@#%$ Your Sorry: Black Womxns’ Reflection on the APA’s Formal Apology

Clinical Psychology faculty Dr. Konjit Page and four Fielding clinical psychology graduate students (Tahlia Bragg, Donica Harper, Brianna Downey, and Sheila Turner) were the winners of the American Psychological Association’s 2022 Stuart C. Tentoni Outstanding Professional Development Program Award. The award is provided by APAGS (the graduate student arm of APA, representing 1/3 of all APA membership) and honors the best professional development student presentation at the APA convention. This is a high honor and comes with a monetary award of $500 for the students. 

@#%$ Your Sorry: Black Womxns’ Reflection on the APA’s Formal Apology

Tahlia Bragg, Dr. Konjit Page, Brianna Downey, Donica Harper (not pictured: Sheila Turner)

The Clinical Psychology group’s talk, entitled, “@#%$ Your Sorry: Black Womxns’ Reflection on the APA’s Formal Apology,” provided differing reactions and commentary, from a Black womxn’s perspective, about the APA’s, “Apology to People of Color for APA’s Role in Promoting, Perpetuating, and Failing to Challenge Racism, Racial Discrimination, and Human Hierarchy in the US.”.

Key Takeaways:

General statement of the presentation: Professionalism guidelines for positions within organizations and training settings seek to strip and erase a Black womxn’s physical representation in the workplace, most notably regarding criteria related to hair (texturism), nails (featurism), and speech (Black Vernacular English; code-switching). Other issues addressed are misogynoir, sexism, and classism.

This critical conversation sought to discuss the APA’s recent apology issues from the training perspective. Black Womxn-identified doctoral trainees from various periods throughout the training process provided their views of how the APA exacerbates marginalization for Black womxn trainees. The panel of Black Womxn-identified psychology trainees briefly shared their concerns with the APA’s apology and provided a summary of their personal and professional experiences during their clinical training. Each panelist and sponsor gave a two- to three-minute presentation on their perspective then posed a challenging question to the audience on their presented topic. The audience was then given five to seven minutes to respond to the challenge question.

The American Psychological Association’s annual convention took place virtually and in person on August 3-6, 2022 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The APA convention draws roughly 10,000 in attendance. This year’s convention, APA 2022, was three full days packed with more than 900 in-person sessions, numerous social and networking events, and two virtual livestream channels. For more information visit convention.APA.org.