Psychology 12: Introduction to African American
Psychology
S/R Paper for February 1, 2007
By
Halford H. Fairchild
Film lecture: Ulisa Erylene Piper-Mandy
Stimulus: Dr.
Piper-Mandy gives an excellent African-centered introduction to a Black
psychology. She provides a justification
for African terms and images and symbols.
An
emphasis is on changing, and transforming and restoring African people to their
historical greatness.
Story of Osiris and Isis – dismembering.
To
“remember” is to put back together again.
The
African-centered agenda: To “re-member.”
Lies
have supremacy in higher education.
5
Cycles of existence (Beginning, Belonging, Being, Becoming, Beyond) are
explored through 4 levels of knowing (Giri-So, the
forward/thesis; Benne-So, the Analysis; Bolo-So, Back Story; and So-Daiyi, understanding.)
Daniel
Patrick Moynihan – Black families as a “tangle of pathology.”
Responses: A nice
whetting of the appetite for what should be an exhilarating lecture series.
I
resonate with her frustration at not being able to be truthful within the
confines of academia. And
the issue of a mixed classroom?
The class would be very different, if all Black.
E.g., cannibalism.
Fairchild, H.H., Whitten, L.,
& Richard, H.W. (2003). Teaching
African American psychology: Resources and strategies. In P.
Bronstein & K. Quina (Eds.), Teaching gender
and multicultural awareness: Resources for the psychology classroom.
Washington, D.C.: The American Psychological Association.
Stimulus: This article defines African American
psychology according to a number of distinguishing dimensions (emphases on the
collective, on an historical context, on spiritual reality, on introspection,
on harmony with nature, on being anti-racist and anti-sexist, and by being grounded
in a set of values. It then provides resources for instructors in the
areas of developmental psychology, gender and the family, employment and
economics, personality, clinical and counseling psychology. It offers a
number of concrete teaching strategies.
Responses: The distinctions between African-centered and
European-centered epistemologies are not black and white, but shades of
gray. The field is very diverse, and currently well developed.
African American psychology is interdisciplinary in that it looks at social
systems (e.g., politics and economics and history).
Fairchild, H.H. (1996). Black history, Black psychology and the future of the
world. Psych Discourse, 27(2), 3.
Stimulus: This article notes that Black history requires
re-writing White history. It notes that the problem with White
epistemologies is that they gave justification to Manifest Destiny in all of
its forms. The “corrective medicine” is knowledge, and points in the
direction of global change. The author names the seven cardinal virtues
of Ma’at: truth, justice, righteousness,
harmony, propriety (compassion), balance, and order.
Responses: Note the problem with mis-information
regarding
Kwate, Naa Oyo A. (2005). The
heresy of African-centered psychology. Journal of Medical Humanities,
26(4), 215-235.
Stimulus: This article defines African American psychology
as heretical (attacking the orthodoxy from within, defiance) and applies it to
psychiatry and psychology and mental health/illness. Notes
the grounding of psychology and psychiatry within the Euro-centered values and
worldview. Describes an African-centered nosology.
Responses: Succumbing to beauty ideals. The
principle of consubstantiation is to be contrasted with the Cartesian “I think,
therefore I am.”
White
collar crimes as less anti-social than others, despite
their broader ramifications. (e.g., Enron).
OJ
Simpson received White man’s justice.
And ostracism and denial of tenure. And difficulties in getting published in
“referred” journals.
On the fringes.
Sudarkasa, Niara. (2007). Interpreting the African heritage in
African American family organization. In McAdoo….
Stimulus: Sudarkasa reviews some of the “false dichotomies” in
scholarly treatments of the African American family (African vs. American
heritage; class vs. culture; alternative institutions vs. adaptive strategies;
E.
Franklin Frazier: no African retentions
W.E.B.
DuBois: African heritage
Consanguinity: biologically based
Conjugality: through marriage. A European ideal…
Seven
R’s as core values of African American family life: respect, restraint, responsibility,
reciprocity, reverence, reason, and reconciliation….
[Or,
deprecation, punishment, abuse, and violence?]
Responses: She is very
self-conscious about her use of language, and never refers to the enslaved
Africans as “slaves.” Rather, they are
“blacks enslaved in
African
tradition of multi-lingualism was probably lost after
a few generations. Ebonics, now,
demonstrate the efficacy of racial separation.