African American History, in my opinion, should be celebrated.  No doubt.  There should be a time where this rich history is highlighted.  February?  Fine with me, as long as it is done.  Too many unsung heroes.  Let’s focus on them. Lets clarify the contributions so there are no mistakes about them.

However, the reality is that African American history cannot be divorced from American history.  Just the idea sounds a little insane.  In America there has been a sharing of ideas and experiences among and between groups whether some groups liked it or not.

This brings me to The Snowy Day.   Since my childhood, I assumed Ezra Jack Keats was African American.  After all, he wrote children’s books with Black children as the prinicpal protagonists. Who else  but a Black person would write Whistle for Willie?

Okay, we do suffer in the shadow of the ugly reinterpretations of Little Black Sambo (it wasn’t originally as offensive as it became over time). However, Keats’ books, by contrast were so inoffensive.  In fact, they were beautiful, simple stories about a child’s experience.

I recently took in an exhibit of Keats’ work at The Jewish Museum in New York City.  I went because my son now has an appreciation for Keats’ books, but also for myself because I thought the books were so beautifully drawn and I wanted to see more of this man’s art.

Up until a few days before the visit to the museum I was still thinking that Keats was Black.  However. a visit to the museum’s website to get a little more background history clarified all of this.  Keats was in fact a Jewish man who was born in 1916 and lived in East New York, Brooklyn.

Many of his books were autobiographical in the sense that they were reminiscent of experiences he had as a child, even if the character himself was not Jewish.

I thought this was quite profound;  that Keats was able to focus enough on the universal experiences of children such that race was not an issue.  The Snowy Day was written in 1962, at the height of the civil rights movement in this country.  It was brave and forward thinking.  The book was a hit among all groups, but Keats did get slack through the few decades following for his main character not confronting his Blackness in the story.

Keats was so much smarter than this.  Children are children.  They don’t go around confronting their ethnicity all the time.  They just want to be children. The experience of children in their curiostiy and exploration of their world is universal.  I later discovered that his book was endorsed by people like Langston Hughes.  Wow.

So, The Snowy Day is well-known for being the first full-color children’s book to feature an African American protagonist. So, the book was not written by an African American, and it wasn’t even necessarily written for African Americans. Nonetheless, it’s publishing was an powerful moment in American history.

Now when I read the book to my son, I think of the power behind it, and I have more hope for humankind.

Some people can live outside their societal boxes and celebrate the fact that at the end of the day we are all just people.

Louis Armstrong

Ella Fitzgerald

Billie Holiday

Frank Sinatra

Stevie Wonder

Whitney Houston

So it does seem here lately that people want to know what Black women think. I mean there is so much hype today over “The Help”. Look, I appreciated the movie. And Viola Davis was extraordinary as usual. But there were no surprIses there AT ALL. Did you think the Black maids would say they were kicking up their heels to be degraded everyday? I don’t think so.

On the contrary, “The Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl” offers something very different. Developed by Issa Rae, it gives a voice to a Black woman who tends to be invisible altogether in the media, an awkward Black woman, just trying to make it through her awkward life. Now that is a big surprise.

It is a comedy and I actually found myself laughing out loud. That almost never happens with me watching any sort of sitcom. The writing is crisp and smart and you feel this woman’s pain. We are laughing at her and ourselves for those times that we have all felt at least a little awkward.

It is an internet program that almost halted production because they ran out of money. They were able to raise money through an online donation service to keep it going. They exceeded their goals in terms of the money they raised, because so many folks did not want to lose this great show.

In a way it is powerful because it represents the freedom to be awkward or to be anything other than a stereotype.

Run to your computer. Check it out and tell me what you think:
awkwardblackgirl.com

In Together We Are Strong: A Qualitative Study of Happy Enduring African American Marriages, research was conducted with 30 married Black couples to assess challenges and resilient features in this group with an average of 26 married years.  The authors of the current study note that many African Americans experience well-functioning marriages, yet little research exists on positive mental adjustment, happiness and satisfaction.  They are addressing that void.  This is strength-based research, as opposed to most of the deficit-based reasearch pumped through the media that focuses on problems and pathology.

The findings of this study revealed Three Areas of strengths or resources for this group.

A:  INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL RESOURCES

The researchers found that often two happy people made for a happy marriage.

There was a willingness to work on individual-level strengths; so you may develop strengths along the way (such as better listening skills) that you did not have at the outset of the relationship.

B. INTERPERSONAL RESOURCES

Knowing that you can rely on your partner.

Trust.

C.  SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC RESOURCES

Having witnessed “strong” marriages in the immediate or extended family.

In most of these enduring relationships, both spouses were gainfully employed.

Sharing similar attitudes about religion or being “equally yoked”.

The article notes many of the challenges faced by these couples, but the above-stated strengths were often essential in persevering through the challenges.

The entire article is found here:

Together We Are Strong

The premise of this so-called research is absolutely ridiculous. There is really nothing to argue about there.

Based on what I have learned about the psychologist who performed this stupid study, he seems to be seeking his five minutes of fame by executing studies that are as provocative as possible.

I don’t like to spend too much time on such rubbish but it does drive home a point I’ve made in the past; psychologists have issues and biases of their own. And just like with any other product you consume (even research), please shop carefully.

In addition, the absence of jugdment on the staff’s part at Psychology Today is also of concern, and in my estimation pathetic.

All research, even legitimate, thoughtful research, has limitations. All research. The fact that the psychologist fails to mention any limitations also tells you something about his credibility. The attached article outlines only a few of the apparent flaws of this so-called study. See:
http://m.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/18/satoshi-kanazawa-black-women-psychology-today?cat=commentisfree&type=article

P.S. I was looking for an image of a beautiful African American woman and landed on Tracy Chapman.

Something to smile about!  Recent research from the University of Michigan found that: as an African American, the more strongly you identify with African American culture, the happier you may be. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110304115003.htm

When I get my hands on the actual study, which should be very soon, I will let you know exactly how they measured these “constructs” such as:  How did they define “happy”  and how did they define “identify with” for example?  I’ll let you know what it says.  But for the time being, this is good news.

The point may be obvious to many but I do not think to all as some people spend so much time trying to identify themselves as anything but African American.

An interesting finding was that the relationship between racial identity and happiness was stronger for women that for men.  This finding is consistent with my own research that found that racial identity was associated with less stress for African American adolescent girls, but not for adolescent boys  (Arrington, 2001: Dissertation Abstracts).   Therefore, the relationship between happiness and racial identity, as well as for stress and racial identity is more complicated for males.   The researchers from Michigan speculate that the sense of  ”belongingness”, may be the key factor for women.

We have covered reasons why Black people tell me they don’t want to go to therapy in:  Top 3 Reasons Black People Do Not Go to Therapy,

And we covered the historical perspectives related to why we as a group avoid therapy in: More Reasons Black People Do Not Go to Therapy.

Now, I am going to give you an opinion based on 20 years of Clinical Experience about this avoidance:

TRAUMA AND DENIAL OF TRAUMA

We underestimate the effects trauma has had for us as a group.  I think the initial trauma of leaving behind our homes, families, names, cultures in the Middle Passage was too much.  Then you had Black families chronically separated from one another during slavery.  How could anyone cope with these losses?  It would surely have been detrimental for a person (a matter of life and death to be exact) to not get up and work as a slave because you were feeling depressed because your child was torn from you the day before.   

I believe those issues went unprocessed for generations.  This pain continues to affect people in subsequent generations if you believe in the collective unconscious (Asante, 2003).  American Indians call it historical trauma and intergenerational grief (See:  http://www.whitebison.org/magazine/2005/volume6/wellbriety!vol6no6.pdf).  I see too many cases of people emotionally detached from their children and I wonder if this is related to our history in this country. 

We have recurrent traumas.  In some of our neighborhoods there is too much violence.  And there are a host of too many other everyday pressures of work and negotiating life.

The style of coping:  “Keep it moving and deny there is a problem,” was probably passed down through the generations as well.

Sucking it up may have gotten us through some very rough times,  but we are surely not living at our best in too many cases today.  Sucking it up and ignoring the issues just means that we have to put energy into that denial.   Sometimes we find unhealthy ways to  due to what I see as unprocessed grief.  I have talked about them before: violence toward our own people (which too often looks like hopelessness and or misplaced anger), along with alcohol and substance abuse to name a few.  At lot of us seem to walk around on edge because we are not handling our stress adequately.  This can sometimes lead to physical illnesses and early death.

And the reality is we do not have to rely on sucking it up as a way of coping anymore if we do not choose to. 

What was the thing about Tyler Perry?

People, I find, love his movies because they tend to scratch at the surface of our trauma enough to produce cathartic responses.  I have witnessed grown men breaking down at some Tyler Perry movies, those movies with heftier emotional content.  The Madea character often takes the edge off some of the painful parts when she is present.  Tyler was pretty brilliant for including her most of the time because nobody just wants to cry for two hours, right?

In a way it becomes safe to cry at his movies because you know you may be laughing again in a few minutes.  Honestly, I think this is why “For Colored Girls…”  may have not been the commercial success that was anticipated, no Madea (not that she would have at all been appropriate for this film).

But the cathartic responses are not really grieving.  They provide an opportunity to let go of some tension, but there is little to no acknowledgment of what the tension is about.  Without that acknowledgement, you are not healing anything.

My point is we apparently need to grieve more.  I know that doesn’t sound like very much fun.  But not doing so may in fact be preventing you from having fun.  If you are carrying a burden, how can you possibly have fun? 

Sucking it up is not grieving and it is not moving on.  Grieving is about letting go.  Grieving for us may be on different levels.  It may be very personal as in the losses of people we know.   However,  it may also be broader, and include deeper feelings about a lack of freedom, and feeling unseen or unimportant, and inadequacies.   These deeper feelings probably come from generations of ancestors not being seen as full human beings.  That is a painful frustrating existence.  The healing comes with the greatest acceptance of oneself in all his or her fullness now.

How can we accomplish this?  Well, I think the healthier ways to do it are by trying to talk about any painful or overwhelming feelings when they come up with somebody you feel safe with, or if you do not have a person you feel safe with try to write the feelings down. I think about Celie in the Color Purple and how her letters to God were ultimately healing and strengthening, but she had to a tremendous amount of grieving. 

Your feelings deserve to have validation.  They will be less overwhelming and less likely to produce unhealthy responses if you acknowledge them.  Of course, if they are too much and you are having difficulty with day-to-day functioning, it may also be helpful to find a mental health practitioner. I think part of a good therapist’s role is to help the client grieve the past.   See: How to find a Therapist:  http://makeitplainonline.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/how-to-find-a-therapist-part-i/

Grieving provides the opportunity to transcend the trauma.

____________________________________________________________________

Asante, M. K. (2003).  The Afrocentric Idea. Temple University Press.

Who is MLK Jr. ?  I never thought I would get blank stares when I asked this question to anyone.  However, many young people I talk with are really not sure.  I would say that about 8 out of 10 African American 18 to 24 year-olds I interviewed in a large urban area, either are not sure or they believe he was the president at some point. 

While I am happy that some the younger members of our communities have the self-esteem to believe that a Black man could have been president in the past, I am frightened that they do not really know their history, even the basics.  Some of them have high school diplomas.  I thought to myself, “What the heck did you do at school all day?”.  

The bottom line is we are not teaching our youngsters history.  The cost is outlined above in King”s quote.  We are doomed to repeat the past if we don’t know the history.  We are not understanding our true value in history.  Some of the people I interviewed were living in very dangerous communities where the value of their own life and others’ lives were extremely minimized.  The cycles of violence in many communities have endured for some time.

So, do we need Black History Month?  Yes.  Some people argue that Black History is American History, and I wholeheartedly agree.   Some of the same people further argue that it should be integrated into any American history curriculum. Of course.  But we still need Black History Month.  It’s like Valentines’s Day.  It doesn’t mean we don’t love the people we love the rest of the year.  It’s just a day to do something special.

We need this month to do something special.  Take a youngster aside and make certain they have access to their history.  We are responsible for what happens next. 

See:  http://www.blackhistory.com/

I just happened to catch her stand up on  a Showtime Special.  It had a freshness to it that reminded me of Margaret Cho when she started.  She handles cultural identity so beautifully as she is a citizen of the world, Nigerian, English, and American. A true woman of the diaspora, she has seen a lot and is able to integrate it all.   With her comedy, you can laugh at yourself without feeling insulted at the same time. 
she said it. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV9DmtmpaDw

There were some unpleasant feelings that came up in terms of my summer vacation South in November 2010. I was concerned about returning to the only place I had ever been where I was called a “nigger” to my face. Surreal for me. ” No thanks, I’ll pass”, I thought when the opportunity arose, but then as you read in my last post I found some really beautiful things in the South (Southern Exposure: http://makeitplainonline.wordpress.com/2010/12/31/southern-exposure/).

Negative feelings did come up though, as my family was entering an old plantation (this was not planned, we just happened upon it during a drive through Edisto Island).  My toddler aged son had some sort of fit and began refusing to enter.

His resistance started a cascade of thoughts for me. Especially, what must it have been like to be a child slave? I will share the cascade with you.

First of all, at what age exactly did they start beating children to shape slave behavior?

At what age was it necessary to conform to slave behavior? When parents say “It’s for your own good?”did this come from a place for black people that really meant, ” learn to be a docile person because that will save your life”?  Certainly, having a strong will or any will would not have been tolerated and was perhaps a matter of life and death.

Were slave children allowed to play?  What was life like for them before they had to work? When were they made to work?  Were they neglected?

I consulted an old book on Black child development about this: Alvin Poussaint and James Comer wrote: Black Child Care in the 70s that referred to the slave child as “abused”. They were often assigned to care for Caucasian sickly people, their elderly or Caucasian children. It didn’t say when they started to work.

I think about my kid and how he always says “no” and that is the process by which we begin to establish a separate identity and find our own voice. It is only normal and natural for children this age to do this. How was this handled with slave children? I can only guess that they were beaten severely, by either caregivers or slave masters.

Like the Seligman dogs from a famous psychological experiment many years ago. The dogs were shocked through the floors of their cages with no way to escape.  After a while, even if they were shocked they no longer tried to escape.

I think of my child, and know I will not hit him. It’s a lot more work to train a child in socially acceptable behavior without hitting, but it makes no sense to me to shape a human whom you want to feel worthy of respect by giving the child pain. He spends a hell of a lot of time in time out but he is getting a consequence that does not involve physical pain.

That’s my choice. You may have a different one. But I think it is important in terms of living consciously to think about why you are doing it. Is it because you were hit? Is it because everybody else is doing it? Is it because people from your community or family may judge you if you don’t hit? Are those good enough reasons for you? Chances are this pattern was passed down through generations and may not make the most sense when you step back from it a little and get perspective.

People will argue: Spare the rod and spoil the child. But I really don’t think this needs to be taken literally. After all, I don’t know many people using rods on their kids. I do think kids need limits and structure to learn and without these things a child may have more difficulty in society.