In These Times recently published an interview with Dr. Joy DeGruy Leary, author of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing. The basic idea seems to be that the legacy of slavery constituted a kind of trauma and consequently African-Americans today generally suffer from something akin to post-traumatic stress disorder. I have my reservations. Personally I'm a bigger fan of Frantz Fanon or Naim Akbar when it comes to understanding Black psychology. But from a certain perspective, they are all saying basically the same thing: Racism drives Black folks crazy. And somehow Fanon and Akbar both manage to sound optimistic and empowering as they say this.
Fanon says: Yes, Black folks (well... mostly the colonized Algerians) are crazy. Literally, clinically crazy. But so are the French. And things will be okay after the revolution.
Akbar says: Yes, Black folks are crazy (in a cultural sense). But things will be okay after you read my latest book.
But Leary sounds like she is saying Blacks are literally crazy in a clinical sense, in a way which tends to call into question Black humanity. Moreover, she sees the problem as rooted in past slavery rather than present conditions, which then puts serious limits on what we can do to get well. Anyway, tell me what you think.
Fanon says: Yes, Black folks (well... mostly the colonized Algerians) are crazy. Literally, clinically crazy. But so are the French. And things will be okay after the revolution.
Akbar says: Yes, Black folks are crazy (in a cultural sense). But things will be okay after you read my latest book.
But Leary sounds like she is saying Blacks are literally crazy in a clinical sense, in a way which tends to call into question Black humanity. Moreover, she sees the problem as rooted in past slavery rather than present conditions, which then puts serious limits on what we can do to get well. Anyway, tell me what you think.
6 comments:
Salam
I'm going to have to agree with you on this one. I've seen real-live PTSD in a number of Iraqi refugees from gulf war 1, and it is not comparable at all. Totally different effect internally, and very different in how the effects are displayed. Not comparable at ALL.
very good point about ignoring present conditions and as such possible solutions to present conditions...on a much smaller scale, that sounds a lot like what happens to childhood rape survivors who go to therapy--spending all the time on the past rather than the fact that many survivors as grown ups still don't feel safe and still are often subjected to sexualized violence--so "healing" really means "forgiving" the oppressor and moving on, as opposed to challenging a structure that creates rapists.
interesting post...
(ps. i'd like to know, if you can remember, the name of the woman you mentioned who did her thing about women of color and hair...sounds beautiful...)
This reminds me just a bit of something that Ward Churchill writes about in "Kill the Indian, Save the Man": Residential School Syndrome (RSS). Churchill spends some time outlining the present social conditions that foster inter-generational pathology among American Indians that seems fairly similar to what Dr. Leary is talking about with regard to African-Americans.
I'll have to put her book on my reading list.
I think that racism itself is a form of mental illness. We needed search for any book to tell us that when you are mentally ill, and you colonize and control populations of people, your mental illness will cause you to treat people in such a way that they are traumatized in a generational since. I don't think anyone has done a study on the affects of slavery on the diapora. Colonialization and slavery are two different things, can't equate the two at all.
that is a great point anon--why are brown people who are dealing with colonialism always the "crazy" ones? If we consider that there is a legitimate reason why we are all acting the way we do, then what does that say about the ones who *don't* have a reason for all the violence they inflict upon others i.e. the colonizers themselves?? Shouldn't *they* be the ones who are "crazy"? very very good point!
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