Psychology 12: Introduction to African American
Psychology
S/R Paper for February 5, 2009
By
Halford H. Fairchild
Constance
Rice: Sojourner Truth Lecturer (February
3, 2009)
Stimulus: Attorney Rice gave a scintillating talk on
her career in civil rights law. She
provided insights into Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and used his idea that “we
are trying to integrate into a burning house,” as a metaphor for the situation
facing Blacks in
·
Power concedes nothing without a demand.
·
The Obama election is “transformative.
·
MLK suggested to Harry Belafonte that “we must become firemen.”
·
The problem of the civil rights movement, and the “affirmative action,”
is that it leaves untouched the “permanent underclass.”
·
Of 17 individuals (gang members) that Rice worked with years ago, 11
are dead, and 6 are serving life sentences.
·
We forecast needed prison beds by 3rd grade reading levels.
·
Need for an epidemiological model – you don’t cure malaria with a fly
swatter, you drain the swamps and change behaviors and improve sanitation and
health care, etc.
·
Schools as sites for engineering a “social recovery system.” They ought to stay open until 11:00 pm
·
She advocates an eco-systems strategy.
Responses: A perfect example of “getting your money’s
worth” for a
Film: Black History: Lost, Stolen or Strayed (narrated by Bill
Cosby)
Stimulus: This film
decried the treatment of Blacks in
Responses: The
treatment of African Americans in psychology is similar as in history: Black scholars are absent from the textbooks;
and Blacks are treated in demeaning ways by traditional psychology. The “founding fathers” of American
psychologists (Cattell, Terman, Freud, others) reads like a “who’s who” in
scientific racism.
The “scar”
of American history is reflected in Kiri Davis’s film. (And Sawa Kobayashi’s daughter, who is half
Black and half Japanese, and who receives caustic remarks from African American
females.)
Old
films are current events (e.g., Shirley Temple movies, which tended to praise
the confederacy)
The
Great Billie Holliday was portrayed in
But
times are changing: Denzel, Will Smith,
Morgan Freeman…. But, too often, Blacks
are portrayed as the protectors of the status quo…as police, for example.
Negative
media stereotypes are exported to other nations, so that anti-Black bias is
evident world wide.
Barack
Obama changes a lot of this. He is not a
panacea, but a giant leap forward.
Current
movies perpetuate the “savagery” of Africans – The Mummy (appropriating Black
history), King Kong (Blacks as savage and subhuman).
John
Churchill’s freedom school vs. the prevalence of the Nword in some rap music.
Feit, Candace. (2008). Europe takes
Stimulus: discusses the
fish industry off of Africa’s coast, benefitting Europe, and the consequent
flow of migrants to
Response: Dinner table metaphor. “El Norte.”
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
By blaming individuals for their
racist beliefs and/or practices, we ignore, and therefore exculpate, systemic
origins of these beliefs and practices.
Such “blaming of the victim” delays our eradication of social problems.
Cannibalism article
The
only scientifically documented instances of cannibalism occurred in