TP: What defines me as a person and a professional? That's a good question. I think what defines me is probably a couple of variables. First, would be my service to other people. I consider myself a servant of the CREATOR, and so in serving GOD's creation, what I try to do through all of my personal and professional activities is serve my community, serve my family, serve my profession, and serve the university and people I impact through my clinical work, teaching, research, writing, and whatever else it is that I do. So, certainly the first thing would be the service aspect.

Secondly, I have always found it important in my life to distinguish between what I do for a living and who I am as a person. I am a psychologist, I do clinical work, and I teach classes, I write culturally specific scholarship, I'm an administrator, I do all those things, and I am invited to travel around the country to train and consult. All that is what I do; but, who I am as a person is not really defined by any professional activity or any degree, award or honor that I have received. Who I am is really a family man, first and foremost. I strive to be a devoted husband to my wife, a nurturing father to my children, a supportive sibling to my brothers and sisters, and just a strong manifestation of what the CREATOR has in store for me. So, that's the second piece, I would say.

TP: A combination of things, I guess. In terms of socialization and life experience, certainly growing up in places where I have had a chance to bear witness to the struggles that people engage in on a daily basis around a whole range of life issues.. I think people struggle with poverty, I think people struggle with ignorance, I think people struggle with not having enough resources, and their lives are impacted by the social pathology of oppression, discrimination, and racism-I think people struggle with a whole range of things. Part of my soul and part of my passion has always wanted to intervene to make a difference. So, for me, I think there is an African concept called ori-ire. And ori-ire is a Yoruba term that means "one whose consciousness is aligned with one's destiny." So, while I can articulate that now as a grown professional, I think for me growing up, it was always a challenge for me to create as much congruence as possible between the kind of activities I engaged in life, and where my passion really lied. As I became a professional and began to do those things, that's the piece that, for me, has helped to solidify the person I am or aspire to be.. What my passion really is, beyond being a servant and beyond being a family man, community person, etc., is really to be a healing presence in my community, and I judge my success by whether or not I can make things better as a result of me having been there- in whatever space I happen to occupy. It's that "healer" in me that wants to be able to make a difference and do those kind of things, and that really is born out of my recognition and keen sense of social awareness about some of challenges that we face as a society and other issues that people face as individuals, and my need to address those is at the core of my being.

TP: I'm asked that sometimes, and it's a hard thing to answer; I don't know is the short answer to the question because contributions are the things that you hope end up helping people and serving people, but I'm not the best person to articulate what has helped people. It's really the general population that I serve and the students who I instruct in class, it's the clients I work with in therapy, it's the people who read my research and scholarship, it's the folks who listen to my voice at a presentation or convention where I'm out advocating for something or against some social ill,-it's those folks who are really the best judge and the best gauge on what have been the contributions. There's lots of things that I have been blessed to do in my life. I have certainly taught and mentored countless numbers of students over the years. I think in order to be able to work with young people, to help them grow in ways that are important to them, is a tremendous blessing. Being a teacher, being a healer, being a mentor, being really what we call a jegna in African tradition (a wise teacher or a respected elder) is one of the best roles I think you can have, next to being a parent, because there aren't many people who get trusted with the intellectual growth and development of young people, or even professionals for that matter. So, that would certainly be one of those things that I would put in that list of contributions.

I've always tried to contribute to research and scholarship in counseling, therapy, multicultural counseling, and African psychology. But, the interesting thing about my career really as a researcher and scholar is I haven't been on tenure track in probably the last twenty-plus years. I left the University of Pennsylvania in 1985, and so I have been more of a senior administrator and part-time faculty member, etc. So, a lot of the articles and manuscripts that I've written since 1985 has been written basically on my own time, with my own interests, without any tenure clocks or anything pushing me. What I've come to realize is that when it comes to research and scholarship about African Americans in particular and culturally different people in general, I am a fairly critical person. I've always had a disposition or a feeling that you should not be complaining about anything that you are not willing to put something better in its place. Rather than complain about that research that is out there on black folks and the research that's out there on multicultural populations, I would rather try to write something that is more beneficial and truthful about that.

At this stage in my life, I think I have only written four books and maybe thirty-five or forty journal articles and book chapters, etc. However, I hope what I do is not just write; I hope that I can use my power to help frame the discourse, to help people to ask the right questions, and to help provide some penetrating analysis on something that is important and helps other practitioners out there provide a better level of service through mainly, the clinical work, mentoring, teaching and scholarship.

Another area I hope that I have made a difference is in social advocacy. One of the things I have always tried to do is be aware of my power. I try to invite people, much like the great African centered scholar Dr.Wade Nobles argued in his work, to re-define the definition of power. Power is not status, who has the most money, who lives the longest, who has the most military might, or who has the biggest, baddest police force. Real power, to me, is the ability to define reality and to make other people respond to that definition as if it were their own. My power, I think, comes from being able to help define or frame the discourse and being able to help people see a broader vision of possibility than existed before I entered into the debate.

TP: Are we talking personal challenges or professional challenges?

TP: Well let me start with the personal, and then I'll go to the professional. I think personally, one of the challenges I had to face was growing up in a single-parent home. The literature would describe that as an unstable family, but for me it was very stable. My mom had four kids, and she and my dad separated when I was about three, and we moved across the country. So I grew up in California even though I was born in New York. Basically, my mama raised four kids by herself and never earned more than about $18,000 - $19,000 a year after thirty-two years of service as a civil servant with the U.S. government. But, she has two sons with a Ph.D., a third college educated, all four children working and making honest contributions, nobody on drugs, in jail, or in a gang. It's a remarkable testament to her strength and perseverance, as well as her faith in GOD. Certainly, the challenge of that, growing up with relatively modest means in a single-parent household and growing up in lots of different places, but we were able to move through that.

I think one of the challenges, for me personally, has certainly been being a Black male in an American society. Black males are probably among the most feared individuals on the planet. I was born in the early-to-mid-fifties, the same year that Brown v. Board of Education in '54. So growing up in that time when racism was rampant and segregation was rampant, it wasn't okay just to be black; black was something that people in the larger society tolerated, not something that people celebrated. It was quite a challenge to find a sense of my own personal and cultural integrity in a world and society that provided very little affirmation for that. I had teachers in school who always recognized that I was a bright kid, but some portion of the interaction I received from them, it was almost like an assault on your self-esteem every day just to be able to go on and put up with it. Even so, I managed to do okay. I was blessed with being a bright kid. So those are certainly part of the challenges that were there.

Some of the challenges were having to navigate the "streets," if you will. In growing up in some of the urban areas, living in East L.A., South Central Los Angeles, and some of the other places that are urban core; and living in some places that are more integrated and "well-to-do." So I have grown up in a diversity of environments, but just learning to navigate the streets so you don't become a victim of the social ills like gang violence, drug abuse, criminal activity, etc., was important. I've come face-to-face with a gang member with a gun in my face, but it just wasn't my time because the CREATOR and Ancestors must have said, "We have something else in store for you." I could have been a statistic very early on-at like sixteen years of age. I've been stopped and harassed by the police before for no reason... just walking down the street. Lots of kids who end up panicking and doing something crazy end up dead, in a police cell, shot on the street, or something like that. There are lots of ways you have to learn to navigate the street as a personal path to survival. Somehow, through the grace of God, somehow through the ancestors looking out for me, somehow through a strong mom who defined moral character, and through the blessing of some very good friends and peers, we were able to persevere, along with the love and support of my family, brothers and sisters, and other folks. Personally, those are certainly some of the things that I had to navigate through as a young child. While growing up, I think I have lived a relatively blessed life. But part of who I am as a person now is certainly all due to that. Professionally...

TP: Well, what happens is that most of what people learn about folks who are culturally different, they learn off of television. If you look at the images on television of black men, we can only be one of three things: you either have to be an entertainer or a clown, an athlete, or a criminal. When I'm walking down the street and somebody sees me coming and approaching them, and they cross the street, keep going, and then cross the street again when they think it is safe, they're not looking at an entertainer or an athlete, they're looking at a potential predator out on the street; that's all they see. When I'm pulled over by the police for just walking down the street in my neighborhood-I went out at night with a friend, I come home and it's midnight ([about] 12:30 am.). I'm parked in front of my house, and all of a sudden, you get swooped on by the police who say, "By the way, what are you doing in this neighborhood?" And I say, "By the way, I live here." Then, they want to make me get out the car and put a key in the door to show that I live there because some neighbors saw a black person sitting out in the car in front of a house. It's that kind of stuff; they don't see the entertainer or the athlete or even the regular citizen, they see you as a potential predator. So it's that kind of craziness or what some have labeled "microaggressions" that black folk have to deal with. And Latino males too; It's probably no different for them either. The level of cultural ignorance in this society is so pervasive; it's just incredible that that's what people see.

TP: For me, the professional challenges have been-once I got turned on to education-I'm a product of a system that I struggled with in trying to fine my niche, my nature. Part of my challenge, professionally, was trying to find a way to actualize my full potential. One of the best remedies for that was the mentorship that I received. I've been blessed by a host of Mzees (respected elders) and friends who have been my primary mentors and really guided my path at several stages of my development.

In college, my first mentor was Dr. Joseph White, who as you know, was one of the founders of the Black Psychology movement, and has been at the forefront of the struggle for freedom and liberation for years. Joe was a person who saw the potential I couldn't see in myself. He just kind of grabbed me by the collar one day and said, "Young brother, you have too much talent to just be running around here playing basketball and chasing women; so, come follow me." I had already taken his class, and got an "A"-did pretty well in it. But it was he who had a broader vision and said, "Here's what we're going to do." Over the next couple of months he sat me down, and he diagrammed my whole future up on the chalkboard. He had a chalkboard that was probably two or three feet by two, and on that little chalkboard, my whole future was there. He said he was going to work with me as an undergraduate, told me I'd be his teaching assistant, that I was going to graduate school, going to be professional, write some books, and going to do some great and marvelous things, Sure enough, it all came to pass. One day, he told me, "You're going to be a bad mother ____...but I don't want you to ever forget to be a basic brother." What he was telling me is that even though I may achieve some level of intellectual and professional prominence, don't ever forget to walk with the common people. I think that early lesson really characterizes a lot of what I do. It doesn't matter to me whether I'm communicating with the president of the United States or whether I'm talking to a student or child-somebody who has no degree or somebody who is the most educated on the planet-I try to treat people with the same dignity and respect that I would afford anybody and relate to them from a more personable, authentic level.

My second mentor I met in my graduate program, working on my Master's degree, was a man by the name of Dr. Horace Mitchell. If Joe was really good at bringing talent out of me and recognizing a diamond in the rough, Horace Mitchell was probably the best example I have seen of conscious manhood. He helped to refine some aspects of background and worldview, and really taught me a lot about being a professional. I first met Horace Mitchell at Washington University of St. Louis where I did my Master's degree.

My third mentor, who I actually refer to as my "queen mother", who keeps you close until you're ready to fly out of the nest, and then she lets you go and you sprout wings and fly-that was Janet Helms. I met Janet in my doctoral program at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She was not only my dissertation adviser and my adviser in what I consider to be one of the best psychology departments and counseling psychology programs, she also was the person who helped to refine my skills as a professional. She really cultivated my skills in research and writing, taught me a lot about teaching, and just a lot of life lessons.

Now, since I have become a professional, I have a host of folks within the general psychology counseling and African psychology community who certainly have been influential in those particular spaces. I am very, very blessed to have colleagues and friends who I've been able to connect with in real and authentic ways-the Robert L. Williams', Asa Hilliard, Linda James Myers, Na'im Akbar, A.J. & Nancy Boyd Franklin, Janet Helms, Derald Sue's, and the Michael D'Andrea's and Judy Daniels, the Allen Ivey's, the Patricia Arrendondo's, Paul Pederson, Joe Ponterotto-I think they really help to push me professionally. Lastly, I cannot forget the cohort of graduate students I studied with at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, and the network of support we created through the Black Student Caucus there, including my Brother Dr.'s William Parham, Donelda Cook, Derek Hopson, Michael Brown, and many more too numerous to name.

TP: As you heard me talk about my background, in growing up as a Black man in the late fifties and sixties with the Civil Rights Movement, the black power movement and that marvelous militancy of the late 60's and 70's,-I grew up in a place like L.A., that unlike the East Coast or the Midwest, L.A. was a multicultural Mecca. So I grew up hanging with the Latino brothers in the neighborhood. I grew up in integrated places with Black folks, with progressive White folks, with Asian brothers and sisters; I grew up with other folks. So, for me to be able to connect with the multicultural movement was natural in part due to my experiences growing up, which were important for me. As I became a professional, most of us who become very culturally aware, most of us move to embrace more nationalistic ideologies. For me, I think I am as nationalistic as anybody. But, I have always remembered that my strength is not just in my cultural nationalism as a person of African descent, but in the connections that I can make across demographic boundaries with progressive brothers and sisters that are in other communities, as well, be they Asian, Latino, Black, white, Indian, whatever. Engaging in the multicultural movement has just been a natural extension of some things that I found to be important very early on in my life.

TP: Yes, it's because through the connections and through the relationships I come to understand that a multicultural perspective is real important. Also, I am real particular about where I spend my professional time. There have been a couple of organizations that have been crucial for me to do that, in terms of a professional network. When I was a graduate student, I first got introduced to the Association of Black Psychologists by Joe White. A lot of my socialization and warrior spirit really comes out of that particular social and professional network because it was important to me to be nurtured and mentored in those kinds of places. During graduate school, I had a chance to apply for and receive a Minority Fellowship out of the American Psychological Association. The American Psychological Association as a whole has not been a hot bed of cultural awareness; but, if you look at the APA programs and the minority fellowship programs James Jones ran for years, that Henry Tomes and Bertha Holiday have been associated with most recently... and back in the day, there were just folks associated with the program that made it such an important network for not just African-American graduate students, but all students of color, period; That was a very important part of my growth and development as a graduate student outside of my academic programs.

Certainly, I've grown up and been professionally nurtured in places like what used to be APGA and ACA-particularly in the Association for Non-White Concerns which officially became the Association for Multicultural Counseling and Development. Being nurtured by the "old school" folks, the Bob Williams's, Queen Fowler's, Gloria Smith's and Tom Gunnings's-those people who were a part of that whole phase really helped out. It was the elders saying, "Brother, it's your time to step up and assume a position of leadership in the multicultural spaces."

Another group that has been very important and influential is the National Institute of Multicultural Competence. I really do have to thank my brother Michael D'Andrea who was the brain trust behind that. We have been able to develop what was a very small, tight, social network of folk that included Allen Ivey, Derald Sue, Don Locke, Mary Ivey, Patricia Arredondo, and Beverly O'Bryant, and myself-and then Judy Daniels along with Michael D'Andrea-where we were the original catalysts in a group who would meet and assess what was going on, try to make contributions, and look at ways we would try to change some of the landscape and the fabric of the profession through presentations, conferences, writing, advocacy, and meeting with different people. We were really trying to inspire and instigate things happening at particular levels. So that has been a very important professional network, as well. In all of those places I just named, including the Association of Black Psychologists-which not only joined as a graduate student early on, but have hopefully helped to really define and crystallize some of the issues we struggle with as an association. For that, I have just been really grateful.

All those people that I talked about earlier, the "elders" of the Black Psychology Movement-the Bob Williams's, the Joe White's, the Bob Guthrie's and the Charles Thomas's and the Reggie Jones's-were all real important. The next generation, with Maisha Bennet and Na'im Akbar, Wade Noble, Linda James Myers, A.J. & Nancy Boyd Franklin, and all those folk who were in that particular space, a half a generation ahead of the professional space that I came out of, were very nurturing and supportive as well..

While I come to most spaces with that warrior spirit, and I have grown up and become more aware and cognizant of my own personal energies-going into spaces like the American Psychology Association, and even the American Counseling Association, in some cases, is always a balancing act between energy you have to use to break down doors for opportunity versus energy that you use just to create and to do things that are professionally nurturing. When I go to the Association of Black Psychologists or the National Institute of Multicultural Competence, there is no energy that I have to spend on trying to seek validation or break down barriers; the energy you use is just to create. All those spaces to me are just so affirming. Those have been among some of the more important spaces in which I have been involved-the Black specific ones, as well as the multicultural ones.

TP: There's an old saying that says, "we ain't where we ought to be, and we ain't where we're going to be, but thank God, we ain't where we was." I think that statement accurately characterizes the current status of where we are in terms of multicultural counseling and social justice. We have come a long way in terms of trying to change the profession, change the landscape, change the way in which patients are served, change the way students are taught and they way in which research is conducted. Things are really moving at a very rapid pace in terms of this whole multicultural movement. When you think about African Psychology, Asian Psychology, Latino Psychology, Indian Psychology, and all the international players, etc., I think we have come a long way. I do think we do have to give credit to some of this progress we have made over the last twenty years. However, in some respects, I think that we are not where we ought to be in terms of the professions of psychology and counseling. Graduate programs continue to train students with less than sufficient multicultural competence, students and professionals continue to practice on culturally different people without sufficient levels of competence, licensing boards continue to credential professionals who have little or no cultural expertise, etc. Indeed, we still have a long way to go to transform our professions.

TP: For example, a lot of time and energy nowadays in APA and ACA is spent in the promotion of our lots as professionals, with concerns over licensing, third party reimbursements, and even prescription privileges. That's nice, but who does that really help? Who really benefits from those gains: is it our clients we purport to serve or our own pockets? The social misery index in our country is quite high these days, particularly under the current administration in Washington, and the counseling and psychology professions need to be more vocal about these conditions of poverty, unemployment, unjust wars, corporate greed, educational under-achievement, racism, sexism, homophobia, police misconduct, and the like.

TP: I was saying that we have moved off of the square of talking about the need to just be culturally aware, and we have now moved into a square of talking about how to be muticulturally competent. I think that is progress, but what I fear about that is that I would hate for the profession to move in a "cookie-cutter" fashion and to believe that multicultural competency can be achieved in 30 minutes or less. Competence is not something you develop in just one workshop but through hard work and determination. So I hope that the profession doesn't move in "cookie-cutter" fashion in developing generic ways to promote cultural competence without developing the level of cultural specificity I think is necessary to really achieve what I think is a more ideal level of competence. What I mean by that is in terms of the profession of multicultural counseling, we ought to be able to use generic theories of multiculturalism as a primer, much like you would put the prime coat of paint on a wall. But, once you want to move to more advanced levels of competence and proficiency, you have to get more depth into areas such as African psychology, Asian psychology, Latino psychology, and Indian psychology before you can really develop the kind of competency that's necessary to be an effective clinician or practitioner. So, that certainly is one concern.

Another way I worry about the profession, as I mentioned a moment ago, is that we have, with few exceptions, insulated ourselves, as a profession, from what I call the "social misery index." And what's interesting about this-I have spoken on this a few times in presentations and keynote addresses-is that the counseling profession was really born out of a need for social justice, and trying to address that growing misery index that existed at the turn of the 20th century. What's interesting is that we have gotten away from those particular roots. So while we talk about social justice and wanting to make a difference, part of our challenge as a profession is being able to put as much congruence as possible between what we preach and practice within the boundaries of our professional world and how other broader social issues impact the larger community of people we purport to want to serve and treat. There are still kids who suffer in schools all across this country, not only just poor education, but the kind of psychological assault that dampens their spirits and dampens their passions for learning. The counseling profession doesn't speak much on that issue.

We've known for years about biased and unethical testing with some of these kids, yet we still are silent in the debate as people continue to be tested at almost every level of grade school, middle school, high school, college, and even graduate school on tests that are not normed and standardized on culturally different populations, and assume that that's somehow a valid indicator of their intelligence or performance capability. All this continues to occur every day across this country, and we sit in silence as a profession. We look at seniors who don't have enough money for healthcare or prescriptions, we look at racism and sexism that is still on the rise, and women who earn less pay for equal work, unjust wars our White House leaders lie about, and domestic problems that create "nightmare realities" for too many of our citizens, and the counseling profession just sits back in silence around some of those issues.

TP: What I would like to see us do is put more congruence between what we preach in terms of our need and desire to want to address social justice issues, and how that desire gets operationalized within our own lives. I mean, there's still training programs around the country who continue to train people without having any kind of multicultural competence. There are still people who believe somehow that multicultural competence is just having one course where every demographic group gets a week. We do ethnicity, gender, age, physical ability, sexual orientation and everybody gets one week. And so you're going to learn to be competent in working with those groups in one week of one semester when it takes you five years to get a Ph.D. in most places where you're learning Eurocentric psychology and education. There's something wrong with that picture. But until we develop a different yardstick to measure what it is we think that competence ought to be, people will continue to perpetrate that kind of craziness as somehow a standard in our profession and industry-which I think ought to be disgraceful.

TP: Part of competency, I think, can't be learned in a book; you have to learn it by doing it. So, you have to be able to get out into the communities where the people are that you want to try to help. So certainly, you have to be able to do that.

Secondly, a lot of young professionals that you talk about in graduate students have a lot of fire and passion, but they don't have a lot of power. As they traverse the landscape of this professional world, part of what they have to do before they go into a new system is they have to always assess what an environment will tolerate. It doesn't matter whether they're going into graduate education, internship, to teach their first faculty job; whether the are going into a clinical position in a mental health center someplace on a college university campus, or out in the community, or a hospital-wherever they are, whatever their sphere of influence is, they must always asses what an environment will tolerate, and then begin to make interventions slowly and surely that allow them both to protect their particular position, as well as push the margins of acceptability by what's important to be able to achieve.

I think what we also have to do, as young professionals, in terms of pushing the competency issues, is continue to develop coalitions across demographic boundaries. I think too much of what we do occurs in isolation. We got African American folks over here and Latino folks over there and Asian folks over there and Indian folks over there, and progressive Whites some place else. What I really like about the multicultural movement is that we are one profession in counseling that has found a way to really cross those demographic boundaries and develop coalitions that I think are important and ultimately will lead us toward the kind of social progress and professional progress that we want to have in our profession.

Thirdly, I think we have to, as a society, as we build these coalitions, to be able to demand different levels of accountability. Both out of our professional associations, out of our training programs, out of our ethics board, and out of the institutions and agencies we work in. Beyond building coalitions across demographic boundaries, beyond assessing what an environment will tolerate, part of what we have to be able to do in working for change is to be accountable. Accountability is the ingredient missing from most of our multicultural and diversity equations. It isn't that people don't know what to do; it's that sometimes we don't hold them accountable for doing the kind of things that they write and say that they are committed to.

TP: Well..., sometimes accountability is as simple as even daring to ask the question. Sometimes accountability is as simple as confronting others about insensitive remarks they make, or challenging an assertion that seems inappropriate. Sometimes, it is taking the informational brochures produced by our professional associations and graduate programs and using them as a mirror to reflect the degree of convergence or divergence with that institution's policies and practices. For example, what would happen if a group of students gave APA a report card about how well its evaluation site teams accredited around multicultural training issues in many of our graduate programs? Students, or even professionals who dare to be so bold might say: "you write in your brochure that you say you want everybody to have multicultural competence, and that knowledge and skills with various cultural groups is an important domain, but how well do you really do it? What would happen if students decided, if young professionals decided we're giving APA or ACA a report card about how well we think they're doing this? That to me is just one example of how we might implement greater standards of accountability.

TP: So instead of them accrediting us, we begin to accredit and evaluate them. That's accountability. What would happen for example if the Association of Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD) began to communicate a similar message to the graduate programs who train the interns and early career professionals we hire? Earlier in my career as a Counseling Center Director, I wrote a letter to probably two hundred psych departments around the country, and I was saying that the number of intern candidates who apply for this APA approved internship here at the University of California Irvine, has been very large and very impressive over the years. And you've trained some very good people. But I'm not happy with what I see in terms of the multicultural training. And unless you as program do a better job of training your graduate students in multicultural competence, please be aware that they will have a hard time getting an internship in this facility, or a job on this staff as a psychologist. And then I sent that letter out to these departments and programs around the country. I don't control every center in the nation, but I do influence this small slice of the national Counseling Center pie. . I actually gave a copy of that letter to some of my counseling center director colleagues. And some of the professional associations would say, what would happen if all of us sent this letter to psychology departments around the country that say you've been doing a great job on some dimensions of training, but not on this multicultural area,, and you've got to do it better. It would literally change the profession overnight. Although, despite how simple a task like this sounds, I think I've got probably a little less cooperation from everybody on that one.

TP: But those are examples of what I mean by accountability

TP: They are pretty simple, they aren't rocket science, but they do make people think and they do hold people to task around that issue.

TP: What am I passionate about? Hummm, there's a lot that I'm passionate about. Let me just stick with my professional stuff. One of the things that I do in my spare time, which I have very little of, is I work with another organization in the community called the 100 Black Men. And there are about 106 chapters around the country and 4 internationally. We have a chapter here in Orange County, California at Irvine where I live in southern California. And I've designed for them a kind of educational intervention that is a "rite of passage" program for young African American males (and females) that is called Passport to the Future. And we try to take young African American males and we try to help them to become socially conscious, responsible, and respectable young men who can take advantage of life's opportunities. And there's a four year sequential program that we send these high school kids through. We get them in the 9th grade, and hopefully we keep them through the 12th. And this program moves them through this particular developmental cycle of adolescence. And what I'm passionate about is trying to help young people realize their potential. And that's a program that doesn't get written up a lot in professional journals, and it doesn't make presentations at conferences, but it's probably one of those things that brings me a lot of satisfaction in my life because I know that that particular program is making a difference, because we can watch some of these kids not become teenage fathers, we can watch some of these kids not become victims of gang violence, we can watch some of these kids not become involved in drugs. We can watch some of these kids grow up with responsible black men and women in their lives, and they turn out to be pretty good people. And so that particular piece for me I think is certainly a passion. And it's called A Passport to the Future Program, here with the 100 Black men.

TP: But one of the most exciting elements that is on the horizon right now is one of my former students, who's now become a professor at City University of New York at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, her name is Dr. Rosalyn Caldwell. Dr. Caldwell and I have put a project together, and we've gone in and she's gotten permission from a panel of judges in Brooklyn, New York to work with youths who have been adjudicated through the system, and are doing local time And for the first time ever we're actually not going to try this on the normal community population, but we're actually going to go in and take this Passport Program and use it with a population that is on lock-down. I'm going to try to see if we can't cut down on some of the recidivism rate that exists when kids go on lock-down and then they get out, then they come right back in, and see if we can't use the program to really turn their lives around. Now the program that I call Passport to the Future here, we've had to rename and create the intellectual property, but the intellectual property of it is called THE BAKARI PROJECT. (Bakari in Swahili means "one who will succeed.") So it's the Bakari project that I'm making available as a national effort and hope that people begin to pick up the program and implement it in communities all across this country, because I think it has a lot of potential to make a difference in the lives of some of these young people. And that's one of the things I'm passionate about, making a difference in the lives of young men and women, and helping to transform their lives.

I'm passionate about really mentoring students and being able to help students grow in ways that are important to them and one of the things that I take a great deal of pride in is being able to take young students that are these diamonds in the rough and to take young folk who haven't quite realized their potential, being able to take young folk who are pretty clear that they have some goals in life, but just aren't quite clear about how to get from point A to point B. So I have students who are 2.5 struggling to be 3.0, and I have students who are 3.9 and 4.0's who are just excelling. And being able to help all of them try to realize their goal and potential, and really mentor this next generation of psychologists and young professionals from all walks of life in the same way that I was mentored early in my career by Joe White. I'm passionate about that; it brings me a lot of validation and joy.

TP: You're right. There's an old saying that talks about the law of reciprocity and "what goes around comes around." And the lessons that Joe White taught us, you know, those of us who were mentored by him, we would get with Joe and we'd say "Joe, you know you've helped us in life, how can we repay you?" And Joe would simply say "you don't need to thank me, you don't need to repay me, but the one thing you can do is do for other people what I did for you."

TP: And it's that lesson I think that I have kept with me, and that I impart to my students. They say, Dr. P. "how do we thank you?" I tell them you doing well is thanks enough. What I expect out of you is for you to do for other people. And that's how we keep what we call the "friendship train" going.

TP: The status of the field is a broad question and some of that we've probably already addressed a little bit. But I'm optimistic about where we are as a helping profession, both in terms of psychology and in terms of counseling. I'm glad that things have changed, even though I'm anxious for things to continue to grow and to change and to move in a more forward direction. I think there are some institutions that are still a little retarded in their growth, particularly some of our academic institutions. I think there are some spaces in literature where we could still be much more progressive in terms of you know what it is that we do. But by and large I think we are really moving in the right direction. I think we have a whole new cadre of people who are excited and stimulated about this thing we call multiculturalism and multicultural counseling, and cultural competence and social justice. And they are excited about African psychology, and Asian psychology, and Latino psychology and Indian psychology, and all the other demographic variables that represent the multicultural movement within psychology. And so for that part, I think I'm delighted to witness their excitement and enthusiasm.

I think as we grow as a profession we have to maintain the integrity of the movement. Maintain the integrity of what we originally committed to, and don't get sidetracked by turning the movement into more of a fashion statement, rather than a real commitment to change. We have to be careful that it (the movement) doesn't fall victim to the same social issues (destructive competition, contests about who's oppression is the greatest, etc.) that sabotaged so many other movements where people begin to lose sight of the original intent and begin to struggle for power and position and influence rather than really focusing on how we can make a difference and how we can help eac hother. I mean, some of that I see happening for example in the Multicultural Competency movement with the bi-annual summits.

There was a big multicultural summit that came out of a collaboration probably 6 - 8 years ago, when Derald Sue was president of Div. 45, Lisa Porche-Burke was past president, Melba Vasquez was president of Div. 35, Rosie Phillips Bingham was president of Div. 17, and Dick Suinn was president of APA. That's the first year we did the first summit here in Newport Beach, California. And every two years the summit has moved to a different space and the last couple of years we've actually had it in Los Angeles, California, and most recently, it was moved up to Seattle, Washington. But as I see different entities within those divisions, it started out as kind of a collaboration-not so much of the divisions, but of those individuals who were heading the division. Because of the Melba Vasquez's and the Derald Sue's and the Rosie Bingham's and the Lisa Porche-Burke's, and the Dick Suinn's, and those folks had a vision of possibility that they could come together and create something for the profession, and it was really their own individual egos that were placed aside in favor of a more collaborative spirit and collective outcome. Well, now that the divisions have taken over and we've added a couple of other players to the mix, what we've done is have people begin to fight for things in terms of how do we influence and control the summit, how much influence should our Division have for the money we contribute, what division gets more say with respect to location, and who dictates the curriculum and keynote speakers. That, to me, has been a little bit of a challenge. So,... that's an example I think of how the profession has begun to certainly make some progress by developing summits, but I think its fallen victim to a little bit of a politic and other dynamics, that if it continues, will ultimately destroy it.

TP: That's just one example.

TP: To strive as hard as you can to be as competent as you possibly can. And hopefully, people will come to understand that competence is not a plateau, but a process, that doesn't stop because you get a degree. Learning doesn't stop because you get a license, or because you get a certificate. But, learning is a continual process where you move through stages and spaces, and the more you know, the more you know you don't know, so hopefully that motivates you to keep on learning. So that certainly would be one piece of advice I would give to our professionals.

Secondly, I would advise them to never lose sight of the fact of why we got into this profession in the first place. And that if we're in it trying to enhance our private practices, if we're in it trying to make a large sum of money, if we're in it because we like the status of being called doctor or whatever, I think those are misguided intentions. While those kinds of activities and accolades are oftentimes good for the ego, they aren't necessarily good for the soul or the spirit. Somewhere I remember that our profession was really born out of a recognition that misery index in this country was quite pronounced. Our task as counseling and psychology professionals was to lend our skills and voice to addressing those factors and/or elements that made people's lives less than satisfactory. And I hope that we don't lose sight of the fact it is our job, it is our task, to be able to do that-to be able to address that social misery, to be able to address the need for social progress, to be able to address the kind of social ills that create psychological challenges that people are confronted with every day.

And thirdly, so many of the clients we see in treatment come from negative circumstances in their life. I believe that too many of our clinicians believe that clients are related to their social condition, pathologize the people who come from certain walks of life, and they begin to believe that people "are their circumstance" rather than they "come from circumstance." Just because somebody comes from poverty doesn't make their spirit poor. Just because somebody comes from a violent background doesn't make them a violent individual.

Now, as healers in our community, we can never lose sight of the fact that people can and do change, and transcend their social misery. People do indeed come from circumstance. And being able to be a healer, you have to always keep an eye and a mindset on the transformative possibilities of the human spirit. The human spirit has the capacity to transcend and transform itself from where it is to what it can become. You know it's that old African saying that says "each of us is a seed of divinely inspired possibility, which when nurtured in its proper context can and will grow into the fullest expression of all we are supposed to become." I'd like people to be able to remember that. That we can never be a healing presence in our communities if we lose the capacity to believe in people's ability to elevate themselves to rightful places of rulership and mastery over their own circumstance. We have to believe in the transformative possibility of the human spirit.

TP: Oh God, we've covered a lot of ground today, so I don't know... I had no expectation about what you would or wouldn't ask me, so I feel pretty satisfied with what we've discussed. I really do want to just say "thank you" to you for your insightful queries, and to Allen and Mary Ivey, and the Microtraining organization, who continually provide our students and professionals with resources that supplement the culturally sterile curriculum that so dominates our graduate programs and continuing education forums all across this nation. Lastly, I say "thank you" to the CREATOR and the Ancestors, for allowing me to occupy this space in time, and I hope whatever contributions I have or will make will be pleasing to them.