Racism as a Social Reality
Dr. Kenneth Clark &
Dr. Mamie Clark
February is Black History Month. Black History Month was formally established under president Gerald Ford in 1976 with an interest to preserve and celebrate the contributions and achievements of black Americans and as a time to reflect upon events significant to the African-American experience in America.
What is Racism?
Frequently, the term “racism” or “racist” will be employed to describe a subjective appraisal an individual or group makes regarding another that is based in a private and personal thought process. We tend to view certain individuals or groups being “racist” or “enacting racism” through the use of a factitious and circumspect logic and the behavior that stems from it. Although racism certainly exists on this level, this is an incomplete view of racism as it erroneously attributes responsibility for the presence of racism upon the agent of it’s transmission. Racism is not only the the thoughts and actions of an individual or group behaving in isolated circumstances. Racism is founded in history, and its effects remain clear and present in current times and continue to manifest in a multitude of ways in society. Racism is a substantiated and impactful social force that has influenced the totality of thinking, feeling, and being, of members of our society. From this standpoint, racism is not so much a consequent of distorted thinking, rather we view it as a foundational cause of distorted thinking.
Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines racism as:
[noun] Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior:
From this definition, racism is synonomous with prejudice, discrimination and antagonism, social transactions based in belief systems of racial supremacy. That American history has been shaped by racism through the institution of slavery, the subjugation of asian workers, and detrimental acts of genocide against native americans (as examples) is irrefutable. These systemic and historic realities have served as the foundation for racial interactions going forward, and have a sustaining impact upon the thoughts, feelings, and physiology of a multiracial citizenship participating in a shared social fabric.
Racism as a Historical Truth in America
The presence of racism throughout America’s history offers a profound though often unconsidered social context which operates upon the development of the self and with it the experience of self in the form of thoughts, emotions, and physiology. Thoughts of persecution, feelings of distrust, and the raising of the blood pressure that occur at the individual level in modern times have a historic source and basis. For African-Americans, these experiences of distress find their genesis in the creek of history’s slave ship; the stench of death and subjugation wafting over the seas of time from the initial point of departure of this floating holocaust. To the progeny of America's slave caste, America is the harbinger of impending doom, a state of displacement, a permanent loss of identity through the alienating decree of subjectivity. For the African-American, these powerful impressions have come to be reiterated from generation to generation, coalescing in a present predicament, a transitory moment, privately anticipating a yet to be determined outcome.
The black youth in the shopping mall approached by a white cop; the African-American mother relocating her family to a new community away from the threats of the city; the aged patient transitioning into residential facility under the auspice and care of doctors and medical administrators of members of a racial group that had practiced overt acts of segregation and discrimination against the patient in her lifetime, these are all common-place scenarios with unwritten endings, who’s conclusions can only fully be considered through awareness of the historical and personal realities that have shaped the individual’s expectations that will guide them through navigating uncertain circumstances.
However, it is important to point out that the cooperate maltreatment of the African-American, the history of which extends long before the forming of the nation and casts its shadow on the nation’s very inception, has come to influence the development of the white self just as it has shaped the development of the black self. The institution of slavery could only be accomplished through the systemic and deeply personalized dehumanization of the African-American by the white slave-owners, lawmakers, and community members. The hostile social treatment and habits of thought that would be required in the complete domination of one group over another would be cultivated from generation to generation throughout white society, and define every aspect of the relationship of the “superior” white and the “inferior” black.
Nowhere could this relationship be clearer than between the master and the slave. Supported and sanctioned by a lucrative commerce that yielded both power and profit, the slave master’s primary social operation would be to cultivate a delusional moral and civic order that placed himself in a position of rightful proprietorship over the slave. Meanwhile, the remainder of white society in the south would seek to uphold a social structure that operated in contrast to basic labor interests of the underemployed and poor southerner, as motivated by a campaign of misinformation regarding blacks. Based in ignorance and fear, southern society authored a jarring myth regarding the lustful and childlike decedents of the dark continent, who required the bridled control and oversight of a civilized hand. The sheer gravity of these long held views would not readily subsist and in some ways may have been only reinforced in the desperate years following the civil war after the thwarted efforts at secession.
Lingering fears regarding the potency of the freed slave would haunt the subconscious thoughts of a white society unnerved by the usurping of a white privilege that had never really been taken into consideration. In the coming decades, the unfounded hysteria over a looming black rising would stop at no length to seek out a threat that it projected upon the actions and selves of black community members yearning to claim the benefits of citizenship and personhood.
Throughout the south and many boarder states, the rising of the KKK to fend off a perceived threat of the liberated African-American stands as a disturbing example of the degree to which social paranoia would spread and fester for years after the ending of slavery. The infiltration of the KKK into every sphere of governance in certain southern communities and the impact they had in fanning the fears of society is impossible to fully assess, since they operated under the shroud of secrecy.
That these fears gained popular attention is irrefutable. D.W. Griffith’s film The Birth of a Nation (1915) would garner national attention and serve as a vehicle for advancing an agenda of militant protection against a perceived black social threat. The fact that the film garnered a private screening at the White House to then president Woodrow Wilson (Wilson critiqued the film's sentiments), reveals the level of influence such perspectives would ultimately have upon even the highest levels of governance. The feelings of threat perpetrated by such propaganda would find its mark in the hearts and minds amongst society's poorest and most vulnerable whites, but they would also play to the concerns of persons in established authority, eager to maintain positions of social control and dominance.
In the years leading up to the civil war and for some decades afterwards, white Americans in Northern states would be provided a different perspective. Northerners could stand in critique on southern states for supporting a practice so clearly contrary to even the most basic human and civil rights as slavery. Whites in the north were afforded a healthy distance from daily practices of animosity and the hostility that underscored race interactions in the south and had not habituated to these norms. Also, since northern states weren’t reaping the direct economic benefits of slavery, they were able to look onto the practices with some degree of objectivity that southern states clearly lacked where the plantation owners held great sway and influence over local governance, and helped to shape a climate where churches, schools, and legal systems operated with regard for their clear influence. As such, northern states were afforded the liberty of maintaining more liberal views on matters, endowing them to cause of abolitionism as the truths of slavery became known to them.
However, none of this truly absolved the white northerner from developing the same basic prejudices regarding African-Americans. Although better able to appreciate the wrongs of slavery, whites in the north were just as susceptible to campaigns of misinformation that had gained wide acceptance through popular culture regarding “the dark race”. These underlying prejudices would become increasingly relevant in years after the ending of slavery, as African-Americans would relocate to the north in search of work opportunities at varying intervals in the decades following the ending of slavery. Uncertainties that had long been harbored by whites in the north, would metastasize into outright fear regarding blacks resettling into historically white communities.
Although highly regimented practices of daily interactions between whites and blacks in regulating African-Americans to secondary class citizenship in the south, white communities in the north practiced discrimination through broader strokes when it came to jobs and housing in particular, which effectively replicated the segregation that occurred in the south. As northern communities adopted the same prejudices regarding blacks that had been adopted in the south, black communities began to experience the same types discrimination and social hostility and inequality in treatment that they experienced in the south. With an unexamined prejudice already in place, the circumstances of segregation resulted in limited and stereotypic forms of interaction that offered little improvement from life in the “Jim Crow” south. Such dynamics set the stage for racial tensions that would persist throughout the decades, promoting distrust and polarization of communities around issues of race integration and justice. At times, these tensions have subsided, while other times circumstances have occurred that have triggered mayhem and bloodshed. The one thing that appears consistent with regards to race relations in America, is that more than what any of us would care to accept, racism has shaped us and our relationships to one another.
We turn now to the theory of Individual Psychology in consideration of how unexamined social biases influence the conscious and unconscious motives of the individual operating in relation to others. We also consider black history month as providing us examples of the mechanics of social progress, through an Adlerian lens.
Individual Psychology on Racism and Social Progress
Although Adler did not speak at length regarding racism, he did speak about prejudice (Ansbacher & Ansbacher [eds], 1956, p. 451). To Adler, prejudice was best viewed as a means for members of one group to prop themselves up through degradation of another group, a form of psychological emasculation that was founded in a similar tendency to diminish the roles of women and children in society. He also referenced the presence of social factors that impact upon the emergence of hostility, drawing attention upon the contextual circumstances that need to be considered relative to the emergence of socially destructive behavior. We would be wise to take heed to Adler's sentiments as we seek solutions to the various ramifications of inequity:
Difficulties in earning a livelihood, bad working conditions, inadequate educational and cultural facilities, a joyless existence, and continuous irritation, all of these factors increase the feeling of inferiority, to produce oversensitivity, and drive the individual to seek "solutions"
Ansbacher & Ansbacher [eds], 1956, p. 451
From the standpoint of Individual Psychology, acts of prejudice may best be considered relative to a motive of the diminishing of another person. That is not to say that this behavior is done with conscious intention. Individual Psychology provides a framework of us to consider the manifestation of generally unconscious behaviors (i.e. behaviors that we are unaware of) that emerge as solutions to life's challenges. Adler referred to the individual's Schema of Apperception (Ansbacher & Ansbacher [ed.s] 1956, p. 181) which developed contextually, yielding basic beliefs about oneself and the world. From these beliefs, the individual confronted with life's adversity develops a private logic (also referred to as a private intelligence or private sense) which has it's own form of reason and offers the individual with subjective, momentary set of benefits, even if these offer no objective or social benefit to the individual. Although private logic stems from one's unique vantage point in life, the individual tends to regard their biased appraisal of the world as if it were reality and employs private logic in place of real solutions. Examples of private logic are implicated in any manner of behavior that defies social good or real world circumstances. For our intents and purposes, it would be fair to deduce all forms of racism and prejudice to constitute expressions of private logic.
Adler viewed humans as fundamentally adaptive beings, seeking to overcome life's obstacles toward a better future. However, central to an individual's capacity to do so, is the presence of what Adler referred to as common sense. Adler adopted a somewhat nuanced use of this popular expression, with common sense coming to refer to behavior that is in accordance with social good and who's behavior is to the benefit of the community and reasonable (Ansbacher & Ansbacher, 1956, p. 151). Common sense stood out in distinction from private logic, and offers individuals a capacity to actually overcome obstacles that are experienced in life through a cooperative orientation towards others.
Adler's views on common sense reflect key aspects of his views regarding healthy and adaptive behavior and with regards to the hopes for human progress. In his fully developed theory, two elements stood out for Adler as being of great significance in our ability to functionally overcome. These included a degree of activity (being active and not passive in addressing obstacles and living life), and the presence of sufficient social interest (vested concern in the social good) and community feeling (sense of connection with others). From his standpoint, human and personal progress invariably followed the presence of these two factors in our thinking and behavior.
With regards to social interest and community feeling it is important to point out that Adler referred to an empathic connection that extended beyond a certain group or like-minded individuals, but included a feeling of kinship with all humans across space and time:
I do not wish to say much about the usual and thoughtless case which is occasionally found within our circle among beginners , and outside our circle - the mistake of understanding what we call community as a private circle of our time, or a larger circle which one should join. Social Interest means much more. Particularly it means feeling with the whole, sub specie aeternitatis, under the aspect of eternity.
(Ansbacher & Ansbacher [ed.s], 1979, p. p.34-35)
As we consider Adler's vision of human progress as an inclusive and total promotion of human welfare, let us close these thoughts through referencing the progress that has been made over the decades with regards to equity and social betterment. For the time being, there could be no better place to consider the human capacity to overcome, than through some final reflections on black history.
Black History and Overcoming
The landmark supreme court ruling on the Brown v. the Board of Education (1954) set the stage for nationwide action taken to desegregate schools, which up until that point had been upheld though the standard of separate but equal. To those of us who practice Individual Psychology, it is an interesting side note what role Alfred Adler and the theory of Individual Psychology played in this ruling.
The unanimous findings of the Supreme Court in Brown V. the Board of Education effectively overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) which set this standard. Crucial evidence in the Board v. Board of Education came from scientific findings that had confirmed the adverse impact of race inequities through segregation upon the self-view of black children. Counsel in the case turned to the findings of Kenneth and Mamie Clark.
Dr. Kenneth Clark & Dr. Mamie Clark
The Clarks were husband and wife team of psychologists who had studied children’s attitudes regarding race. Using black and white plastic dolls in their research, the Clarks were able to ascertain a preference in both white and black children in white dolls over black. The Clarks based their work on Adler's concept of feelings of inferiority. In a time in which the suspect logic that somehow, segregation of black students from white students was somehow in the best interest of everyone, the work of Dr. Kenneth and Mamie Clark offered the weight of scientific evidence that practices of separation and segregation impacted upon feelings of inferiority pertaining to one's race identity.
If the work of the Clarks provided scientific basis for Adler's views pertaining to the negative impact that social factors can play with regards to the development of the self, then the lives of the Clarks offer a compelling illustration for Adlerian views regarding the human capacity for overcoming.
Child participating in study on race and self-view
In a day and age when African-Americans were drastically under-represented in academia (a problem which remains a concern to a lesser degree today), the Clarks would be undeterred in their course of substantiating the adverse impacts of segregation, for the purpose of advancing human rights and promoting social betterment. This is in keeping with Adler's vision of psychologist as an agent of social justice, actively addressing conditions of social inequity in the promotion of greater social interest and community feeling. Mamie's contributions to the field are particularly noteworthy, since she faced conditions of both racism as well as sexism in her contributions to the field.
Finally, the partnership demonstrated between Drs. Kenneth and Mamie Clark in their work together, serves as an example of the cooperation between the sexes that Adler championed, in the form of egalitarian and cooperative relations between husband and wife. Theirs was a shared work, grounded in a commitment to common sense, under the cloud of private logic that loomed heavily over their lives.
The Clarks' work on race and inferiority feelings and the subsequent ruling in the Brown v. the Board of Education served as harbingers of the civil rights era, a period of social upheaval and change that would serve to alter the future of the nation. This was a contentious time that signified a dawning awareness of the common sense understanding, that the interests of the majority could no longer maintain dominion over the rights of the minority. That these changes would not occur passively or through opportunistic feats of self interest became increasingly evident to groups that now would band together in interest of one another. As old laws were repealed, others were finally acknowledged and upheld, and the tides of time began to shift in innumerable ways through social action and a deepening of empathic connection between citizens. Throughout these developments, the unsung Adlerian precepts of social interest, activity, and common sense would prove to be mechanisms of overcoming and the handmaidens of social progress.
However, the stories of overcoming of black Americans cannot be relegated to a decade or two of increased social action and political progress. This is because, for as long as there has been segregation in America, there have been individuals longing for greater belonging; for as long as there has been social degradation, there have been people yearning for significance; for as long as there have been harmful stereotypes, there has been the welling up of the creative self and reimagining new modes of being; and for as long as there have been acts of social hostility and intolerance, there has been an eliciting of empathy and tenderness and a desire in others for social justice and healthier society. Black history is a history of rising up and overcoming.
This impetus to survive and endure was evident amongst the earliest African-Americans brought to this country, who held fast to a private and personal connection to an African heritage. Even as the circumstances of subjugation robbed subsequent generations of language, culture, and identity, any knowledge of Africa or ties to her mysteries through artifact, practice, or mythology, bestowed upon her progeny a kinship to a free and distant people who operated outside the limits of slavery and in another land. The preservation of African lineage offered a curious hope in a past, if not a future, of nobility, significance, and greatness. That these qualities might lie dormant inside, under the blanket of a forgotten history, offered a compelling antidote to the hostile and hopeless conditions of life in America.
To the established powers invested in the dehumanizing institution of slavery, the mere idea of Africa offered certain type of threat. The heavy and persistent compulsion to diminish Africa as being "backward" or "uncivilized" became a necessary mechanism for supporting myth of white superiority and in justifying heinous and criminal acts against humanity that were daily enacted upon Africa's descendants. Africa became a forbidden notion that came to represent forbidden and evil things. However, even an Africa mired by white propaganda would offer emancipation from a hostile and alientating American "citizenship", that both claimed and rejected the black slave.
The cultivation of an African sense of personhood and community would provide the soul membership to a social body that substantiated it as something more than property of an institution of servitude. Through the sharing and passing down of an African ethos in music, dress, and story, the "slave" found a point of departure from property into personhood. The daily expressions of self in the form of song, dance, food preparation, and manner of worship offered a form of protest against the drudgerary of life in slavery. However, over time, this ethos left its mark on the dominant cultural, which would knowingly and unknowingly appropriate black identity into what would be seen as American music, dress, and persona. That this impetus to retain aspects of an African sense of self would eventually influence the formation of a distinctively American culture is one of the great ironies of American history.
A similar and related component of the black experience of overcoming in the United States, was the capacity for black Americans to appropriate of aspects of white society and make them their own. In fact, throughout history, we have recurring examples of black culture incorporating the very mechanisms of oppression and exploiting these for personal and collective gain. An example of this can be viewed in the so-called "race music" that became popular in the early 1900's and stood as an industry predecessor to jazz and blues.
Through the 1920's and 1930's, black artists played to a marketing niche and intrigue in "race music" that to some extent fed off of racial prejudices and stereotypes in the incorporation of these into a marketable musical form. Although the term initially was clearly meant to demarcate music created by black artists, presumably as a form of industry segregation, the popularity of the music placed an industry demand that would compete against music made by white artists. As popularity gained regarding these types of musical expression, the term "race music" was eventually dropped, as white artists rushed to embrace "blues" and "jazz" as their own forms of musical expression. However, as this occurred, it invariably opened up these markets to African-American artists as well, who's musical accomplishments could be more firmly substantiated within a music industry indebted to black artistry.
Similar trends were observed in other areas of the entertainment industry as black entertainers and performers took on the 'blackface' routine that was popular in vaudeville and altered into a new creative form designed to gain celebrity and financial incentive. However, in so doing, black performers and indirectly the black community would benefiting in another way from this seemingly self-deprecating behavior. Through the grotesque exaggeration stereotypic behaviors and incorporating these into a new creative expression, the black minstrel took ownership of the stereotype itself, and advanced black performers into the limelight where whites had previously held dominion in the game of mocking and diminishing the black identity.
More practical examples exist of black experience of overcoming, which have been less public but in many ways more impactful than examples from the entertainment industry. As the benefits of education gave African Americans access to new knowledge bases, African American minds could be put to test in production, research, business, and related endeavors. The contributions made by African Americans to engineering, industry, technology have offered offer advantages to others and to our broader society. In this way, as African Americans have been permitted access to more equal access to basic rights, the nation has benefited in suit. Of course we have the special example of George Washincton Carver, who's life accomplishments are frequently celebrated during Black History month. It is noteworthy to highlight how the principles of social interest and community feeling and common sense factored particularly into his life's work.
Having experienced firsthand the time intensive and toilsome labor of harvesting cotton, Carver invested his capacities as a botanist and inventor in researching and promoting uses for other crops such as sweet potatoes and peanuts that small farmers could make a living on. This led him towards a considered inventory of marketable ways to promote crops that required less work and that would provide others with a better quality of life. Carver's life achievements and personal accomplishments were therefore in the interest of social contribution. His acted and vested approach and interest in identifying real solutions through the aid of science and technology, make Carver's life work a living example of Adler's appreciation for human capacity.
No consideration of the overcoming of black Americans could be complete without consideration of the unique role that the black church would play in the private and corporate overcoming that black Americans would experience over the years. The significance of a spiritual life in promoting overcoming and strengthening deep connection between humans was not lost on Adler. Adler has been famously quoted as saying:
Religious life is alive and will continue to live until it is replaced by this profound insight and the religious feeling which stems from it. It cannot be enough only to take from this insight; mankind will have to devour and digest it completely
Ansbacher & Ansbacher [ed.s], 1979
From Adler's standpoint, "religious life" seems to serve a role in both preparing us for as well as standing in the place of an ideal human community, until such a time that it can be achieved in life. Facing hostile social circumstances, black Americans developed a spiritual space in the church, where, through spiritual aspirations and worship, a more ideal community could be envisioned and pursued. For the black community the church served as a place for deepening connections within the black community, but also for fostering reparation with regards to the black community's victimization at the hands of the white community. Through spiritual practice, community members were able to find self acceptance, acceptance of others, and a place where forgiveness could be achieved that would allow the community to rise above the acts of bigotry that had served to oppress and harm the community.
The black church also served as a force for social and political action in righting the wrongs of social inequality throughout American history. Particularly in the south, black churches served as places where community members could meet and organize, and where community members would be free to speak their minds and address the social hostilities that faced the community amongst fellow community members vexed by a common set of circumstances. Black churches provided a place where black leaders could rise up and exert influence upon parishioners, and where a social hierarchy liken to the types that formed throughout white society could take form with regards to decisions made within the community. Through structural organization of the church, resources could be allocated (both financial and in terms of people power) to address social wrongs. If black spiritual life offered personal benefits of growth and healing, the church as an institution offered black communities social power and voice. It was from the church that Dr. Martin Luther King was able to author his radical and unifying message, that would ultimately influence the course of American history.
Perhaps most important proponents of the black experience of overcoming in America are the unsung, day to day experiences of individuals going about daily life in ongoing pursuit of personal betterment in lines with the greater good. This includes both day to day actions of African-Americans in work, community, and relationships as well as the personal growth and social evolution evidenced by white Americans who have adapted healthier views and relations with African-American and other minority groups.
History has long overlooked compelling examples of success and achievement in the African American middle-class which had established itself early in the 20th century in larger cities and healthier communities where productive life could gain a foothold and flourish. Similarly, longstanding black schools and institutions have long been in operation, which functioned in educating successful, contributing community members during periods of time when very limited opportunity existed for African Americans.
Unfortunately, we remain inundated with recurring examples useless responses to social inequities in the form crime, drug use, acts of opposition and disorderly conduct. Contrastingly, clear examples persist of misuse of power by a predominantly white establishment, hateful rhetoric of bloated egotists pushing a personal agenda, and the alarming and systemic responses of denial or evasion of responsibility that are evidenced as defended reactions when established systems become implicated in acts of racial hostility and intolerance. Although these occurrences do remind us of the ongoing inequality and persisting bigotry in the world, they remain disproportionally represented in the major media, and contribute to a polarized and polarizing view of America.
Still, much more prevalent and relevant to our inquiry are the daily practices of community, prosocial contribution, civility and democratic coexistence that bind us together and contribute toward social progress and individual betterment. As Community Feeling continues its work, we will continue to highlight examples of healthy order and means of moving forward in promotion of human progress.