Toward the Unity of North American Africans: 2. Unity of the Black Mind

Toward Unity of North American Africans

2. Unity of the Black Mind

Unifying the North American African Mind from the ravages, trauma and grief of the addiction to white supremacy is an awesome task, but it is a priority of the highest order. There can be no communal unity until the individual is processed into a New African by subjecting himself/herself to a course of detoxification and recovery. Such a course is outlined in my book How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy, a Pan African 12 /Step Model for a Mental Health Peer Group. The peer group model is obviously communal, although each individual submits himself/herself to the process and must work out their own issues with honesty and truth, transcending denial and other excuses of the monkey mind.

The North American African not only suffer post-traumatic slave syndrome, but the trauma the present war against the North American African people that is ongoing as we speak. Although we cannot transcend the slave trauma, the present trauma is of immediate concern, for we have a population of people, coast to coast, who suffer a low intensity war but war none the less. Because of war in the hood, our children cannot envision a future for themselves except what kind of funeral they want. Not only do we suffer black on black homicide, but homicide under the color of law from racist police who further traumatize our community because they usually receive a slap on the wrist for killing us under the color of law. After the light sentence given to the police officer who killed Oscar Grant, Jr. while he lay on his stomach, members of the community said they were sick in the stomach, suggesting a communal psychosomatic response to the sentencing. Some persons said they were so upset they wanted to burn down America, other said they no longer wanted to be an American, that they hated everything about America.
Such is the trauma that is persistent and perennial, leaving one hopeless and horrified.

The mission of the Pan African Mental Health Peer Group to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy is to provide a free speech zone and a sacred space to process our trauma and unresolved grief. Dr. Nathan Hare has been our senior adviser and facilitator. Actually the peer group to recover from white supremacy was his idea which we took to the next level by establishing sessions coast to coast. No mental health expert need be present, similar to the Alcoholic Anonymous meetings. We can gather in homes, churches, street corners, barber shops, beauty shops, Laundromats , bars, poor halls. One need only follow the meeting format as outlined in the manual. The peer group concept allows democratic expression with no one person dominating the meeting.

We must understand that there are not enough certified mental health workers to heal the black mind. Therefore, we must heal ourselves. Most mental health professionals have been certified by Eurocentric institutions, thus their qualifications are suspect at best when attempting to heal the minds suffering from the trauma of European racist oppression. Even the black psychologists are suspect and now recognize their certification from white supremacy institutions invalidates them as healers. The mental health workers are now seeking certification in African holistic institutions because they see the black mind cannot be healed with European psychotherapy.
After all, it was the philosophic foundation of European psychology that caused the destruction of the North American African mind. Was not the breaking in or behavior modification of the African into the Negro an aspect of European psychology, colonial and neo-colonial psychology that persists to the present? Is European psychology prepared to heal the North American African mind from the stunted man/woman to the warrior who will aggressively go about the liberation of their people? Or is such psychology designed to create the weak, efete, passive personality that is not a threat to the oppressive society?

Thus, we must heal ourselves for the doctors are out to lunch and will not return by dinner time!
We have experimented with the peer group model to the extent we know it works if you work it.
As we proceed through the steps, actually 13, not 12, for we have adjusted the traditional 12 Step Model for the North American African sensibility.

We absolutely reject the primary thesis that the addict is an addict for life. This is total nonsense that we shall be addicted to white supremacy for life, no, only so long as we believe in the white supremacy world of make believe. Once we detox and recover by working the 13 Steps, we have seen the New African emerge from the peer group, a personality released from the trauma and unresolved grief of the addiction to white supremacy.

--Marvin X, aka Dr. M, author How to Recovery from the Addiction to White Supremacy, Black Bird Press, Berkeley, 2007, foreword by Dr. Nathan Hare, afterword by Ptah Allah El.