by Julia Carachure
Staff Writer
The Institute for Multicultural Research and Campus Diversity presented a speech by Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Psychiatry Joseph White, who spoke at Founders Auditorium on March 28.
His lecture, called “African American Male Psychology: Psychological Challenges in the Journey of Living,” dealt with popular images of African Americans, the nature of the struggle with Black males, Malcolm X and what African Americans and society can do to deal with the problems.
Dr. White has been a main contributor to African-American psychology. He received his bachelor’s degree in psychology at San Francisco State University, where he graduated in 1954.
He also received a doctorate in clinical psychology from Michigan State University in 1961. He was the third person to receive a Ph.D. in clinical psychology in the United States. He was also the first African American to be licensed in Southern California.
He helped create Black psychology in the late 1960s and formed the Association of Black Psychologists. Dr. White was then reportedly known as the “godfather” and “father of Black psychologists.” He resided as an adviser to former President John F. Kennedy on matters of race relations during the Civil Rights Movement.
It was Dr. White’s article in Ebony Magazine called “Toward a Black Psychology,” that helped to establish Black psychology and provide the concept of ethnic psychology, among others.
He went on to say that when he was a student at California State University, San Francisco, he used to sit in the back, and he used to be a “D” student. Then he said that he sat in the middle and became a “C” student. When he finally sat in the front he became a top student.
Dr. White talked about the images of African Americans that people have include the Black athlete, who plays basketball and earns a lot of money and then signs a contract to promote Nike shoes.
Another stereotype Dr. White described is Blacks belonging to gangs. He said that he was interviewing a boy in Philadelphia and the boy told him that he wanted to be a gangster when he grew up.
A third image that Dr. White said people have of Blacks is that they go into the entertainment industry, particularly into comedy. He found that for the most part Blacks were the primary actors in seven television shows when Dr. White was doing research on his book four years ago. A fourth characteristic, he said, that people associate with Blacks is that they are church preachers.
Dr. White’s fifth image of African Americans is that they are criminals. He said that more Blacks are in prison than the outside world and that one-third of Blacks are under court supervision, most of them are between the ages of 17-40. They are either in jail or on parole, and that the state is spending more money on building prisons rather than on education.
Finally, another image that people have about Blacks is the absent/deadbeat father who is not paying child support or seeing their children.
Dr. White said there is only one image missing on these listed images. “There are 15 million boys and adult Black males in America,” said Dr. White, “and I see brothers everyday who are delivery men, delivering night parcels, who are fixing TVs and they are repairing and they are driving trucks, they are grocery clerks, they pay their child support, they coach Little League teams. Now why don’t we have stories about that?”
He also mentioned the book “Invisible Man,” by Ralph Ellison, in which Dr. White felt Ellison tried to show that there are millions of Black males in America and people do not see them, yet they are there.
“They are there picking up the trash, checking out your groceries, driving in a cab, delivering the mail. But we don’t see that, the invisible man. So I want to back away from these images and talk about the ordinary Black man, the invisible man. My father, my grandfather, my nephew,” he said.
Dr. White said that both his father and grandfather worked all their lives and were never in trouble with the law.
“They are not represented up there. And when I decided to tell the story, what I tried to do was talk about the nature of the struggle. What is the struggle that Black men face in America from the cradle to the grave? I wanted to catch that struggle in psychological terms,” Dr. White said. “I am a psychologist so I wanted to talk about that struggle in psychological terms.”
Dr. White then identified four issues of the struggle: identity, intimacy, coping with racism and discovering adaptive possibilities which means having a source of strength.
He said that “when you say identity to a psychologist you mean four things, who am I, where am I going with my life, how am I going to get there and what do I believe in terms of personal standards. So when you say identity to a psychologist, that’s what translates.”
Dr. White also discussed that every young man has a dream about what he wants to become in life. “He may not tell you what that dream is, but he has a dream.
“All young men in America dream a dream. The difference for the Black male is, can he achieve his dream in a society that has a history of a preference? Can he go out there and achieve his dream in a society which still has racism?” Dr. White asked.
Dr. White then told the story of when he was a 19-year-old college sophomore sitting in the back of a classroom and getting by in his classes, when one day he saw the professor draw a picture of the conscious, unconscious and subconscious mind.
It was then that he found his calling in psychology, which was to be a psychologist and college professor one day.
He then talked about intimacy and how one can build positive relationships with others.
“The deepest need for human beings is the need for human contact, the need to belong, the need to be connected. As all of you know we satisfy that need in the Black community among Black males in four ways,” Dr. White said.
Those relationships include the extended family and other males, mainly because they are males so they know what they are going through.
He illustrated that example by telling the audience about the time he was waiting at an airport and he talked to a Black man standing behind him. Despite the fact that he did not know him, they connected and were able to talk about sports, work and women.
Other relationships include a romantic relationship and a relationship with a mentor.
Dr. White said if someone spends time with a woman long enough, she will ask where the relationship is going. “What I am thinking in my brain is, ‘Why do we have to get in there, why can’t we just keep doing was we were doing and not get into all these complications?'”
Dr. White said to this woman one day, that he wanted to be a clinical psychologist and a college professor. In return, she gave all support that he needed.
He went on to discuss the relationship of the mentor. “That is the one that is missing in America today, the mentor. The mentor is an older man who believes in the boy, and guides his dream. He knows what he is going through,” he said.
Dr. White also discussed how Blacks can cope with racism. He said the only way that Blacks can get their source of strength in order to overcome racism is through the African-American heritage by looking through tradition, history and literature.
Dr. White said the way to help the Black man meet his challenge is to strengthen the mentorship connection. The church is a good place to start a mentor program.
He also said that society has to face this problem and deal with the problems that the Black community has. Dr. White also said that, “We must all sit down and we must all solve this problem together.”
“Overall, I felt that he was good. He was speaking more to the students than the faculty,” said sophomore LaToya Faulkner. “He was effective. A lot of the things that he said I could relate to.”
