White Hang-Up

Whites invented psychology and psychiatry, and occasionally put them to what they thought was good use in probing the psyches of blacks. Today there are enough black professionals to turn the tables, and many of them treat white patients in both public institutions and private practice.* In both areas they have a unique opportunity to examine Whitey's hang-ups about blacks--his guilt, his insecurities and the rationalizations by which he tries to justify his racism.

American ambivalence toward blacks dates back most signally to Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the credo that men are created free and equal, yet believed that blacks were less equal than others. A second ambivalence, which Jefferson shared, concerned sex. Despite laws against miscegenation, there has been, over the centuries, a steady increase in the number of mulattoes.

Contempt and Loathing. White Americans today are no less ambivalent. No matter how firmly they protest that they "have nothing against the black." contempt and loathing have become embedded in the language. Black Psychiatrist Alvin F. Poussaint points out: "In the legacy of our civilization, the color black has been virtually synonymous with 'sin' and 'bad'--witness such terms as black sheep, black magic, blacklist, blackguard, blackball, black lie and many others. The word is associated with all the dirty, lowly, unintellectual functions in human life. The word white is usually invested with the opposite meanings, so Americans have been conditioned to perceive black as inferior and white as superior."

The Real Killers. Black Psychiatrists William H. Grier and Price M. Cobbs, authors of Black Rage, put it still more strongly: "Most whites, including psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, are amazed to learn that their hatred of blacks is culturally determined, psychologically malignant, and can be ultimately lethal." How lethal it can be, they say, is evident when "law and order" is invoked, supposedly to protect white Americans from "murderous killer blacks." But, insist Grier and Cobbs sweepingly, "When the dust clears, the bodies are all black. The killers are white."

Since the white man has been the perpetrator of violence more often than the black, why does he persist in projecting his own misdeeds upon his victims? Poussaint explains: "Individuals who are deeply prejudiced frequently use this paranoid mechanism to avoid facing painful truths about unacceptable impulses and fears within themselves. Racist feelings can unconsciously become deeply enmeshed in one's own psyche and serve neurotic needs in an effort to shore up a shaky emotional equilibrium and sense of selfesteem. Because of their abuse and rejection of blacks, many whites have developed a great deal of understandable guilt, but since this too is an unpleasant emotional feeling, they have tried to avoid it by further rationalizations. This often reinforces prejudices and creates a vicious circle of negative defenses. For example, although white men exploited and sexually abused black women, the supposedly oversexed Negro male was lynched for the slightest real or imagined overture to a white woman."

Drs. Grier and Cobbs carry the argument to extremes when they contend that the "self-concept of slaveholder is central to the American national character and is in fact the national sickness of white racism." It has been structured into demeaning laws and customs designed to keep maximum distance between black and white. Poussaint argues that what is needed is a massive program of "deconditioning" Americans from their white-superior, black-inferior models of thought and relationships. The burden in achieving this, he suggests, would fall mainly on the educational system and the mass media.

Stubbornness. Say Grier and Cobbs: "If the white man recognizes individuality and humanity in a black, he must then feel love and set himself against the oppressor of his beloved brother." While this counsel of perfection may be hard to fulfill, they offer an interesting classification of whites rated according to the stubbornness of their prejudice. They see little hope for a near-future change in attitudes by most blue-collar workers, some "men of influence," or white (meaning rightist) radicals. For the rest:

"1) The white Southerner, converted under the right circumstances, may experience a complete abolition of bigotry. Surprisingly, we think, he has the greatest potentiality for change.

"2) The Northern liberal, if he can master the fear of loss of position and power, is next most likely to change because he has worked with blacks.

"3) The conventional, Middle American is conservative in outlook. His interests are intense but idiosyncratic, and if approached along the line of his self-interest, he may discard his hatred of blacks."

* The American Psychiatric Association has approximately 400 black members out of 17,000; the American Psychological Association refuses to give a color breakdown of its 30,500 membership.

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