TPC-Journal-V4-Issue1

64 The Professional Counselor \Volume 4, Issue 1 Participant #3 . I’ve been ignored at times; times when I felt like my opinion didn’t matter. When I was in undergrad at [name of university removed] I was meeting with my advisor. I was sharing with him my concern about pursuing my bachelor’s degree in physics and when I was telling him about my experience and how I felt about it, he expressed to me that I may have some type of learning disability. At that point, I felt like okay, in other words he was ignoring the fact that maybe I learned differently or ignoring the fact that there may be other factors and just saying that your main problem is that you have a learning disability. That experience made me think of who I was as a person. Participant #4. I worked at several predominately White schools and had the certification and licensure to do the job. At the same time, I had White colleagues who hadn’t gotten certified at the time. But I felt like a lot of times, I was there and had the credentials to prove my worth, but sometimes I felt like I had to always go that extra mile to prove my skill set. I had to go that extra mile and pander from time to time to prove that I was worth enough or acceptable to be in the circle. For example, one time I was in a situation at a middle school. I had proven that I had done my job to the best of my ability. I had shown more than enough evidence to prove that I could do the job. But after dialoging and debating over and over again, I felt like the person in charge never heard my case, never understood my experience and because of that it made me feel invisible and pow- erless. Those with privilege a lot time can state a case and they will get exonerated, whereas in my case I felt invisible and powerless because in my case regardless of whatever I did I always felt like I was public enemy number one. Participant #5 . One situation happened when I got busted for drugs. When I got busted I felt like the gentle- men that arrested me made fun of me and they were Caucasian males. They said, “We gotcha now, you will never see the streets again;” they said, “that’s what happens to all of y’all; y’all put yourself into a bunch!” They laughed and in so many words told me my life was over. Participant #6 . One time me and my mom went to shop on 34th Street in Manhattan. My mother was hun- gry so we went inside to eat. So we went inside and set at the counter. The White lady looked at us and she kept on doing what she was doing; she never one time acknowledged us. Eventually, my mom got up. I could see tears in her eyes and we just walked out. Participant #7 . My first experiences with invisibility occurred when I was a small kid, say age 7. I use to go to North Carolina. During that time I would see how proud and bold my grandfather was when he spoke with Black people, but when he spoke with White men he would “cow down” [assume on a more inferiority/invis- ible position] as I call it. You know he would speak soft, bow his head, not make eye contact. He was expected by them to be this way—invisible. Another example when I was in middle school I remember White boys would look at me and call me and other Black kids names. I mean, we were all different complexions, different heights, 4-inch differences, extreme differences. They would call me Kenny when I was [name removed]. I soon realized that they didn’t see me. We [all the Black boys] were the same. They looked through us and simply saw our skin color. It was amazing to me because when I saw them, I could clearly see that they were different: different hair styles, different complexions, different hair colors…. But for them they didn’t see any of that. So they really didn’t see the person that they were talking to that they respected, they just looked over us and as- sumed that because we were Black we must all be like the same person. It was an incredible experience. Thematic Code 1: Self-Affirmation All seven study participants discussed the process of routinely affirming themselves as African-American males. For them, this process is important in understanding and staying true to who they are as African-Ameri- can men in a society that often perceives them as less. Self-affirmation theory refers to the process of respond-