Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 12

1

The Picture of Jay Key

The Picture of Jay Key


Jay Key
Wake Forest University

2
The Picture of Jay Key

Abstract:
In this paper I answer the questions of: To what extent I interact with members of diverse groups
different from my own; How and when I first came to understand discrimination and prejudice; What
my parents advice and beliefs about people different from ourselves where; And what I believe is my
relationship between my current identity development and my ability to be an effective counselor. I
state that because of my history with a diverse population, combined with my personal experiences
with discrimination and prejudice particularly relating to LGBTQ individuals as well as the teachings
and beliefs of my parents have enabled me a strong scaffold to develop as a counselor. That
scaffolding has provided the base by which the experience and training of the Wake Forest University
Masters in Counseling program and its practicum and internship experiences will enable me to be an
effective counselor with diverse populations who is accepting, open, and multi-culturally competent
with potential clients.
Keywords: Counseling, Prejudice, Diverse, Effective, Awareness

3
The Picture of Jay Key
Before I can recognize the extent to which I interact with members of groups different from
myself, I must first be aware of what my own groups are. In many ways, I am the stereotypical
American. I am a white, straight, middle-class male of Protestant descent. My familys ancestors hail
from primarily England and Scotland, with some ancestors from Germany, Ireland, and other places
as well. I am intelligent, liberal, agnostic, and a Southern American. From a relationship standpoint, I
am a son, brother, boyfriend, and friend. Furthermore, I am a Demon Deacon and NBA fan. I am a
nerd, particularly when it comes to board games, although I also enjoy other traditional nerd pursuits
such as video games, comic books, and fantasy and sci-fi novels and movies. Lastly, and most
recently, I am a future counselor.
In my life I have, in general, regularly interacted with a diverse group of people. There have
multiple ways that people who I have interacted with have differed from me. The most visible and
most prevalent of these have been differences in race, ethnicity, religious beliefs, and sports interests.
While the extent to which I have interacted with different people has expanded as I have grown, the
basis for this diversity was more or less out of my control. Unlike the White people who Helms
references as being able to escape from interacting with Black people, I had little choice but to attend
Durham Public Schools as both of my parents worked for DPS (1984, p. 155). This is not to say that I
wanted to escape, because I greatly appreciated the experiences attained while going to a public
school in Durham, where a large percentage of classmates and teammates were African-American,
and a smaller percentage were Asian-American or Latino. Rather, I had a large incentive to progress
quickly towards accepting other races and ethnicities if I were to survive school. Furthermore, my
classmates were often of a different religious orientation than myself. I grew up Methodist, and had a
decent amount of friends from my church. Durhams largest religious group, however, is Southern
Baptist which, while similar to Methodism, is traditionally more evangelical and conservative

4
The Picture of Jay Key
(Demographics of North Carolina, 2015). In addition to this I had friends and acquaintances who
were Jewish, Predestination Presbyterian, and Mormon. And lastly I was almost constantly
surrounded by Duke sports fans. This was the one group that I probably could have done without,
growing up as a UNC fan in a town run rampant with Duke supporters, but I still managed to be
friendly with (most) of them, albeit it was much easier to when Duke lost.
Since I graduated from high school in Durham the majority of the diversity in my life has
primarily come from work and volunteer positions. Working and volunteering in Durham and at my
practicum, Guilford Tech, has enriched my life with a large amount of diversity in the form of
different races and ethnicities. In addition to this, while my previous job and my experience at Wake
Forest was primarily one filled with white middle- and high-SES people, my friend group from Wake
does have its share of diversity. The Before and After school program at Little River Elementary in
Durham that I worked at the year after graduating from undergrad held a high amount of ethnic and
racial diversity, considering my co-workers and boss were all older Christian African-American
women. The students and parents who I interacted with were also a general mix of Caucasian,
African-American, and Hispanic. And while I worked at Little River I also spent my time
volunteering with two social worker PhDs at Duke. One, Dr. Weller, was half-African American halfCaucasian, and the other, Dr. Doyle, who was of African-Caribbean descent.
The largest amount of current racial and ethnic diversity in my life comes from my practicum
experience at Guilford Technical Community College. There are four groups of people that I interact
with at Guilford Tech: My supervisors, namely Ms. Edna Hurley and Ms. Angela Leak, as well as
other employees; work-study students; students who I work with individually; and students who are in
the Single Parent Support Group that I co-lead with my supervisor, Ms. Hurley. My supervisors are
both older African-American women, and Ms. Hurley is also quite enthusiastically Christian. All of

5
The Picture of Jay Key
the work-study students are also African-American women, albeit closer to my age. My clients while
working there have been a mix, with different races and ethnicities, as well as different sexual
orientations and gender identities, including the first gender fluid person whom I have met. As well,
some of the students also might be of a lower SES than myself, although that is not clear. The support
group that I work with is relatively dissimilar from me as well. In order to be a member, you must be a
single-parent. All of the members so far are also currently women, and most of them are AfricanAmerican as well. This has created an interesting situation where I feel it is more difficult for me to
relate since they have experienced life in ways that I have not and will not ever understand, although I
hope that my input as a man has been valued. These experiences have been helpful both in giving me
experience with a diverse population and in helping me work on interpersonal skills that have been
rarely used while at Wake Forest.
Socially, the majority of my friends in North Carolina are in the same or similar groups as
myself. These friends are almost all from my time as an undergrad at Wake, my last job in Raleigh, or
my current cohort. We are generally possessing high intelligence, are relatively liberal, are middle- to
upper-class, and are almost all white. However, I do have friends who either live in other states or who
live outside of Winston-Salem who are different from myself racially, ethnically, sexually, and
religiously. In my friend group at Wake I made at least one new friend who was: Catholic; gay;
bisexual; Hispanic; or Half-African American half-Caucasian. With my joining of both Wake Radio
and the WFU Marching Band, I was able to make most of these friends and diversify my friend group.
I was also friends with Asian-Americans, African-Americans, and others. It is inherently more
difficult to keep in touch with my friends who are far away, and it is an unfortunate coincidence that
the majority of the diversity of my friend group lives out of state. That said, as a group we still are a
close group and communicate regularly. This diversity is also expanded, albeit limitedly, within my

6
The Picture of Jay Key
cohort at Wake Forest. There is one person who is racially diverse compared to everyone else, and one
person has a different sexual orientation as well, although the cohort ahead of us has clearer examples
of diversity.
My knowledge of prejudice and discrimination related to these differences was broken up into
roughly three stages as I have grown and developed. The first stage would probably be best described
as Helms Autonomy stage, at least for diverse groups that I was aware of (1984, p. 156). Later,
beginning sometime around middle school and ending sometime around the age of 18, I became
aware of more groups but was prejudiced towards them, roughly characterized by the Reintegration
stage (Helms, 1984, p. 156). In this stage I knew how to be prejudiced, but did not understand the
negative impacts and inherent wrongness of it. Lastly, I became aware of my new prejudice and its
negative affect on both myself and others.
Growing up in public schools in Durham, NC, I was often surrounded by people who were
different from myself. There never seemed to be any encounter that made me aware of race or gender.
With the more visible differences between people, there was never really any huge revelation that
people with differences were actually different in any way other than superficial reasons. They may
look different or go to a different church but the similarities outweighed the contrasts, even with my
most hated enemies, Duke fans. If there was a group that I did not know about or interact with, I
tended to have no opinion of them. But for those that I did know I was too young to care that someone
had a different skin color than me or believed in a slightly (or very) different God than I did, and so
got along with people based on their personality rather than because of any superficial differences.
Unfortunately these neutral feelings towards groups I had no contact with did not last. In
middle school, my 7th grade class was divided into 4 teams, of which mine was called the Middle East
Caravan. After the 9/11 attacks there was a large amount of anti-Middle Eastern sentiment going

7
The Picture of Jay Key
around in both my middle school and in the nation at large. There was talk, at least among students,
about changing the name of our team so that we no longer were associated with the Middle East since
they had attacked us. Being an impressionable and ignorant middle schooler I supported this
change, although I did not fully understand the ramifications of my thoughts and actions. When I
voiced this opinion to an authority figure I was correctly put into my place. They told me, rightly, that
that was not a very good notion to have and that everyone in the Middle East was not responsible for
the attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. I internalized part of this, that it was wrong to be
prejudiced against them, although I did not understand entirely why.
During this time of my life I was also prejudiced towards gays and lesbians. I distinctly
remember a high school teacher telling my class that gay people were ok. However, when a student
voiced displeasure at a gay man or boy being in class with us I agreed with them. I had the mistaken
impression not only that to be gay was wrong, but that anyone who was gay would try to convert us
and would hit on us, which made me afraid and uncomfortable. In both instances I perceived there to
be a conflict between myself and these new groups, and developed prejudices towards them, similar to
the realistic conflict theory or in terror management theory (Shen, 2005; Wagstaff, 2005). The
majority of these threats (aside from those of the actual 9/11 attackers and their supporters) were
solely in my head and as I reached college I began to understand why these prejudices were wrong. I
cannot say for certain what sparked my change in opinion. It was partly an introduction to the new
ideas and beliefs that are inherent in a good learning experience in college. A large part of it was also
an introduction to actual LGTBQ and Middle-Eastern people, dispelling many of the preconceived
notions that I had made of them in the face of them actually being real people. Lastly, I know that the
work that authority figures around me, particularly my parents, strove to instill in me had fully paid off
in the form of understanding and respect for others.

8
The Picture of Jay Key
As far back as I can remember my parents always taught me to keep an open mind when
interacting with groups different from our own. Because they were both employees for Durham Public
Schools and they often interacted with a diverse group of people. Subsequently in order to be an
excellent teacher or school administrator they made avoiding discrimination and being effective with
all employees and students a priority. Even had their job not required them to be accepting and open of
all people they had been raised to be respectful and not judge someone based on the color of their skin
or their religion but rather on their character. And as with most good parents they instilled their values
and code of ethics onto me. These values, combined with a natural proclivity towards learning and
history allowed my sister and I to have the base towards productively and effectively interacting with
people different from ourselves when we inevitably had to. While I do not believe my parents ever
flatly said that we were white and therefore different from people with darker skin, this was probably
acknowledged as something that was different but not something that was important. The one area
where they may have been lacking concerned the LGBTQ community. While there was no outright
hate directed towards the LGBTQ community there was often a subtle negativity towards them. These
feelings mostly revolved around same sex kissing on tv or movies, which was treated as an eww
moment. Although, with full-disclosure, I must admit that different-sex kissing portrayed on tv was
often treated the same way. Regardless I internalized these feelings and I believe they were at least
partially responsible for my prejudice versus gay people while in high school. Fortunately, my parents
have gotten more accepting as they have gotten older, partly due to my challenging them about
instances of potential anti-gay sentiment but, more importantly, because of the tacit acknowledgement
and acceptance of my fathers sister, who is gay. Due to this I believe that they have realized that the
LGBTQ community are just more different people, and therefore should be treated not only with the
respect that all people should, but also should be actively championed for.

9
The Picture of Jay Key
Sues Tripartite Model of Multicultural Counseling stresses that cultural competence requires
awareness, knowledge, and skillsto function effectively as a counselor (Pope-Davis, 2003, p. 26).
My history with diversity, as well as what I have learned along the way, have given me a broad
knowledge base and a high level of awareness. This knowledge base and level of awareness,
combined with the skills that I have learned and will continue to learn in this program will enable me
to be an effective and culturally competent counselor. I have little doubt that I will one day become an
effective counselor for a wide range of sexual identities, races, ethnicities, genders, and other aspects
of the human race that factor into diversity. With most people, whether they are similar to me or not, I
am either in Helms Pseudo-Independent or Autonomy stage (1984). I am aware of differences
between myself and most people and treat most of those people as individuals rather than as part of a
larger group. I also have a clear understanding of who I am and my relation to the rest of the world.
Awareness and understanding, however, are not enough. I believe that the way that my thoughts and
views about the LGBTQ community have evolved and my current and potential activism for them is
the script for which my relations with all people can learn from and model. My belief that people in
the LGBTQ community should be championed is one that I hold dear and is the key to my ability to
be an effective counselor.
This is not to say that I am an effective counselor for all cultures yet. As stated before, I
believe that for some peoples I am in Helms Pseudo-independent stage (1984). The reasons for this
are that I am intellectually curious about and accept people different from myself but do not often
actively seek them out. I have never known myself to care about finding black people (or any other
minority) who are special or who are similar to Whites. Perhaps this is because while I am aware of
these factors I tend towards not giving them value which would be more indicative of Autonomy.
Instead of being drawn directly to a race or ethnicity I am drawn to people who are similar to me.

10
The Picture of Jay Key
While this is technically innocuous it unfortunately results in interacting with people similar to myself
more often than not. Many of my hobbies and interests tend to draw a white middle-class crowd. Yet I
am drawn to these interests not because of the people who are associated with them but rather because
of the interests themselves. I have attempted to expand my horizons when it comes to my interests,
particularly concerning food where I have branched out into many different Asian varieties and into
the NBA, which is seen as more traditionally African-American than many of the other main sports of
America. Despite this, there is some inherent passivity when presented with interactions with people
with diverse backgrounds and interests, which is my strongest point towards pseudo-independence. I
would like to believe that this is not race related, but instead is a product of my personality and what I
am drawn to. I am often shy when meeting new people and am quite content in not speaking unless I
have to. This has the unfortunate side effect of leading some to assume that I am uncomfortable
because of differences in skin color or religion rather than the actual reason which is a general
hesitance to speak. This might be my greatest challenge when working with different clients. Not only
could passivity limit which clients are drawn to me by them not being aware that I exist, but it can also
cause the wrong first impression on new clients.
My hope and belief is that this is a barrier that can be overcome. I am not in the Pseudoindependent stage with all peoples, particularly the LGTBQ community. When looking at people who
are important to me I have a larger number of LGTBQ individuals than any other minority group.
While they would probably not have been friends with me in high school I have counted many of
them among my best friends and I would not be who I am today without them. This transformation,
from one of tacit prejudice to an embrace of a people is why I believe that I can be a potential effective
counselor with anyone. Through a combination of contact, awareness, and knowledge I managed to
overcome my preconceived notions and completely changed how I viewed the world. Such a drastic

11
The Picture of Jay Key
change is not necessary for working with everyone, but it does serve both as a reminder not to judge
people before I know them but also to actively get to know them.
I have at times worried about being unfairly judged because I am a white male and all of the
negative stereotypes that go with that. However, because I am nominally in a position of power
because of my race and gender the ramifications of being judged are potentially much less than they
are an African-American during the Jim Crow era or a Muslim-American in post-9/11 America. This
position of power not only means that I need worry less about negative consequences, but also that I
should use that power as an activist for those who truly need it. I have fought in my community for
equal rights for LGTBQ individuals, including discouraging friends from using the word fag and
disciplining a student for stating that he wished all gays would die. I will freely admit that this is not
enough. Regardless it is a start and can be used as a launching board for my counseling career. I am
aware both of what minorities must go through in America and that they should not be treated in the
prejudice way that they often are. I have and am continuing to increase the amount of knowledge that
I possess concerning minorities and our culture as a country. And with the skills that I have developed
working both for and with minorities I hope that my future as an all-inclusive counselor who can be an
effective counselor with potentially anyone is a bright one.

12
The Picture of Jay Key

References
Demographics of North Carolina. (2015, January 19). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieved
from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Demographics_of_North_Carolina&oldid=64
3226493
Helms, J. E. (1984). Toward a theoretical explanation of the effects of race on counseling: A Black and
White model. The Counseling Psychologist, 12(3-4), 153165.
doi:10.1177/0011000084124013
Pope-Davis, D. B. (2003). Handbook of Multicultural Competencies in Counseling and Psychology.
SAGE.
Shen, P. (2005). Flight from death: The quest for immortality. [Long Beach, Calif.]: Transcendental
Media.
Wagstaff, G. (2005). Understanding prejudice. Psychology review, 11(4), 20-23.

Вам также может понравиться