potential idea is hosting healing and community spaces for Black ECP’s in the division as well as forming accountability groups for White and non-Black POCECP’s. Uprooting anti-Black racism is essential for us to move towards liberation and I hope to ground myself in this mission.
2022 SCP ECP Candidate Statements Question: How would your skills and vision help you to contribute to and lead SCP’s efforts to uproot anti-Black racism in SCP and beyond? Thus far, my involvement with SCP has included work to uproot anti-Black racism in SCP and beyond. I am a member of the Everyday Reparation workgroup that has been meeting consistently since 2020. As a group, we are interrogating what reparations means and what it could look like within our field. Participating in this workgroup has challenged my own notions of reparations and helped me better understand how our field can work to better support Black psychologists. Specifically, I would like to see SCP lead changes related to reparations including providing financial support for Black trainees and ECPs related to the EPPP and licensing as we know that many of these processes are biased, leading many folx of color, and namely Black folx to be subjected to retaking these expensive exams multiple times. Additionally, as Dr. Janet Helms mentioned in the 2021 Big Ideas in Counseling Psychology: Uprooting Anti-Blackness webinar, reparations would also mean eliminating the GRE as a requirement for admission to graduate programs in counseling psychology. Again, we know that this biased exam prevents sour field from benefiting from the knowledge and talent of gifted students who are not able to live up to this exam that helps maintain white supremacy. Moreover, with many programs temporarily eliminating the GRE requirement due to COVID-19, it begs the question if we ever need to return to requiring it. My students who did not need to take the GRE are some of the smartest, talented, and knowledgeable critical thinkers I have worked with; I am so happy that a biased exam did not prevent them the opportunity to be the future of our field. Moreover, reparations would mean working toward SCP and APA valuing and rewarding research, practice, and teaching that centers the lived experienced of BIPOC communities instead of maintaining the White (supremacist) and Western approaches that continue to reign supreme. I also want to acknowledge my role as a White cis-woman who holds many privileged identities as I write this statement. To be honest, if I am in this position, I will take my queues from those leaders in our field who are already doing transformational work. I think of the rewarding, inspiring, and important work that Dr. Della Mosley and Pearis Bellamy cultivated with their leadership in Academics for Black Survival and Wellness. If chosen for this representative position, I want to follow the lead of the work already being done and amplify it and ensure those doing this work are appropriately compensated. I want to help find paid opportunities for ECPs to share their wisdom with our field as we work to transform it.
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Madeline Brodt, Ph.D.
Em Matsuno, Ph.D.
Brooke Rappaport, Ph.D.