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It's a new theory that's been raising interest, eyebrows, and some
ire. Omar G. Reid, Psy.D., along with his colleagues at Pyramid
Builders Associates in Roxbury, Mass. have posited that many problems
within the black community today can be directly traced to slavery.
Their theory, that many African-Americans are suffering from what
they call Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder (PTSlaveryD), points to
the high numbers of blacks in prison, on drugs, and living in single-parent
households as evidence of the lasting effects of the way blacks
learned to cope with the trauma of slavery.
New England Psychologist's Catherine Robertson Souter spoke
with Reid to get a better understanding of this theory and how the
clinical work he and his colleagues are doing at Pyramid Builders
has helped clients overcome their issues and rejoin society.
Q: On what do you base your theory?
A: The National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a
center for multigenerational legacies of trauma down in New York,
has done extensive work, looking at different groups and how trauma
or slavery has impacted them over the years. The center has done
extensive research and has robust information on different groups
like Cambodians, Japanese internees … groups that have had effects
from trauma, especially like slavery or the Holocaust, over the
years.
Q: You believe that current societal problems found within the
black American community can be traced to slavery. Specifically,
what problems?
A: If you go to the U. S. Census Bureau, there are a couple
of things. One is the high incarceration rate for black males; another
is the dropout rate. Another is the large number of female-headed
households.
The key thing about our theory is this is not about blaming whites.
This has nothing to do with reparations. We are saying that a lot
of the problems that blacks face today can be traced back to slavery.
Let me give you an example. I'm working with a man who is 49 years
old. He has five children and doesn't take care of any of them.
His father had no relationship with him. When he did some research,
[he found that] his grandfather and grandmother weren't ever married
and his great-grandfather was a buck on the plantation. During slavery,
black men were forced to have sex to breed babies. The problem is
that you numb yourself. You don't get close to your children or
the women because they were going to be sold. At one point, this
[reaction] was functional but now it's dysfunctional because it's
continuing. The cycle never stopped. After slavery ended, there
was no one saying, 'Let's regroup, let's go get some counseling.'
That was not available.
Another thing is that a lot of black males reject education. Even
in black colleges, black males do poorly. They have a 33 percent
graduation rate at a black college. During slavery in certain areas,
people who were caught reading were killed. So education was not
something you went after. This was exacerbated after [the Civil
War] because even with an education you still couldn't get a job.
A lot of blacks didn't even think about education as a way to make
it in the mainstream.
That same attitude is now dysfunctional because a lot of black
males don't pursue higher education, don't take school seriously
or reject it because it's considered being white.
Another issue is work. I went to a forum years ago on racism and
a lot of whites said, 'Blacks don't want to work - they are lazy.'
But, we have a different work experience compared to Europeans or
other foreigners. If you came from Russia or England or Ireland,
and you worked, you could move up. For blacks that came here, working
hard meant early death. The work ethic is totally distorted for
black Americans.
Q: And the point is that this attitude gets passed from father
to son, father to son. What about the women?
A: Well, the roles were switched. For years, black women were
the only ones allowed jobs - as nannies or maids. There was no such
thing as a nuclear family on the plantation but it was further distorted
once people left the plantation because the black man was sort of
emasculated - he couldn't get a job.
Black women were forced into a position where they became the economic
breadwinner of the home. It's the way things have worked. Even today,
she can get a job - she's black and a woman, filling two quotas.
The other thing with black women is that they still come with some
of the old slave mentality - especially those who are dark skinned.
For example, my last client is a 47 year old black woman who was
suicidal. She is a dark-skinned black but she grew up in a household
where her sisters were light-skinned. When we did a family tree,
we found that her great grandmother was the offspring of the slave
master. Now, she's the only dark-skinned one. In her home, she got
it from relatives that she was ugly and it was reinforced by black
media and the community.
A lot of blacks are really damaged not necessarily from white society,
but from within their own community - from ideologies, from beliefs
that are held over from slavery.
Q: How do you treat this problem?
A: What we do in treatment is to teach them to look at their
family history and show them how this came about and how their thinking
has been distorted.
It's very difficult to tell people to pull themselves up by their
bootstraps when they psychologically think that they can't. It's
like that old thing where you have the dog in a cage and you shock
it and after a while it doesn't go out. You could sit down and counsel
a black guy, 'Now go out and get a GED and go get a job.' They can't
do it. They have to be hand held and walked. We also help them develop
higher income skills to survive.
We have had a 99 percent success rate with all the men who have
come to us.
Q: Meaning what? What is "success"?
A: Meaning that they are now able to function in society - get
involved, get a job, drop down the alcohol and drugs.
Q: There has been some resistance to your theory. Why?
A: We've been attacked by some of the black middle class. They
say, 'Well, I made it.' And I say to them, look at your family history.
If we compared you to the black guy who's sitting in state prison,
your background is still different. Yes, there is a black middle
class, but the majority is poor and uneducated and doing poorly
and statistics show it. Connecticut just put out new statistics:
One out of 14 black males is incarcerated - compared to one out
of 2,790 white males. We only make up 12 percent of the US population
but we make up almost 60 percent of the prison population.
Q: What kind of response have you gotten within the world of
psychology?
A: From folks who understand trauma we've gotten a lot of praise.
No one's really looked at how the mass of blacks was affected by
the slavery legacy. There are now a lot of black psychologists,
black social workers contacting us to come speak. It's starting
to become a movement. We are working on coming up with our own "DSM"
[description]. So, if someone has a client come in and they are
dealing with what we call PTSlaveryD, how does that translate to
lay terms under the regular system, the mainstream? That's going
to be out in January.
We plan to continue to do more talk shows, radio, etc., and offer
the book for diversity programs in colleges. We have problems, not
from whites, but from the black elite, the blacks who are well to
do. They look at it as playing the victim role. When you give them
the statistics, using the Census Bureau, all they can say is "Well,
we don't know why that is." Well, we're telling you this is what
is causing these numbers to be like this. This is not something
we've made up. Statistics show what is going on with blacks in general
and we're saying that there's a cause for that.
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