How do we address racism in therapy?

As a psychological wellbeing practitioner, I have engaged with various discussions around discrimination and therapy recently. Broadly speaking, one of the key aims of any therapy setting is to build therapeutic alliance with a client. This can be achieved in various ways, including empathic statements, showing positive regard for the client and letting the client feel heard. This year, the BLM movement has rightfully asked us to address racism in its various insidious forms. Within my service, this has raised discussions around how we deal with racism in the therapeutic space and has highlighted a tension that emerges in therapy. This tension raises the question, how do we balance the need to build therapeutic alliance whilst addressing discriminatory comments from clients?