This was a Tavistock Policy Seminar with Helen Morgan, examining white privilege and white fragility from a psychoanalytic perspective. This talk was in partnership with the British Psychotherapy Foundation, British Psychoanalytic Council & Tavistock Society of Psychotherapists. Helen's talk starts at 0:07:08 and the discussion starts at 0:56:46.
In November 2020 we organised an open Tavistock Policy Seminar - Whiteness - A problem for our time. Within days there were over 1000 registrations. On the night 700 people attended Helen Morgan’s talk and were able to participate in intense conversations that ensued using both voice and chat. A recording of the talk is available here: • Tavistock Policy Semin...
Our Trust has stated that becoming an antiracist organisation is a necessary though difficult task. This seminar is a contribution to that process and Helen’s talk suggests the need for white people to turn their gaze and their enquiry towards themselves as one route towards an anti-racist stance in race relations.
‘Whiteness’ is a lived experience and a substantial factor in how one navigates the world and how one is navigated around by others. The ‘fragility’, the colour-blind approach and the silencing process of disavowal that develops in the childhood of white liberal families, are a means of maintaining white privilege and racism. A psychoanalytic approach can, therefore, be useful in understanding these psychological implications but only as one part of a wider perspective.
The work required in relation to whiteness and the relinquishment of privilege is essential if we are to dismantle the system of racism that is so embedded within our society. Helen Morgan argues this is no altruistic endeavour but that, whilst clearly doing untold harm to black people, such a system also limits and distorts the development of white individuals and the society in which we are citizens.