@breadfruit: this is a great thread...i hope u keep adding to it, as i'm finding it very interesting and very informative.

thanks Teacher!

niceone.gif

@Bubz

Thanks African - More power to you and yours!!

Everyday experience of racism plays a part in black men's mental stress







Social disadvantage, poor housing, poorly paid work, low educational achievement, and overt and covert discrimination may play role in the development of emotional distress tending to mental illness in black men.

A recent survey by the Commission for Healthcare and Audit Inspections (CHAI) (2005) found that the rates of admission into hospital for black men is at least three times higher than the national average in the UK, indicating that a significant number of black men are suffering from emotional distress that is never detected by mental health professionals until it becomes serious enough to warrant hospitalisation.

Black men are twice as likely to be referred to mental health care institutions via the Courts or the police as they are by the GP and up to 38 per cent more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act (1983); though for black women the rate of detention is far higher (CHCAI, 2005).

These findings have been reported in increasing proportions since the 1960s and there is ample evidence from research in many of the leading psychiatry and mental health journals such as the British Journal of Psychiatry and the Sainsbury Foundation for Mental Health. This information is therefore not new, but the reasons underlying emotional distress in black men is, as yet, uncertain.

Dr McKenzie (Royal Free Hospital) has indicated that social disadvantage, poor housing, poorly paid work, low educational achievement, and overt and covert discrimination may play a role in the development of emotional distress tending to mental illness in black men.

And Prof. Roland Littlewood (UCL) has indicated that the different interpretations of lived experience found in different cultures may play a role in the overrepresentation of mental illness in black men in the UK. Whatever the underlying cause of the emotional distress, living with it has grave consequences for the health and well-being of family friends and society as whole.

My own research with black men conducted in two south London mental health care settings suggested that many of their emotional problems arise as a consequence of the guilt and shame experienced in not being able to provide and act in what they believed was an appropriate way for a man to behave.

Their everyday experience of discrimination and failure seemed to reinforce feelings of persecution and oppression and participants found it difficult to communicate to their families because they felt that they ought to be able to deal with this perceived oppression, themselves.














Some black men think it's unmanly not to cope







Black men who do not value counselling and psychotherapy may view any suggestions to seek this kind of help as a waste of time.

These black men did not feel that they were mentally ill, or in need of mental health care. They saw their problems as arising from the social context within which they lived, and that resolution would require the reorganisation of the power relations that persist in the society. In such circumstances, black men are not likely to seek help and support from anybody.

Refusal to seek help from mental health professionals may be due to the sigma associated with a mental illness; or from the possibility that black men see their difficulties as arising from their social situations. In such circumstances, black men who do not value counselling and psychotherapy may view any suggestions to seek this kind of help as a waste of time.

Personally I receive many requests from distraught partners of black men, but black men themselves rarely if ever contact me with the view to seeking counselling and psychotherapy for themselves. Most of my black clients are women concerned about their black male partners.

Some black men may feel that it is unmanly to be seen not to cope and may feel robbed of their manhood in relation to their partners who earn more than they do. They may feel powerless to effect change; that the pressures of life are too great, and have fallen into bad habits in an attempt to dull their senses and dilute the emotional pain they are experiencing.

Some black men may have heard of other black men who have had a negative experience after contacting mental health services, or believe that the mental health practitioners are, essentially, racist.

Ultimately, it is black men who must decide for themselves whether they wish to continue suffering in the way that they do, or opt to seek help and support from someone bearing in mind that family and friends may not have the time, knowledge, and skills necessary to help and support them. Sometimes it is necessary to seek professional help. There is no shame in seeking help, and surely that’s better than suffering in silence.


Vernon A. De Maynard. AKC., JP, MSc, MBACP (Accred.) Psychotherapist and Counsellor

Please feel free to express your opinion on this column by posting your comments to the forum or by emailing 'Uncle Vern,' who will soon be joining our lifestyle section as a regular counsellor to help you with your emotional dilemmas.



















FROM 'BLACK BRITAIN'

blackbritain@co.uk

"The psychology of becoming free is contingent upon understanding the slave making process. Before Africans went to slave owners, they were 'seasoned' by slave makers. These men were charged with the responsibility by achieving four goals to make a good slave:


1. Place fear in slaves by beating them or killing one publicly as
an example.



2. Teach them to be loyal and identify with the owner,
by giving any traitors favors for informing.



3. Teach them to feel inferior by always showing Whites in positions of power.



4. Teach them to hate Africa and anything Black, by harsh words and giving special favors to light-skinned Africans.



The psychology of becoming free requires the reverse of the slave making process."

Jawanza Kunjufu
Lessons from History

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^

still going on, but without the visibleshackles and chains.

slavery, in stealth mode.

"Without human consciousness there is no world. It is the presence of human consciousness that brings meaning into the world. Without conscious human beings in this world, in effect, there would not be a world. We bring the world into being through our consciousness and through our consciousness create the world we live in. Out of the totality of reality our consciousness hews a world that fits itself. In other words, the kind of world you exist in reflects the kind of consciousness you have. Notice if you change your consciousness or change your values and orientation you enter into a different world; you interact with different people, people who you often didn't even know existed in the world, social situations that you might not have even recognized until you entered into a new level of consciousness....Man's consciousness is a creative act and the kind of consciousness one has will determine the kind of world one creates.

Consequently, when we look at the world we
live in, Afrikan people, we must recognize that to a great extent it is a world of our own creation! It is a world generated by the kind of consciousness that we have permitted to be instilled in us as a people....The European is largely our creation.

When we look at our behavior, we will see that to a good extent it is our behavior, our values, our consciousness, the kind of personalities we have established in ourselves -- our tastes, our desires and needs -- that maintain the European in his position....They cannot have what they have unless we are who we are. That is why we don't have to spend a great deal of time always appealing to them and analyzing them. We can better appeal to our sense of self and our own consciousness. We waste a lot of time trying to transform them when through transforming ourselves they will be transformed automatically.

The power is in our hands."

Amos Wilson

Amos Wilson On Black Child Psychology - From Maulana Karenga's Introduction to Black Studies









Focusing on the psychological development of Black children, Wilson contributes to the projects of defining the task and parameters of Black psychology. Wilson argues, as do nobles and others, that an understanding of the psychology of Blacks, adults and children, demands that the study of Blacks begin in Africa, not in slavery.



Moreover, he maintains that Black psychology must be extremely careful about the application of European psychologically and the use of its models. In fact, he suggests white psychology does not even adequately explain white people who "seem bent on destroying themselves as well as the rest of the world."



Drawing on the growing interest in melanin and its properties, Wilson contends that the study of melanin is important in the study of Black people. Arguing that the history of Blacks is in their genes, he suggests Black superiority in the areas of mental development, neurological functioning and psychomotor development of the Black child which are all related to the possession of a high level of melanin.



Melanin, he contends, is not simply a coloring agent, but "an integral part of the body system itself operating in the brain." In fact, the ability of the Black children to survive and the comparative long life of Blacks are related to their Blackness.



Wilson is also concerned that Blacks have been reduced to use only one side of their brain. This right side, he states " processes information…deals with the world in a holistic fashion and (also) processes music and art." The left side is the analytical side, which develops technology, mathematics and so forth.



But "the side of the brain and individual uses is determined by experience," therefore, if we look at the history and experience of Blacks in America, we see essentially that the European has rewarded Blacks for using the right brain," i.e., singing dancing, music and sports.



On the other hand, because whites "are afraid intellectually assertive Black people," Blacks are discriminated against and discouraged from using the left side of the brain, i.e., the linguistic and analytical. The need is thus for a balance, for "the ultimate human being is the one who can balance between the use of both sides of the brain."



Finally, Wilson maintains that one of the major problems of Black child development "is determining how we can maintain the intellectual and psychological advance that nature has given our children." It is here, he states, that we see the inadequacy of child psychology for "the issues and questions that Black psychologist must address are distinctly different."



This essentially demands the development of an educational psychology and methodology directed toward "the reconstruction of the personality and the orientation of our children".



Such a thrust would be directed towards educational and cultural change which not only simulates the brain, but teaches children how to think, not simply prepares them for jobs but also facilitates and encourages high levels of self-development and service to their people. For "Blacks who are not conscious of their Blackness, who have no sense of destiny, and then go though (white systems of education) ultimately end up their own oppressors and a means of oppressing their own people."



Therefore, Black liberation depends on educational system for Black children based on a psychological model, which builds on and develops Black strength "in order to create a intelligent, independent thinking, interpretive and critical person committed to working tirelessly in the interest of Black people."



In one of his latest works, Wilson discusses the social psychology of violence among young Black men. It is his contention that Black male adolescent criminality is the principle outcome of three things: 1) white-on Black violence since enslavement; 2) The deliberate creation of white American dominated racist society; and 3) "unrelenting and collective ego defensive and political economic needs for white America to criminalize, denigrate and degrade Black America."



Moreover, he states that he is not arguing that Blacks have no responsibility in this problem. Rather that he is arguing that white America sets the context and sustains it. But he argues "such a regime can only hold sway over African Americans and Africans in general as long as their consciousness and identity are not African centered."



The need then, is to bring that consciousness to them in order to end their destructive alienation from self and community and enable them to escape the criminality and anti-social conduct which plagues them.





Maulana Karenga

Introduction to Black Studies

"Regardless of what Black people ultimately decide about the questions of separation, integration, segregation, revolution, or reform, it is vitally important that we develop, out of the authentic experience of Black people in this country, an accurate workable theory of Black psychology. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to understand the lifestyles of Black people using traditional theories developed by White psychologists to explain White people.

Moreover, when these traditional theories are applied to the lives of Black folks many incorrect, weakness-dominated, and inferiority-oriented conclusions come about. "

Joseph White
Toward a Black Psychology

[align=center][/align]
The speaker was talking about the Stockholm Syndrome as it pertained to Jews in the Holocaust. I was suddenly struck: how does this psychological phenomenon apply to me, to us, as African Americans? Suddenly, I realized this is one of the keys to our recovery and change as a people.

The Stockholm Syndrome is a phenomenon in human behavior which, as it turns out, has been documented since Biblical times, when Israel was ready to return to Egypt and named for a botched bank robbery and kidnapping that took place in Stockholm, Sweden in 1973.

It is an emotional attachment, a bond of interdependence between captive and captor that develops when someone threatens your life, deliberates, and doesn't kill you. (Symonds, 1980)

The relief resulting from the removal of the threat of death generates intense feelings of gratitude and fear that combine to make the captive reluctant to display negative feelings toward the captor.

Historical, sociological and governmental archives continue to ignore the parallels between the Jewish Holocaust and the enslavement of Africans in the United States.

To ignore history is to increase the chances of its repetition.

The question becomes do we really understand our modern day enslavement and slave mentality?

Are we still trying to treat the effects of slavery without acknowledging the causes, even today?

It takes only three to four days for the results this syndrome to emerge. After that, research shows the duration of captivity is no longer relevant. Trying to keep your captor happy in order to stay alive becomes an obsessive identification with the likes and dislikes of the captor which has the result of warping your own psyche in such a way that you come to sympathize with your tormenter.

African American women had to endure the threat and the practice of sexual exploitation. There were no safeguards to protect them from being sexually stalked, harassed, or raped, or to be used as long-term concubines by masters and overseers...Many became compliant as slave men, for their part, were often powerless to protect the women they loved.

Technique and Process:

Step One is alertness reduction: The captors cause the nervous system to malfunction, making it difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality. This can be accomplished thorough poor diet, little sleep combined with long hours of work as well as being bombarded with intense and unique negative experiences. In the slave ships the stench of death and excrement, the cries of fear and pain suffocate you, not knowing what is day or night, what is reality or your worst nightmare.

Step Two is programmed confusion: You are mentally assaulted while your alertness is being reduced as in Step One. This is accomplished with a deluge of new information encounters which usually amounts to the controller bombarding the individual with results. During this phase, reality and illusion often merge and perverted logic is likely to be accepted. You are on a slave ship and you are made to witness violent acts -- examples of what would happen if you did not obey. You are degraded, naked, and shamed – and more is to come…

Step Three is thought stopping: Techniques are used to cause the mind to go "flat". These techniques initially induce calmness by giving the mind something simple to deal with and focusing awareness. The continued use brings on a feeling of elation and eventually hallucination. The result is the reduction of thought and eventually, if used long enough, the cessation of all thought and withdrawal from everyone and everything except that which the controlling captors direct. The takeover is then complete.

Additional techniques include the introduction of jargon--new terms that have meaning only to those who participate. Unity among African Americans was destroyed during slavery times by evil, dehumanizing tactics and terms.

The word N****r was brutally imposed upon them by means of coercion that stripped African Americans of their identities As a result, African Americans have allowed it to become part of their souls; transmitting it down through the generations.

The incessant use of the word in our speech, our music, and our culture, keeps the evil spirit of racism alive…From the day or night, almost five hundred years ago, that the first African’s foot touched the soil of America; the so-called “Land of the Free" has yet to be realized.

The word N****r was beaten deep into the African’s soul. So deep that it has just as much evil power now as it did then. In fact, even more power, because African Americans, in using it to designate themselves, clearly have forgotten how evil this word is.

Imagine what irreparable psychological scars were created over generations of slavery in this country. There was no psychological deprogramming, no debriefing for freed African slaves.

Former slaves, stunned and shocked, were left to find their own way financially and physically, all the while not understanding that they were far from psychological freedom.

There were instead new, more sinister forms of slavery generated then…and now. Today, there are so many ways in which we are indentured and/or enslaved -- socially, economically, and mentally – that they would be too numerous to identify and detail in one article. Below are some examples.

I challenge you to begin to identify others in your own life: Labels. We are a unique group people who allow ourselves to be defined by the labels on our clothes, shoes, purses, cars, etc, spending over Four Billion dollars annually and having little to show for it.

We think in the short term, fearing the day when it’s all taken away from us. If African Americans study their history, they will become more aware of how labels have been used to dehumanize them. It is time for them to collectively become critically conscious of the slave mentality they exercise within their culture.

They did not come to this country as “N****rs". They must break this bondage, free themselves, and stand up against evil.

Drugs and all that is drug-related. Drugs are believed to have been introduced into this country as a method of control of the African American communities. Those who have not become a slave to the drug itself are slaves to the perception of drug sales being the solution to their exit from their plantation of poverty. However this is pure myth, given that the majority of inmates -- 58.6% -- in prison are there on drug-related charges, most of them African American, most with harsher sentencing than their Anglo counterparts. Consider how today, “meth" or “crank" use by Anglo Americans is touted by both media and policy as a social and medical concern, yet the use of “crack" by African Americans is considered a crime.

Recidivism is the return of a person to prison after being released on parole or by serving the full term of his or her sentence. Prisons and the business of incarceration are booming. As a result there is an increase in the business of privatization of prisons, so that they are run outside of the government. Prisons offer a low cost employment base for corporate contracting for anything from farming to inbound call centers. The inmates are paid a practically nothing, while the prison owners reap the primary profits.

Gentrification, in basic terms, is how the city government allows your neighborhoods and their properties to become devalued by neighborhood crime, lack of upkeep, and lack of support for aging homeowners who purchased the homes during the “white flight" to the suburbs.

It justifies the destruction of broken down public housing, formerly a tool for containing the minority poor in one area, now replaced by condos, restaurants and town homes welcoming the Anglo suburb dweller back into the city. Across the country, the minority poor is being displaced, some lured into believing that the suburbs is the best place to go, not realizing what it will ultimately cost them financially or through isolation.

Intraracism. The enemy lies within and the enemy is us. In the days of conscious physical slavery in this country, there were the house slaves and the field slaves – a deliberate psychological class distinction. House slaves were programmed to believe that their loyalty included the betrayal of any exhibiting the potential of having an original thought or might potentially create a “problem". We have more African American elected officials now than we’ve ever had, yet none have effectively challenged the quality of public education our children are receiving. We are selfish about our piece of the corporate, social or economic pie, afraid to share because we think that there might not be enough, not realizing that we have the power to bake a whole new pie. So we “shuffle and grin" at the “massah", and sell our own down the river in fear that we will somehow be reclaimed and sent back to the plantation.

We allow them to eat our young by allowing them to set the standards for how we are treated, rather than setting the standards for ourselves. We ignore the screams of those who realize they have been caught and turn up the volume on Marvin Gaye’s CD.

So now what? I have no intention of extending an instant solution to such a complex problem, since the Stockholm Syndrome has very individualized effects and one solution definitely does not fit all. We are continually distracted by the newer, more subtle versions of passive racism.

But knowledge is power and now you know. What you can do, must do is think -- really think -- about your life, your self.


While I don’t agree with everything Dr. Phil McGraw says, one of his “Philisms" is right on point: you cannot change what you don’t acknowledge.

It becomes your individual challenge, even your responsibility to create the steps toward a new beginning.


E. Joyce Moore