BLACK PSYCHOLOGY

An Avenue to the Study

of Afro-Americans

GERALD GREGORY JACKSON

New Arena Consultants
Educational and Mental Health Consultants
East Orange, New Jersey

For many individuals and groups, the clamor over Black

Studies was, in reality, a political and psychological contest.
Detractors, on the one hand, envisioned Black Studies as
inherently anti-white, but oftentimes couched their criticisms
in terms of employment prospects for Black Studies graduates.
Proponents, on the other hand, saw Black Studies as a
legitimate area of study, and some, as a means of group
elevation. This writer sides with the latter view of Black
Studies; however, rather than entering the debate on the level
of the worth of Black Studies in general, this article has been
designed to show the possible scholarly use of a Black Studies
orientation in particular. One component of Black Studies, it is
hypothesized, that is not only relevant to the general debate
over the efficacy of the field but that may serve also as an

example of the academic worth of the subject, is the discipline

of Black Psychology. For example, despite a plethora of
works on the subject of Black Psychology (e.g., Guthrie, 1976;
Haskins and Butts, 1973; Jones, 1972; Pugh, 1972; Thomas,

241

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242

1971; Wilcox, 1971; Williams, 1974), students and academi-

cians continue to demonstrate a reluctance to accept Black
Psychology as a legitimate area of research and,
furthermore,
as a rational avenue to human
understanding. There is partial
justification for some of the confusion witnessed, however, not
enough to justify the blind rejection of the discipline by tradi-
tional scholars. To allay, therefore, the obvious fears and
skepticism over the subject, this article will delineate the essen-
tial features of Black Psychology and, in the progress, point to
its relevance to such concerns as the Afro-American family,
education, race relations, and history.
To illustrate, as a method of analysis, psycho-history is
supposedly one of the newest interdisciplinary subjects to
emerge in the last couple of decades. One indication of its
increasing status is the creation of a journal in which to present
its unique approach. However, despite the presence of a vehicle
to advance its methodological approach, there are other signs
that suggest that it is still in its infancy. Its application to the
study of Afro-Americans, for example, suggests that it is not
only in an embryonic state of development but also that it is
rooted in a philosophical structure that eventually may prove
to be detrimental to Afro-Americans. For instance, while there
are a few works on race relations that use a psycho-historical
approach and historical studies that use psychological con-
cepts, the concept of Black Psychology used by Afro-American
psychologists has been largely omitted from psycho-historical
investigations. As one corrective measure, Banks (1976), in an
article entitled &dquo;Psycho-history and the Black Psychologist,&dquo;
gave some fundamental suggestions on how Afro-American
psychologists could play an invaluable role in the development
of a better understanding of Afro-American behavior. In the
main, though, he did not go beyond the suggestion that Afro-
American psychologists held slightly different values and did
not, as a consequence, stipulate the theoretical contributions
that they could offer the discipline.

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 243

The value of Black Psychology, it is herein advanced, lies

more than its being slightly different from a Western con-

ceptualization of psychology; its African base makes it a

distinct outlook with immense possibilities. Consideration, it
will be seen, of the continuation of this ethos may simultane-
ously provide a solution to the debates over Afro-American
behavior and advance scholarship on the subject. For instance,
in a review of a work by John Hope Franklin, Fields criticized
Afro-American historians for merely &dquo;describing and ana-
lyzing&dquo; (1977: 46). In Field’s estimation, Afro-American
historians should take a proactive role or one that articulates
alternative paths for Afro-American people. Field’s charge,
while easily understood from a Black Psychology frame of
reference (e.g., Akbar, 1976), is nevertheless inconsistent with
the traditional domain of history or as Banks noted: &dquo;Because it
is by definition a post hoc enterprise, history seems per-
manently barred from the community of social and behavioral
disciplines that are often described as ’sciences.’ Nevertheless,
the work of many historians reflects a sense of fascination with
psychological terms and meanings&dquo; (1976: 25). One avenue to
resolving this paradox, it is advanced, is the inclusion of a
Black Psychology perspective in the study of the chronicle of
human beings.

THE DOMAIN OF BLACK PSYCHOLOGY

As a perspective, Black Psychology can be readily traced to

the 1920s when Afro-American psychologists first published
research studies to dispel the notion of Afro-American in-
feriority and sought to increase the psychological services
rendered to the Afro-American community (Guthrie, 1976).
These heuristic studies and pioneering community psychology
efforts, while predicated upon an African ethos (Nobles,
1976a), were stimulated primarily by a reaction to the existence

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244

of institutional racism and individual acts of discrimination.

During this period, for example, very few individuals or
organizations attempted to establish a culturally unique
system of psychology; therefore, what existed was merely a
racial perspective (e.g., Hunt, 1974). Chronologically, it was
not until the 1960s and the inception of the independent and
national Association of Black Psychologists that Afro-Ameri-
can psychologists made a concerted and sustained effort to

expand their concerns into a distinct system of psychological

thought and research (Akbar, 1976; Williams, 1974). Similarly,
it was not until the 1970s that publications appeared that
advocated a Black Psychology (e.g., White, 1970). Since the
early 1970s there has been a noticeable increase in scholarship
in this area; however, the term Black Psychology remains a
generic designation for an emerging perspective of the field of
psychology (Baldwin, 1976). Moreover, while it has been said
that Black Psychology represents a &dquo;third great psychological-
philosophical tradition&dquo; (Cook and Kono, 1977), and to
possess a unique harmony and rhythm (Clark et al., 1975),
akin to Euro-American psychology, Black Psychology is not a
paradigm in the Kuhnian sense of Western science.
Ironically for some, there is a marked difference between the
use of social experiences associated with Afro-Americans and
Black Psychology as a subject area. In general, Black Psy-
chology is neither racist nor totally incompatible with Euro-
American psychology (e.g., Boykins, 1976; White, 1970). On a
practical level, for example, it is &dquo;concerned with redefining
existing psychological principles and concepts, and developing
additional models that will reveal the strengths of Black people
...
(it will) offer behavioral guidelines that have been examined
in terms of their applicability to the specific needs and
problems of Black people&dquo; (Sims, 1977: 117). A focus upon
Afro-Americans, however, is not the distinctive feature of
Black Psychology. Its uniqueness stems from its West African
cultural antecedent. Black Psychology, as a consequence,

is something more than the psychology of the so-called

underprivileged peoples, more than the experience of living in

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 245

ghettoes or of having been forced into the dehumanizing

condition of slavery. It is more than the &dquo;darker dimension&dquo; of
general psychology. Its unique status is derived not from the
negative aspects of being black in white America, but rather
from the positive features of basic African philosophy which
dictate the values, customs, attitudes, and behavior of Africa
and the new World [Nobles, 1972: 18].

This link to Africa

not only gave Black Psychology its
suigeneris identity but also is one of the most profoundly
difficult concepts to grasp because of the basic conceptual
difference between the African and European ethos or guiding
principles. In addition, research in the area of social psy-
chology (Banks, 1976) gives clear evidence of the stereotype of
Afro and Euro-Americans along the lines outlined by Toldson
and Pasteur (1976) and these differences, in turn, have been
related to the European ethos of the survival of the individual
versus the African ethos of the survival of the group (Nobles,

1976a). Where theorists erred, it is proposed, was in their

attempt to explain cognitive and affective differences between
Afro and Euro-Americans in racial or genetic terms (Jackson,
1976a; Sforza, 1974). Most important, Afro-Americans share a
material culture with Americans in general, a set of values and
attitudes with other oppressed people, and, finally, an outlook
that is based upon an African ethos (Cole, 1970; Cohen and
Kapsis, 1978).

CULTURAL ROOTS OF BLACK PSYCHOLOGY

How then, you may ponder, did a Black Psychology emerge

in the United States when there are so many cultural influences
on Afro-Americans? One explanation results from the research
on the function of the right and left hemispheres of the brain.
To elaborate, the psyche of the Western world has been
suggested as being dominated by the left hemisphere of the
brain (Ornstein, 1977). Accordingly, it has been said that this
segment is: (1) rational or takes information bit by bit and
processes it in a linear, logical manner; (2) verbal and carries on

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246

mathematical reasoning; (3) accessible to scientific investiga-

tion ; (4) aggressive; and (5) troubled by the process of
associating names with faces (Buck, 1976; Kiester and Cudhea,
1976; Sage, 1976). Consistent with a reliance on this portion of
the brain, Americans honor and elevate rational thought, a
linear-progressive concept of time, verbal and mathematical
skills, and individualistic and competitive behavior (Albee,
1977; Crichton, 1968; Slater, 1970; Wallace, 1970). In contrast,
the right hemisphere has been said to represent the mental life
of the Eastern world and has been characterized as: (1) intuitive
and abstractive; (2) nonverbal and creative; (3) less accessible
to scientific investigation; (4) passive; and (5) not troubled by
the process of associating names with faces.
There is no unequivocable evidence to suggest why a
particular sphere of the brain may dominate the other;
however, it is my hypothesis that dominance is related to the
physical environment and the adaptation made to it in the form
of child-rearing practices, social structure, values, and cus-
toms. As a corollary, a number of scholars and researchers
have also advanced the idea that physical environments
influence cognitive style (Berry, 1976) and are prime deter-
minants of the cultural patterns of Africans and Europeans
(Clarke, 1976; Diop, 1974; Hodge et al., 1975). What is more
germane to the present discussion is the suggestion by re-
searchers that the right hemisphere may influence what we do
and say in a manner that the left hemisphere does not always
comprehend. To illustrate, the birth of African Psychology has
been said to have begun during the 1940s and is conveyed in
Senghor’s syncretistic goal of creating a new humanism that
combined European rationality with African intuitiveness
(King and Ogungbesan, 1975). Supporting Senghor’s basic
characterization of the African mind, in 1945 anthropologist
Placide Tempels noted in Philosophie bantoue that the African
had a direct, intuitive, harmonious relation to life and the
cosmos that was different from the cold conceptual logic of

European civilization. Similarly, Senghor (Allen, 1971; Sen-

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 247

ghor, 1971 ) added elsewhere that the African impulse is not to

dominate the object through its dissection and analysis by
&dquo;discursive&dquo; reason but to install itself in an intuitive manner
through emotion. Together, wrote Allen: &dquo;The oral tradition
and the spontaneous play of the creative impulse gave the
African a sense of adequacy before the living moment. He did
not fail before that moment and feel a compensatory need to
abstract it and to approach it in post-mortem through the
inanimate and mechanistic tool which is, in large part, the
written word&dquo; (1971: 15). In this regard, Jean Paul Sartre said
that the African outlook is &dquo;to comprehend through sympathy
rather than to conquer through the analytic tool of the rational
will&dquo; (cited in Allen, 1971: 16).
This affective or feeling orientation among traditional West
Africans has been related to their child-rearing practices
(Elam, 1968; Esan, 1973; Levine, 1974), family structure
(Brown and Forde, 1950; Nobles, 1974), and, in general, a
syncretistic mode of thought. Syncretism, it may be helpful to
define, means the &dquo;combination of different forms of beliefs or
practices&dquo; ( Webster’s Seventh Collegiate Dictionary, 1966:
893) and is easily identified in the Africans’ traditional
approach to religion. For example, to the traditional African
there were no formal distinctions between the sacred and the
secular, religious and nonreligious, or between the spiritual
and the material areas of life. Beliefs and actions were regarded
as inseparable and, as a result, were extended to relationships
between the individual and group (Mbiti, 1971). As an oral
culture, there were no creeds to follow or written forms of
guidance and, as a result, it was assumed that where the person
was fixed in time, his religion was also fixed and he was

expected to be religious seven days a week. To be human in this

milieu, therefore, entailed a holistic perspective or an outlook
in which the individual observed his role by participating in his
beliefs, ceremonies, rituals, and festivals of the entire com-
munity (Makinde, 1975). Another illustration of the relation-
ship between the syncretistic approach and the African ethos is

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248

the Africans’ concept of the role of the artist and aesthetic

expression. According to Sieber: &dquo;Unlike recent art in the
Western world, traditional African art is an act of cultural
integration. The artist neither castigates nor condemns the
normative values of his culture, nor does he reject through
inversion that culture’s concept of the image of reality&dquo; ( 1971:
171 ). Such art, noted Blair &dquo;is of the people, it expresses values,
religious and philosophical, which the artist shares not only
with his patron but the whole community&dquo; (1975: 26). The
native African sculptor, wrote Locke, &dquo;was forgetful of self and
fully projected into the idea, was always working in a complete
fusion with the art object&dquo; (1939: 272). For example, Bebey
wrote:

A real conversation takes place between the musical instru-

ments and the men who made them, a dialogue between music
and its creator-man. This intimate union between man and art
is rare outside of Africa. It amounts to a total communion that
is shared by the whole community The art of music is so
...

inherent in man that it is superfluous to have a particular name

for it [1976: 12].

THE SPIRITUAL DIMENSION OF

BLACK PSYCHOLOGY

The formation and development of the Association of Black

Psychologists stems from the African ethos of the survival of
the group (e.g., Williams, 1971, 1974). As noted earlier, in
traditional West African society the clan or group was the
reality. In line with this viewpoint, the individual existed so
that the group might survive and his or her individualism was
realized via the prosperity of the group (Nobles, 1973). Or as
Basden characterized an individual under the influence of this
concept: &dquo;This subliminal consciousness by which all his
movements are controlled, becomes practically a sixth sense. It

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 249

is inexpressible in words, but nevertheless extremely powerful

in action&dquo; (1966: 9-10). Nobles (1973) hypothesized that it was
this tribal cultural overlay that gave rise to the intrarelationship
among Afro-Americans today and labelled this condition the’
&dquo;extended-self.&dquo; There is also evidence to suggest that Amer-
ican slavery merely destroyed allegiances to individual tribes
but it did not extinguish the concept of the primacy of the
group (Bromberg, 1968; Gutman, 1976; Herskovits, 1958;
Turnbull, 1976). The concept continued, bolstered by the
American cultural practice of dichotomizing groups according
to skin color, but rather than being related to the clan, it was
extended to certain types of values (e.g., informality, spon-
taneity) and behaviors (touching).
As a backdrop, African languages contained an abundance
of vowels and its system of tonality and accents gave additional
support to syncopation. Moreover, according to Bebey: &dquo;any
attempt to follow the meaning and evolution of African music
will, surprising as it may seem, shed a great deal of light on the
evolution of African society in general and will help to clarify
the apparent ambiguity of that society’s own individual brand
of logic&dquo; (1976: 16). The upshot was a stronger possiblity that
music could be interpreted as language, and the &dquo;talking
drum,&dquo; which was not extinguished during the early period of
American slavery, made the possiblity of incorporating lingual
rhythms into music, a reality. This musical tradition, in turn,
reinforced a holistic outlook and is reflected in the following
description of syncopation. Allen noted it is
an exchange during the very act of creation with the sur-
rounding members of the village or the clan. There is a counter-
point between them in which his lead is shaped by the comment
and response of the group encouraging, approving, disap-
proving and offering new imaginative leads and providing the
dramatic and transcendent force which emerge from the
dialectic of this exchange. The whole becomes more than the
sum of its visible parts [1971: 16].

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250

This musical pattern is structured, therefore,

to invade, capture and to move the whole person. It sets up an
expectation in the regularity of the beat, delays its realization,
establishing thus within each measure a tension of promise and
retreat, suggestion and denial prior to ultimate accession....
This evocative sense of deferred but imminent satisfaction is
achieved ... by the simultaneous employment of different
rhythms and differing meters, overlaid one upon the other, thus
creating the sense of deviation from the normal, or the
expected. The resulting stress upsets the static repose, engages
the total being and moves it to another dimension of conscious-
ness [ 1971: 14].

The African as a consequence, learned the acoustical

child,
phonetic signs of the drum rather than a written alphabet
(Walton, 1972). In the words of Bebey:

The musical games played by children are never gratuitous;

they are a form of musical training which prepares them to
participate in all areas of adult activity-fishing, hunting ...
attending weddings, funerals, dances.... This explains why
every conceivable sound has its place in traditional African
music, whether in its natural form as it is produced by the object
or animal in question, or reproduced by an instrument that
imitates them as faithfully as possible [1976: 8].

Similarly, it is advanced that Afro-American children under-

went an equivalent learning process; however, in the United
States, the vehicle was the Afro-American church and family
(Daniel and Smitherman, 1976; Hill, 1972).

AFRO-AMERICAN THOUGHT AND THE

EMERGENCE OF ITS PSYCHOLOGY

Does the above overview of the African ethos mean that

Afro-Americans are identical to contemporary Africans? No;
while being Afro-American has been defined as &dquo;the ability to
transcend the grip of narrow traditions&dquo; (Patterson, 1971, p.

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 251

27) and this facility appears to be rooted in a syncretistic mode

of thought, in Hunt’s (1974) theory of racial perspective, the
perspective encompasses neither the elevation of the
&dquo;Black&dquo;
cognitive nor the affective but the recognition and acceptance
of the strengths of both domains. What is being affirmed is that
the basic definition of Afro-American culture and behavior is
rooted in traditional West African culture. For example,
Dixon described the way Afro-Americans think in the fol-
lowing way:

Homeland and overseas African persons know reality pre-

dominantly through the interaction of affect and Symbolic
Imagery.... Affect refers to the feeling self, the emotive self
engaged in experiencing phenomena holistically.... Affect
personalizes the phenomenal world. It is one factor in the
Africanized mode of knowing. Affect, however, is not intuition,
for the latter term means direct or immediate knowledge
(instinctive knowledge). Affective is not regarded here as
irrationalor intuitive without resource to inference from or

reasoning about evidence. Affect does interact with evidence,

evidence in the form of Symbolic Imagery [1976: 70].

Similarly, Matthews added:

In Black use, the thought is generated through the use of a

picture concept (visualization), rather than through the use of a
notion or theoretical statement, or a theoretical formula. In
Black imagery, a picture of the thing as it really exists is put
before the mind and imagination. In the Black method, one
proceeds through visual thinking as against nonvisual thinking.
One may wish to represent this position as the concrete vs. the
abstract, but this world not be accurate. In the concrete
presentation of the Black concept, there is a whole lot of
abstract thinking. On the other hand, it is not correct to talk
about the Western thing as exclusively analytic, because it is not
more analytic in method than the Black image [1977: 16].

In support of this African genesis hypothesis, there is mounting

evidence that it was from a West African source that Afro-
Americans derived their concept of time, family, religion,
beliefs about sex, music, and dance and pattern of thought and

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 252

language (Jackson, 1978). For example, antiphony, which is

&dquo;Whenever a musical phrase, sung or played by a soloist, is
afterwards repeated or answered by an instrumental or vocal
chorus or group&dquo; (Walton, 1972: 101), is even today a
characteristic pattern of speech for Afro-Americans (Smith-
erman, 1973). The use of written language, research has
found, also reflects a strong African influence (Matthews,
1977). More important, since it ties in with research by
Ornstein (1978) on the interdependence of brain hemispheric
functioning in general and the virtues of right hemispheric
thought in particular, Matthews summarized the implications
in the following way:

We are talking about an approach to learning, not about a

synthesis approach, because, synthesis implies piecing together
things which have been broken apart. The wholeness is a habit
of seeing things whole before they are seen as broken apart.
Instead of seeing 10 things as 10 separate units, the Black
perspective tends to see 10 things as 10 parts of a single whole.
This is the approach to the integral versus the approach to the
fractional; one wishes to read the digital clock; one wants to
envision the ecology rather than the cell, because, the cell
behaves one way outside of the ecology-and in a totally
different way when put back into the ecology. The cosmic
approach captures human behavior in the ecology of the total
human environment. Black symbolic imagery details the
human experience with flashing pointedness as well as with
emotional intenseness. This may be an attempt to identify with
the whole truth [1977: 19].

One extension of such an intellectual approach into the field

of Black Psychology is the concept of the group in the
identification of Afro-American psychologists with Afro-
Americans of all socioeconomic strata and their holistic
approach to the resolution of Afro-American problems (e.g.,
Green, 1974). Research by Kenneth and Mamie Clark on the
effects of segregation on the personality development of Afro-
American children was instrumental in the 1954 Supreme
Court decision banning segregated facilities and is one illustra-
tion of such an orientation. An example in terms of the

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 253

organization of Afro-American psychologists was their in-

volvement in the Angela Davis trial. The services they
cooperatively rendered would have cost Ms. Davis $50,000 if
she had secured the services of a reknowned psychoanalyst
with a forensic specialty (Sage, 1973). Their study of and
consequent consultation in the jury selection process, similar
to their effort to ban psychological testing, was a monumental
step into a relatively neglected area of scientific investigation
and illustrates the possible integration of the Western ap-
proach to the science with the African concept of the primacy
of the group (e.g., Hilliard, 1974, 1976).

THE UNIVERSAL PART OF A

BLACK PSYCHOLOGY WHOLE

Black psychology is more than a defense of Afro-Americans;

it is an affirmation of a holistic and spiritual view of human
beings versus a Western definition of a scientific one. The
scientific view of man held in the West today (e.g., Connor,
1975), according to Abraham, and consistent with left hemi-
spheric thought, &dquo;depends on analysis, disintegration, and
then the control of selected variables&dquo; (1962: 24) and is
reflected in the current approach to the control of human
behavior. Euro-American Psychology primarily seeks control
over the phenomena of human conduct through the use of

drugs and the study of the region of the brain that controls
behavior (Lawson, 1976). In contrast, and consistent with a
spiral concept of time, Akbar (1976), who is a luminary in the
field of Black Psychology, recommended the use of psycho-
historical studies of past divilizations, where human beings
were in tune with their spiritual self, as the way Black

Psychology should approach the study of the best way to

enhance human behavior. Moreover, this holistic view of
Black Psychology can be said to be what underlies Black
Psychology’s criticism of a segmented definition of intelligence
and its measurement (Clark, 1975), psychological constructs
such as internal/ external control (Ogeletree, 1976), the passive

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254

role of research and scientist (Gordon, 1972; Green, 1974) and

the amorality implied in the exclusive use of experimental
designs and statistics. Central to this holistic outlook, then, is
the kindred concept of African humanism (Esen, 1973). An
example of a basic African influence on Black Psychology is
Dixon and Foster’s concept of diunitality. It was advanced as a
means of ameliorating racial polarization and conflicts in
America. In their assessment, the problem with previous
research on the subject of race relations was its use of an
either/ or framework or the philosophical belief that &dquo;every-
thing falls into one category at the same time&dquo; (1971: 25). As a
result of this philosophical orientation, they added, it is
believed that Afro-Americans represent one exclusive racial//
cultural category and Euro-Americans another, therefore, it is
presumed that they are &dquo;mutually exclusive, contradictory
and antagonistic&dquo; (Nelson, 1975: 25). This type of reasoning,
they maintained, fostered racial strife and, as an antidote, they
suggested the use of the diunital approach. This approach is
predicated upon a harmonious uniting of opposites (Dixon,
1976) and is not only reflected in the African term Anokwalei
(Wobogo, 1977) but also is consistent with biological law.
Based upon this formulation, they contended that since the
original cultures of Afro-Americans and Euro-Americans have
been influenced by one another, in reality, neither group is
totally free to perceive itself as all African or European. The
state of diunitality would be achieved, they speculated, when
&dquo;black and white Americans accept the contradictions endemic
in their culture environments as mutually rewarding and
mutually relevant&dquo; (Nelson, 1975: 26). Cross (1971) hypothe-
sized the attainment of this level for Afro-Americans as a four-
stage process. His developmental model depicted, he felt, the
Afro-American road to self-actualization under conditions of
oppression; however, his final stage is applicable to all human
beings and is akin to Maslow’s (1962) final stage of the self-
actualized person. Where they differ is precisely at the point
that Afro- and Euro-American systems differ and that is the
individualistic versus a collectivistic view of self.

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 255

It can said, then, that while Black Psychology is focused

be
primarily upon Afro-Americans, it has a universal component
that is expressed in its advocacy of the concept of diunitality.
To illustrate further, the traditional African believed in life
forces or external factors of causation. These forces were
believed to be the essence of being and operated in an irregular
and unpredictable pattern (Pennington, 1976). They were
believed to be inseparable from time, therefore, the rhythm of
time was not seen as constant or capable of measurement in a
quantifiable sense (Green, 1972). This principle of dual identity
or complementary opposites, in turn, functioned reciprocally,
not dichotomously and thus served to &dquo;unify the actual with
the illusory, the dead with the living, the personal with the
communal, and the individual psyche with the individual
soma&dquo; (Green, 1972: 14) and provides theoretical support not
only for the postulate by Dixon and Foster but also for the
structure undergirding the traditional African and contempo-
rary Afro-American family.

BLACK PSYCHOLOGY AS A TOOL

FOR SCHOLARS

Even though Black Psychology can be put in the service of

all human beings, its contemporary strength is its use on behalf
of Afro-Americans. One example of its strength is the study of
the Afro-American family. Allen (1978) sought, for example, to
determine the most applicable theory or theories to explain the
Afro-American family. He considered the institutional, struc-
tural-functional, interactional, situational, and developmental
approaches, and the ideological perspective of the cultural
equivalent, deviant and variant. He did not, however, take into
account that the framework proposed by Nobles did not stem
from the same philosophical structure he used to compart-
mentalize the various approaches to the study of the Afro-
American family. To illustrate, Allen praised the develop-
mental approach and cited it as having &dquo;considerable promise

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256

as a framework for the study of black families&dquo; (Allen, 1978:

124). Its strength, he observed is that &dquo;it incorporates elements
from both the structural-functional and interactional ap-
proaches, thus greatly enhancing its versatility&dquo; (1978: 124),
and cited Gutman’s work as a &dquo;prototypic&dquo; study. From an
Afro-centric perspective, however, Gutman’s work has been
criticized for failing to describe adequately Afro-American
culture (Makalani, 1977) and for presumptively evaluating the
Afro-American family from a nuclear family model (Sims,
1977-1978). These shortcomings are the consequences of Gut-
man’s use of a Euro-American cultural framework that: (1)
rejects family structures other than the nuclear model prevalent
in the United States (Sudarkasa, 1975) and (2) sees the religious
or spiritual dimension as being separate from the field of the
social sciences. Conversely, the conceptualization of Afro-
American psychologists, based upon an Afro-American cul-
tural model, sees the extended family as an adaptive mode and
the spiritual domain as an integral part of the Afro-American
family. In addition, there is a growing body of evidence that
supports the theoretical formulations of Afro-American psy-
chologists in terms of the viability of the Afro-American family
structure and its origin in traditional West African culture.
Starting in Africa, the advancement of Afro-Americans eco-
nomically and socially may rest in part on the use of Black
Psychology as a part of Black Studies. Thus far, it has been
shown to be of relevance to some basic areas of conflict over
the appropriate behavior for Afro-Americans, and elsewhere it
has been shown to be of assistance in devising a mental health
system (Jackson, 1976a, 1976b, 1978), establishing a concept
of mental health (Weems, 1974; Nobles, 1976b), and in the
interpretation of the reactions of Afro-American mental health
professional (Jackson, 1976c). It is hoped this brief account
will engender a desire to expand upon it and to show its
application to other traditional areas of study. As a guideline,
an actualized Afro-American, in Cross’s (1971) model, would:

(1) exhibit compassion toward folks who have not completed

the process; (2) watch over individuals at an earlier stage by

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 257

helping them conquer reactionary white hatred; (3) show the

pitfalls of Black pride without Black skills; (4) prod the
potential Black scholar, artist, or community organizer to have
faith in the Black perspective; (5) firmly but warmly urge the
rhetorical scientific communistic anti-religious super-Black
&dquo;revolutionary&dquo; to recapture his or her Black humanism; and
(6) if a Black scholar, create programs that synthesized affect
with ideas and that lead to action.

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Cr~or~ Jackson
(7cro/~ Gregory
Gerald Vac~on is M President
7~~~n/ of o~ New
A~w Arena
/<rfno Co~M/~nM. Inc.,
Consultants, /nc., a
consulting firm specializing in the provision of educational and mental health
services to and on behalf of African-Americans. His current research interest is
in the design and application of a mental health system for African-Americans
that is based upon traditional West African history, philosophy, and culture.

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