Dr. Jamila Codrington, African-Centered Psychologist:
African psychology is concerned about what it means to be inside of the social and political history of African people. And the way in which our history shifts our perception of the world, our thoughts, our feelings, our ways of being. The way we interpret information. Our development, our identity. We are not just melanated replicas of the dominate culture.
It's a very specific focus on African culture, African traditions, African values. There's a social justice agenda inside of it. Which is really about restoring people of African descent to their proper spiritual position in life, which is not as an oppressed people, that are descendants of enslaved Africans. But people who are kings and queens and people who have the ability to control their own destiny and self-determination. So, we don't focus on applying psychological theories by white psychologist to black and brown people. We create our own theories.
Lurie: I'm reminded of this quote by Tom Burrell that says, 'Black people are not brown-skinned white people.' How does that show up in the mental context? How does that show up in your practice, when you are treating black people who are coming to you, that may or may not be able to name, (I'm dealing with this issue and the intersection of racial and gender depression) and they may not be able to have the language for it, but you have the ability to access it?
Dr. JC: It shows up in doing a very holistic clinical interview. A lot of times, when you begin the therapeutic process, you have to understand and access the individual before you move forward with the therapeutic process. But, in an African-centered perspective, we know that we are not just thoughts and feelings and behaviors, but there's spirit. So, injecting spirit into the conversation, and that doesn't mean religion or doesn't mean some hard core ritual around what you do day to day. But, it also means that there was a portion of you that was here before you physically got here. It means that a lot of things that we experience, are remnants of what our ancestors experienced. And that we carry, sort of the genetic code, not just our phenotype, and our height, our weight.
But also, the degree to which our ancestors understood rhythm. The degree to which our ancestors were able to be resilient. So, tapping into the wisdom of our ancestors and understanding what did Big Mama teach you. What were the values that you understood as you were moving through the world and how did you get separated from that? Looking at the degree to which people experience racial trauma. Those are conversations that you won't find in many traditional therapeutic conversations. There's no diagnostic code for racial trauma. And PTSD looks different when you're talking about oppression as opposed to rape.
So, you won't necessarily meet the criteria but you have to be able to understand that there are certain realities and racism, oppression, discrimination, all the isms that we face as oppressed people. There needs to be permission to bring that into the therapeutic conversation. So, that to me, is at the forefront, even with my children. I specialize with children and adolescents. They're not too young for that conversation.
Karen: How do we reach our young people?... I feel like we're not having community dinners together. We're not playing games together. Kids are plopped down in front of a TV, a device, or video game and there's a disconnect coupled with a social media toxic behavior. How do we help our kids navigate those spaces?
Dr. JC: I think, a lot of times, we take for granted, that part of parenting means helping children to adapt to a racialized society. And that, often times, is not a part of what we do. We don't often times, have conversations about that.
I have children as young as 5 and 6. They come in and their self-esteem is already shattered by a lot of the taunting that goes on about their hair texture. About not having silky hair. They want long hair like mommy who has a weave. They haven't yet had conversations about what it means to be valued, just based on who you are and the way that God made you. We assume that, that's going to necessarily develop without having conversations about it. So we need to be able to cultivate positive racial identity. We need to prepare young people for racist interactions especially our young men, as they come of age. Being able to understand what they need to do, to engage properly with the law enforcement system, police brutality. Because our young people are at the forefront of a lot of our racial attacks. And their self-esteem is extremely fragile. And it's actually cultivated. Their sense of self is cultivated even in the womb. So, thinking about, what are the experiences that we expose children to. What kinds of emotional experiences do we create for ourselves that get transmitted to children. When you think about children who respond to music. That you can hear them moving in the womb with music. All of that, yelling and screaming, and what it means to kind of have the daily hassles of being in under-resourced communities and neighborhoods. The stress of that gets transmitted.
Lurie: And then going into education centers, where you spend the most powerful portions of your day, embracing material and being forced to master material, that confirms the worst things, about who you are. So, the psychological mindset that we take into the schools. The way our education system, beats that down and destroys that even more by forcing us to master whiteness as a demonstration of success and academic prowess. When you put all those things together and then we tell black children, be successful, love yourself, have high self-esteem. When you think about the interplay of each one of those systems and then living in a community like Bed-Stuy, where I live with my father. Seeing how all of those things come together. It is miraculous, that we are not all crazier than we actually are.
Karen: What is crazy? How do we define that?
Dr. JC: My definition is going to be from an African-centered perspective. Crazy, is a departure from your African self. And sometimes, we have to be crazy. It's not to glorify that everything that's traditionally African is right. But there's something about our tradition. Our culture, is our immune system in this society.
Dr. JC: We separated from our communalism. That's a symptom of craziness. The idea that, we're just going to do this by ourselves. (For example, "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.")
Karen: We are our brothers' keepers. We have collective work and responsibility. This is the way we're supposed to move.
Lurie: But when were African people spiritually, genetically, evolutionarily, but we're embracing Western ideology of (it's me, myself, and I). And when our music is reflective of, I'll kill you, I don't care. I don't give a blank about your feelings. That is the antithesis of communalism. But that is now the cultural expressions that are most profitable. And when that becomes the aim, the crazy can become universal.
(responding to a caller)
Dr. JC: Epigenetics is something that we all need to understand. It's really just being able to recognize that even our experiences can get encoded into our genetics. Particularly, for people of African descendant, epigenetics is important because it helps us to understand how our psychosocial history of enslavement, ends up trickling into modern-day behaviors and can actually be transmitted in the form of a genetic code. Which can take more than a black President to kind of just release.
Dr. JC: Epigenetics is something that we all need to understand. It's really just being able to recognize that even our experiences can get encoded into our genetics. Particularly, for people of African descendant, epigenetics is important because it helps us to understand how our psychosocial history of enslavement, ends up trickling into modern-day behaviors and can actually be transmitted in the form of a genetic code. Which can take more than a black President to kind of just release.
(responding to a caller)
Dr. JC: We need to recondition ourselves.
Karen: How do you recondition yourself?
Dr. JC: First, we have to understand what does it mean to be African.
Karen: Where do we find that answer?
Lurie: And what if you don't want to be African because of what you've been taught about what it means to be African.
Dr. JC: We need to recondition ourselves.
Karen: How do you recondition yourself?
Dr. JC: First, we have to understand what does it mean to be African.
Karen: Where do we find that answer?
Lurie: And what if you don't want to be African because of what you've been taught about what it means to be African.
Dr. JC: For me, the important thing is to be able to spread truths around the accuracies, in historical times and contemporary times, around our greatness. That's where I start with young people. Which is why, things like Black Panther movies, speak to that, in an entertainment way but it relies on historical truth.
And then being able to understand how do we help young people to be socialized so that the values... You could start with Kwanzaa. How are we living this out? That's the best way of what it means to be African. So, there are models out there. And there are ways that you can transmit it, through education. Through just the aesthetics. Helping the young people to understand that your hair is not nappy. It's tightly curled. It has strength. It has 360-degree rotation. It doesn't break easily. It doesn't shed. That's something that we should be proud of.
So, there are small ways and there are larger conceptual ways. The African-centered schools. Rites of passage programs.
Karen: Are there any books?
Dr. JC: If there's one thing that you read. It's an old book, but it's a classic. "The Development Psychology of the Black Child", by Amos Wilson. We have to understand how to cultivate it from the womb through education. And understanding the ways in which we need to educate our children, so that we're not trying to heal a broken people as adults. So, I would start there. Also, "Yurugu" by Dr, Marimba Ani.
Dr. JC: If there's one thing that you read. It's an old book, but it's a classic. "The Development Psychology of the Black Child", by Amos Wilson. We have to understand how to cultivate it from the womb through education. And understanding the ways in which we need to educate our children, so that we're not trying to heal a broken people as adults. So, I would start there. Also, "Yurugu" by Dr, Marimba Ani.
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