Multicultural Counseling Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Multicultural Counseling - Essay Example Hence besides acquiring knowledge of the shared values, it also becomes necessary to acquiring knowledge of the different values in the class system among the African Americans. After all each individual is unique and needs to be looked at it from this perspective, in the counseling process. The common cultural values prevalent in African American communities are essentially those of the African American communities originating in West Africa. These cultural values on various points clash with those of the dominant white cultural values. For instance the American cultural values are oriented towards individualism, competition, material accumulation, nuclear families, religion, religion as distinct from the other parts of culture and domination of nature. This is in sharp contrast to the to the values dominant in the African American communities with importance given to the collective over the individual, kinship and affiliation, extended families, spirituality, connectedness, harmony with nature, and holistic thinking. Centuries of racist practice have made all African Americans view the whites as a dominating community and the variance in cultural values have caused the African American to have the view that the white cultural values are being thrust on them, and do not want anything to with them, as a sign of their freedom from white dominance. This feeling is bound to be more intense in the lower classes of society, as there is a tendency to lay the blame of their social position on the attempts of the whites to dominate them. Changing socio-economics among the African Americans have brought with it a growing middle class of society to the African Americans. This class of African American society, while retaining the common cultural values is more amenable to understanding and accepting the values of the dominant white community (Baytops, Day-Vines, & Patton, 2003). Cultural