Radical Acceptance: A Position of Privilege?
Emily Blyth, Primary Care Counsellor, BACP Accredited Member, Advocate for Social Justice and Social Change
When I talk about radical acceptance I describe a way of being with others. A way to stand up and say, ‘I accept this person as a fellow human being no matter what.’ This can sometimes be controversial if the person in question is classed as ‘different’ or ‘challenging’ to others. What I mean by that is a person who holds extremely opposite thoughts or opinions to me. Someone who exhibits behaviors or actions that I can find upsetting or challenging. I feel radical acceptance is an important part of engendering social change. Everyone who wants to talk and have their voices heard should be able to or we’ll just continue to fight without anyone getting anywhere.
The question I most often get asked by counsellors and people in general is, ‘How can you accept someone who goes against everything you stand for?’ Good question, how does someone see through all of the outside stuff and see the human underneath? How do we look past behaviors that may go against our morals and ethics and still offer no judgment and empathy while still caring for ourselves?
In my previous blog, Radical Acceptance in Counselling and Everyday Life, I spoke about how I personally describe radical acceptance: I’m accepting the person not their behaviour and I’m making space to get to the human underneath. So the answer I always come back to is curiosity. To be curious is to allow ourselves the time to explore the other person and the way they interpret the world. Having the patience, with ourselves as well as the person to be open to all experiences and being able to hold it without judgement. In opening this exploration of phenomenology with an other it allows us insight into how they interpret the world and possibly some understanding in what motivates and makes them. This engenders empathy. We all know how powerful empathy and no judgment can be right? Especially in a social setting.
As a 39 year old able-bodied white female, born and raised in the North East of England, I feel I start from a place of privilege. My roots are working class and this can sometimes be a barrier in our region especially for the generations before me, leading to the ideology of class war being passed down through families. This often resulted—and I speak from my own experience—in a kind of inferiority complex about what is ‘for you and not for you’. A job straight from school instead of university, a council house rather than a mortgage. But I have not been oppressed, excluded, or minoritized. Because of this I have been afforded the space and time to be able to cultivate openness to others, I’ve been given life experience that was at times difficult but ultimately safe from hate and judgement for who I am because of the color of my skin, my able body, my gender and sexuality. I have not had to fight to be afforded the same level of human rights that so many others have.
So does this mean that I feel able to offer radical acceptance due to my privilege? By 'privilege’ I mean that, due to my position in society, the color of my skin, being able bodied, I do not carry the trauma of oppression. I don’t have the history of hurt or fear in accepting the other, just the space to see the human behind the behavior. This is magnified in counsellor training spaces, which offer time and encouragement to grow and explore ourselves as well as understand difference (hopefully): to work on understanding. More privilege: if you have the money to pay for counselling training, the time to be able to attend the training and placement plus space to be able to work uninhibited on yourself, is this one of the only ways to cultivate the space to radically accept? This idea is so disheartening: that radical acceptance is a privilege only afforded to some people.
In October 2017, after Trump was elected president, an anti-fascist rally was being held in the US to counter a white supremacist giving a speech at Florida University. During the protest a white male, described as a neo-Nazi, walked into the crowed (see here). Amongst the reactions was one that got everyone’s attention, a black man, Aaron Alex Courtney, hugged the white man tightly and asked him ‘Why don’t you like me?’
This stops me in my tracks every time. Aaron Alex Courtney stepped forward in a sea of people who were fighting for the same thing he was standing for, to hug a man that physically embodied everything this group of people stand against. I can not assume that Aaron Alex Courtney has encountered a life of oppression as I do not know him personally, however, there is enough evidence to suggest that it is highly likely — just from knowing that he is a young black man at an anti-fascist rally. When his fellow protesters were throwing punches and abuse at the symbol of oppression and hate, Aaron Alex Courtney made a huge gesture that could be interpreted as seeing a human and being gently curious about what got him to that point.
Nelson Mandela is another powerful example of using radical acceptance to help engender social change and he was one of the most famous leaders of oppressed people in the world. There are many examples of this throughout different parts of his life. In the early 1990s, Mandela met with Constand Viljoen to try and broker peace (see Human Kind, A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman, 2021). Viljoen was the elected leader of the Afrikaner Volksfront, a political army that believed in white supremacy and wanted to stop the multiracial elections in South Africa. They were planning a war. Now this was someone who had values opposing everything that Mandela stood for, had given up his life for, and was standing against. At the beginning of the meeting Mandela welcomed Viljoen in and served him tea. It is also noted that Mandela took the time understand Viljoen’s background and used his native language to show respect. All of this seemingly done without judgement and rejection of the other person. Offering the space for the opposing voice to be heard. This resulted in months of talks between the two men entering into the elections peacefully.
It makes me curious how Mandela could do that after all of the struggles he had faced. Yet he was able to offer patience and curiosity to hold that space in that situation.
Dr Dwight Turner talks about not being ashamed of your privilege but to use it for good. He states, ‘if you find yourself in a position of privilege it can be used positively to give something back, privilege becomes a problem when you don’t realise you have it or use it to oppress’. (See Dwight Turner, Diversity, Intersectionality and Therapy)
I feel I’m able to use my position to help others. Being a counsellor is a privilege which I feel makes me have a responsibility to my clients. But like Uncle Ben in the Spiderman comic series said to Peter Parker, ‘with great power comes great responsibility’. So if I can do it in that relationship, then why not in all relationships? Just like I’d hope a doctor would step in and help a sick person in the street, or someone who works for the fire and rescue service would help someone in need while off duty, caring about other human beings and our society is a privilege, and one I want to share.
Acknowledgments
Photo by Lan Johnson on Unsplash
