The Falsification of Viglen: Consciousness
The Falsification of Viglen: Consciousness
The Falsification of Viglen: Consciousness
Lecture
Series
The
Falsification of
Viglen
Consciousness
Eurocentric History,
Psychiatry and the
Politics of
White Supremacy
Amos N. Wilson
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THE FALSIFICATION
OF AFRIKAN
CONSCIOUSNESS
Eurocentric History, Psychiatry
and the Politics of White Supremacy
AMOS N. WILSON
a " sats _ eee) “eT”
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A
j r
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THE FALSIFICATION
OF AFRIKAN
CONSCIOUSNESS
Eurocentric History, Psychiatry
and the Politics of White Supremacy
AMOS N. WILSON
First Edition
Producer and Editor: SABABU N. PLATA
Assistant Editor: Adisa Makalani
Cover design: Joe Gillians
ISBN 1-879164-02-7
European Historiography
and Oppression Exposed
An Afrikan Analysis and Perspective
Part Il
Part Ill
Sababu N. Plata
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Introduction
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
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Introduction
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
EUROPEAN HISTORIOGRAPHY
AND OPPRESSION EXPOSED
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European Historiography and Oppression Exposed
OVER.
It was, at long last, over and done with. How could anyone
doubt it? How could anyone fail to see that the race problem
had been solved forever?
One man who had no doubt said, “All distinctions founded
upon race or color have been forever abolished in the United
States.”
Another who saw things this way said the category of race
has been abolished by law and that “there [were] no more
colored people in this country.”
Thus spoke the dreamers and the prophets — and victims
— in the first Reconstruction of the 1860s and the 1870s.
and 70s; we’re in a new day now.” We're not in a new day,
ladies and gentlemen. The same words that we are saying today
are the same words that people were saying over 100 years
ago. Why are we in a new day saying the same thing that
someone said 100 years ago? Bennett goes on to say:
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European Historiography and Oppression Exposed
Back there, 100 years ago there was a federal law protecting
voting rights in the South — Does this all sound vaguely
familiar? — and there was a national public accommodations
act.
Such, in broad outline, was the racial situation 100 years ago
—§in the 1860s and 1870s — when racism was “forever abolish-
ed” in America for the first time.
It was a short “forever.”
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
facets was the supreme lesson for America, the right reading
of which might still mark a turning point in our history.”
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ‘
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
changes as a result of the fact that the man has control of vital
things in its life. Thus, we can present this paradigm in a very
sterile way, in terms of learning and reinforcement principles.
We can write a whole book about them, with graphs, arcane
language and the whole bit.
I often point out how a Black student ccan learn Skinnerian
psychology better than a White student and still as a result
of having learned it be made dumb by it. Because, it is taught
on a “race neutral,” nonpolitical level..But I often ask my
students whether there is only one way of looking at this
situation. Why not look at it politically? This rat is conditioned;
i.e., it reflects the conditions under which it is forced to survive
as the result of a set of power relations. So why not analyze
this experiment in terms of power relations? Based on these
terms we may reach the conclusion that the conditioned rat_
is socially created; its personality is a social creation. What it
learns is the resulf of a power differential between the rat and —
the experimenter, because the experimenter has power over
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European Historiography and Oppression Exposed
here? We see the same basic situation and the same basic
principles for conditioning rats are now transferred to life and
reality itself.\Therefore, to live in the “ghetto” under the power
of another people is to be created by that people. To be
rewarded or punished by that people is to be created by that
people. What would happen if these “ghettos” we live in today
are surrounded by a force that blocks the food and the water,
cuts off the electricity and the other things? What kind of
situation would we be in? But even with the water coming in,
the food coming in, we are still created and conditioned by the
circumstances under which we live. We are living under them
as the result of the exercise of the power of another people over
us. Therefore, if we wish to change this situation (i.e., the
conditions under which we live), then we must change the
power relationships. If we are to prevent ourselves from being
created by another people and are to engage in the act of self-
creation, then we must change the power relations.
With the political approach to Skinner’s rat the Afrikan
student not only learns what the White student learns, but
learns more and learns something of value to himself. What
he learns becomes a basis for self-understanding and knowl-
edge, a plan for the future and a means by which he or she
can change his or her situation. Without the lesson being taught
in this way we will have a bunch
educated
of people who
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness x
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ‘
As long as our own history is not intimately and inextricably
entwined with everything we do, with every study we under-
take, is not represented in our Universe, in our buildings and
on our walls, in our houses and on our streets, then we need
to study history more consciously than do the Europeans! We
cannot always follow the route of European people. They build
history in the books and then they build it into the world, or
vice-versa. They may reduce their attention to the book, but
history is still there and still functioning in the world. There-
fore, we must forget about what the Europeans are doing and
how Europeans are studying or not studying history, because
we are not in their situation. Therefore doing things their way
leads to injurious and different outcomes for us.
History as Psychohistory
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History as Mythology
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From the first day a reporter asked the first tough question
of a government official, there has been a debate about whether
government has the right to lie. It does. And in certain circum-
stances, government not only has the right but a positive
obligation to lie.
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European Historiography and Oppression Exposed
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ‘
tion isIs put right before our faces and we gain relatively little
from it. nly be put before our fac it is because _
we have been so mentally ue motivationally structured that
we will not and canno at information and transform =
it n advan erefore, this country talks about '
andi a PT a aN as ts
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
rs arg War
Ia Tat ale
to.divide up time, in terms of wars. No! We have been at_war
with-the European continuously for the last 2,000 ars — ae
poe ata eer datehe eae ee of
time, it takes us away from our own history and from under-
standing our own adversarial relationship with them and other
people, and takes us completely outside of ourselves. Therefore,
history as mythology, even if it tells the truth, by the very fact
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
the anger, the fear, the shame, the guilt we feel when we read
about some aspects of the Afrikan experience, and hence will
often stay away from it. We think we have escaped its effects
thereby. We can hear some of our uninformed children say,
“Well, that was back there 100 years ago; that ain’t got nothing
to do with me today.” The Black child at this very moment is
still affected and suffering from the slave experience, whether
he or she knows it or not. In fact, as Russell Jacoby says in
his book, Social Amnesia:
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness :
Those people and parents who have escaped their own history
as a result of trying to escape anxiety, fear, shame and so forth,
may pass escapism onto their children as history. That history
of escapism then becomes a part of their personality and they
become vulnerable to addictions and all other kinds of terrible
habits and orientations in the world. Why do we think we were
robbed of our history if it was not to serve this purpose?
The individual who has amnesia suffers distortion of and
blindness to reality. The individual who cuts himself off from
his history is self-alienated. There’s a whole part of himself
that’s completely shut off from his use. It’s as if there were two
parts. One part is unknown, yet because it is unknown doesn’t
mean that it is not effective. We have to devote energy to
unknowing. We have to direct perception to unknowing. We
have to say: “Let me turn my face so I cannot see; let me not
think about it.” So the struggle to not know itself becomes a
creator of behavior and personality structure. So the idea that
not knowing one’s history somehow permits one to escape it
is a lie. In fact, it brings one under the domination of the more
pernicious effects of that history and opens the personality up
for self-alienation, self-destruction.
A person who is suffering from amnesia lives a life based
on negation, not on affirmation, not on growth and develop-
ment, but lives life in such a way as to deny life and reality
and to deny parts of his own personality and himself. Life then
becomes a negation and is used to maintain a negation instead
of life as it should be lived — as affirmation, as growth,
enhancement and development. And people who live their lives
as a negation live the lives that we see ourselves living today
— going deeper and deeper into hell and going deeper into self-
destruction as a people.
History is real; it brings real, tangible results. When we wish
to negate it and not integrate it, when we wish to negate it and
not affirm it, then it negates us in the end. The negation wins
out. The Afrikan person who lives in social amnesia brought
on by the projection of mythological Eurocentric history, lives
a life that is unintegrated and misunderstood. Why is our
behavior so puzzling to us? We sometimes ask ourselves, “Why
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ‘
the right family, because you scored high on the SATs and all
the other stuff.” Blacks have scored high on the SATs since the
beginning of time; we’ve had good families and the right
families from the beginning; we’ve had 4.0 students from the
beginning; we had all of that and we were still kept out of the
university. So youre not here because of your own personal
achievement. You’re here because people who didn’t score
anything put their bodies and their lives on the line to see that
you got here — and you owe them something for that. If this
institution decides to put you out, it will be these same people
who will be up here to see that you get in here again! Some
of you want to forget that history and then claim you owe them
nothing when you make your couple of little bucks in front of
a TV camera or some other place. Then not only do you forget
them, you forget the ones coming after you, and you don’t make
sure that they can also get in and their privileges are also
maintained. You want to act like revolution is something that’s
temporary and not permanent: It is permanent. You forget your
history and forget who you are and lose your obligation to the
past, to those who made your success possible and do not fulfill
your obligations for those to come — some of whom will be your
own sons and daughters!
When we suffer from social amnesia we identify with
abstractions: “I am not Black; I am not Afrikan; Iam a human
being. lam an American.” Sterile, abstract identity. The closer
we get to it the less we see of it, and the more we recognize
that it has no meaning. “What is that? Who is that? What does
that stand for? What does it mean?” It’s empty, and people who
identify themselves with these abstractions are also empty and
experience their lives as empty, as people who have no feelings.
They identify with the abstraction so as to escape feelings.
Therefore, we see them detached and cut-off from themselves
as persons, as well as from their people. In fact they use their
abstract identity to escape their responsibilities to their own
people and to escape the pain and struggle that happens today
to be a part of our situation.
I love the challenge of being Afrikan in today’s world; it’s
wonderful! I love digging in my heels against the impossible
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When one is shorn of one’s past and does not see the
direction of one’s future and is very uncertain of one’s present,
then one cannot tell from whence one comes and where one
is going, where one is — and suffers as a result. Let me quickly
read in the context of history as a time dimension from a little
piece done in the Omni magazine, February, 1984. It’s called
“Timeless Minds.” It reads:
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The young man without a past was one of the ten college
students who took part in an unusual experiment with psycho-
logical time warp.
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were learned in the past and that yet can still be useful in the
present. If we forget everything we’ve learned in the past, what
babbling babies we would become. If we forget everything we’ve
learned in the past we would not know how to cope with many
of the problems and issues that confront us as we move through
life. We can’t drop our past; that’s where we learned our coping -
skills.
Let me give a quick example of what this really means. Let’s
look at economics. Afrikan-Americans earn $300 billion per year
spending-money, which would make us the ninth or tenth
richest nation on Earth, yet we perceive ourselves as “poor.”
A group that can only spend money, can only support other
peoples. Harlem’s 125th Street now contains 68 Korean
businesses; 68 and growing fast! But I don’t see Koreans
walking up and down those blocks spending any money at all.
In fact, I hardly see any other ethnic group on that street; I
only see Afrikan people. Even Hispanics are not on it to any
great degree. Yet we enrich the Koreans and other ethnic
groups, support them, feed their children while ours starve and
die, become addicted to crack, rob and steal, and do the kind
of things we do not approve of. This is a result of a people who
have forgotten their history.
We say, “Well, if we had the money...” It is not money; we
are not suffering from a lack of money. No way! Over $50 billion
is earned and created [by Blacks] between New York and ~
Newark, so we’re not suffering from any great money problems.
We're suffering from the absence of an economic system. Money
is not a system; money is what it is. A system involves the
systematic and organized utilization of money; a systematized
utilization and distribution of money. Without the pattern,
without the system, without the organization, one does not have
an economy. An economy exists prior to money. There were
economies in the world before money was invented. We don’t
even have to have money to have an economic system. So
ultimately, when we study economic systems we recognize that
an economic system at its base refers to the nature of the
relationship between people. It’s the systematic way people
choose to relate one to:the other that makes an economic
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He’s not talking about the bank; he’s talking about his own
people. He built the store. He says he does $10,000 worth of
business each week, from which he profits $3,000 to $4,000.
That’s a tremendous turnover on investment. “Choi doesn’t like
borrowing from real banks.” If you can get $50,000 or $100,000
through friends, that’s a real bank. But we are made to think
it isn’t a bank unless it’s their [White-folk’s] bank.
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“The Korean people have taken over the fruit vegetable business
in New York,” says Andrew Beltram, a long-time worker at the
Hunts Point Terminal Market. “And they can make the fruits
and vegetables more beautiful than anybody else. That’s for
sure. Sometimes you see 20 buyers over there, and 18 of them
are Koreans.”
Koreans now own about 90% of the fruit-and-vegetable stores
in the city and buy 40% of the wholesale produce supply daily
at Hunts Point.
That robust growth, says local Korean business leaders, has
been accomplished with money raised almost exclusively within
the Korean community, usually from personal savings or loans
from relatives, friends, and fraternal or business associations.
* Kk ok ok
The article also talks of how they raise money in the Church
and other ways. What is this, ladies and gentlemen? People
using History and Tradition.
Our Afrikan-Caribbean brothers and sisters have remem-
bered that tradition. But Afrikan Americans, in an effort to
wrongly identify with and imitate White people have forgotten
the tradition that could give us the advantage of the very
wealth that’s right under our feet and in our pockets. Because
we have forgotten our history and our tradition and will not
identify with it, we can only enrich other people. Then we say,
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ,
“History ain’t gonna make you money.” No, it’s the lack of
knowledge of history that doesn’t make you money!
— Tf we get back into our history, get back into our tradition,
is~ we'll make money! I’m not an Afrikan who tells us to identify
with poverty. I think that the more we identify with our Afrikan
tradition the richer we’re going to become as people. I’m not
here to sell poverty as a virtue. I’m not here to assert that
poverty-stricken and welfare-laden people are somehow more
virtuous and righteous than people who are making a decent
living; that’s not my style. We can’t say that we are poor and
our nations are suffering as a result of our wealth being stolen
when if we take that wealth back we won’t be richer. How is
taking back what belongs to us going to keep us poor? A sure
sign, then, of getting back into one’s Afrikan self is becoming
| wealthier, ladies and gentlemen. Does that frighten us? Has
/ the world so convinced us that as a Black people we're destined
' to be poor? Some of us have that thought and that’s why many
of us are frightened of money and wealth. That has been
inculcated into us by religions and churches, and the very ones
inculcating it in us are living quite well.
Amnesia means an undiscovered self, an emptiness, a self
incapable of self-understanding, incapable of understanding
its own motivations, a self incapable of self-direction and self-
determination, a reactionary self, a self that does not under-
stand others or the world in which it exists — a fatalistic
externalized self. To rediscover one’s history is not only an act
of self-discovery; it is an act of self-creation — a resurrection
from the dead, a tearing away of the veil, a revelation of the
mystery.
To discover our history is to discover our somethingness
(beingness) before someone else created us. To come to know
ourselves as we were prior to our re-creation by aliens means .
we will be in charge of our own becoming, the creators of our
own consciousness, the creation of ourselves as namers of the
world, the namers of ourselves which gives us the power of self- ,
determination and self-direction.
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Response Period
Question: [Unclear]
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people dropping out when they get their “million,” leaving you
in the lurch. So a part of the deal is we must figure out ways
that we can build a very strong social unit.
As a matter of fact, in part of this Cameroonian article, when
members got to a situation where they could not meet the
obligations of the group...their social ties were so strong that
some of them actually committed suicide rather than not meet
the obligations to their group. I’m not suggesting that people
go that deeply; however, I do want to stress the importance
of first rebuilding and overcoming the alienation that has been
projected into us as a people. You don’t need a wholesale
structured organization with this kind of plan; it can begin in
the home, the community, within your social group. From there
it can again begin to become tradition.
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European Historiography and Oppression Exposed
which means that we can begin to use the Church and it can
become an instrument for the Black ownership of its communi-
ties, lands and properties. These Churches are nationally
organized institutions. They have hierarchies and systems of
communications, etc. which means that we already have
national organizations and national networks in the forms of
our church organizations. This means that much more informa-
tion can be carried through our churches. These churches can
build and encourage businesses. If they build businesses across
this country we can then build a national network of Black
businesses which will lay the foundation for Black manufactur-
ing. It doesn’t do us any good to manufacture and have no place
to sell our products. But when the Church brings its political
weight to bear and demands White and other merchants who
own supermarkets and other businesses make room for a Black
manufactured products, then Black manufacturers can get on
the shelves of these supermarkets, department stores and other
kinds of outlets. When the Church creates shopping malls,
buildings and other things, it creates jobs for construction. It
then stimulates the building, manufacturing and business
organizations. So much could grow out of the Church viewing
itself as an economic unit.
Once you build this distribution system and it becomes a
national system, which means we are organized as a nation
(economically), we then are in a position to create a relationship
with our Afrikan family overseas. Then, with the power that
we and the Church have economically and politically, we can
open up the United States (which is one of the largest economic
markets in the world) to the sale of Afrikan products. We then
can receive those products and be responsible for their distribu-
tion in this nation. Thus we can then enrich our Afrikan
brothers, laying the basis for their manufacturing and techno-
logical development, because they'll have the American markets
open to them. What would happen if we sold as many Afrikan-
made radios and boom-boxes to Afrika’s adolescents as the
Japanese are selling? Before long Afrikans would be in a
technologically advanced position, rather like that of Japan
and the other nations.
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The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness 4
Brother Wilson: ’'m not one who advocates only the taking of
Afrikan courses. I believe that if you’ve really achieved your
identity then you can walk among any people; the white
mentality is not going to rub off on you. If you know who you
are and what you're about you can expose yourself to other
people and other people’s knowledge. There’s nothing wrong
with understanding the psychology of other people, and we must
understand that psychology by studying the history of their
civilizations, etc. The important thing is that we have an
Afrikan perspective when we do so.
When you have an Afrikan perspective and consciousness,
you can take that knowledge and transform it for your own
use. Just as the European knowledge of Afrikan history,
civilization and culture — and, believe me, they have the
knowledge — is used to European advantage, we can use the
knowledge of European history and so-called civilization to our
own advantage. It’s the learning of European history and so-
called civilization in the absence of a knowledge of who and
what we are that destroys us, not just the learning them or
the studying of them. It’s the studying of them in the absence
of this knowledge, i.e., knowledge of Afrikan history. When you
read the history of Shaka Zulu and other Afrikan leaders you
will learn political science; you will learn how to control nations
and empires; you will learn what destroys nations and what
maintains nations and groups; you will learn statecraft and
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Endnotes
Bibliography
61
PART TWO
EUROCENTRIC POLITICAL
DOGMATISM
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Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
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* This term was borrowed from Michael Lewis’ The Culture of Inequality.
N.Y.: New American Library. 1978.
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Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
They are one and the same, and are part and parcel of the same
reality. And it is this attempt on our part and this attempt by
the system to segment and cut off these things one from the
other, to compartmentalize life, and to compartmentalize
reality, that to a great extent forms the basis for our mental,
physical, and other kinds of problems that are existent in our
community today. —
This system is one then that on one hand teases and
provokes, and on the other hand denies. Its individualistic
sensibility encourages us to dream big dreams, to imagine that
the best of everything is within our grasp and within our reach,
and at the same time it denies the possibilities for these dreams
to become reality. It tells our young teenagers that if they do
not wear the right kinds of sneakers, and the right kinds of
jeans, and possess the right kinds of eye-glass frames on their
faces, that they are nothing. It tells them that if they have not
achieved along the lines of the society dictates, that they are
worthless, and at the same time denies them the opportunity
and the structure, the means by which the achievements can
be attained. And therefore, our teenagers and we as adults are
caught in a major contradiction, in a major dilemma. And when
we fail to deal with it we are told that it is the result of some
deficiency in our personality, some genetic problem, some sub-
cultural problem.
This kind of ideology, of ee ee
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Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
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Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
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Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
for the law, and a isrespect for those who enforce that law.
i Written in neutral terms. What
joan a, ers is whether that law is enforced non--discrim-
11 fashion.We
recognize that the policeman is not merely an officer of the law,
not merely there to enforce the law, but that the policeman
has discretion in enforcing the law, and can determine when
and under what circumstances (to a good extent) the law will
be enforced, and against what people, regardless of how that
law is written.
So a law that may be on the books in a non-discriminatory
manner can be executed in a very discriminatory fashion.
Therefore, we recognize then that the Black individual who
exhibits the same so-called behavior (that is designated as
criminal by a cop) as a White individual, is far more likely to
be arrested, and convicted, and jailed for that behavior. So a
cop makes a determination based on the individual’s race, upon
the individual’s sexuality, upon the individual’s political and
class characteristics, as to whether arrest, conviction, and so
forth will take place.
(3)
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ,
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Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
want people out there taking the law in their own hands.’ It
is the police that take the law into their own hands, when the
police engage in racial discrimination, when a policeman beats
and shoots and destroys and kills our people, and kills our
people in the streets. It is the police who are taking the law
into their own hands — not the people themselves. It is the
police who are the vigilantes for the establishment, and for
maintaining the status quo. The situation is reversed. It is the
police, then, who have the means of holding people hostage in
jails, and in prisons; and who harass our people; and who lock
our people into the dungeons; and who exercise penalties; and
who exercise terror. Bets pole omvanatne pardons of
our so-called law?
We see the law, then, may not be the problem; it is the
execution of the law. We see the law used as the means of
repression of dissent. The police are used as the means of
maintaining the social status quo and social order, not so much
where apersorts-s0-Called disturbing-the-peace, but.where ~~
a person threatens to disturb the social system itself. Police
officers often see Americanism as being equivalent to capital-
ism; that one cannot be American if one is not also capitalist.
And therefore to be anti-capitalist is to be anti-American. To
be for a different system of distributing the wealth of the
nation, which belongs to the nation, is to be anti-American.
To concern oneself with a more equitable means of distributing
justice and freedom, and to question the current system of
inequality, is to be perceived as un-American and to be
perceived as a threat-to-national-security; is to be made fair
game for repression and the denial of the democratic rights
that are supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution. We see
that often the only crime of many people, such as the Eight,
is to think in different terms and to talk about a different type
of arrangement in terms of social relations. But that speech
and that thought laid the basis for their very rights being taken
away from them — the right of bail and other rights.
Under the guise of defending democracy, the security
_ agencies of our departments, of our nation, are able to deny
the so-called dissenters their democratic rights, and to move
81
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
82
Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
Compensation
83
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
84
Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
Our succeeding for the wrong reasons sets our mind up for
being inculcated and possessed by the very devil we fight
against. And therefore, another revolution will have to be
fought, and it will have to be fought against us.
Consequently, it is not enough to succeed in the society or
to fail. Some people succeed at failing; the White man tells us
we're no good and we work very hard showing him he’s right.
Yes, we find the parallel situation in many parent-child
situations. “You will never be nothing,” and the child shows
them with a vengeance how it will be nothing. “I am going to
make you see, mama, every day that I’m nothing. I am going
to flaunt my nothing-ness in your face. I am going to make you
cry every night, and I’m going to make you go the jail and try
to get me out”; because you told me I was just like my daddy
— no good, going nowhere. Or else you will do it the other way.
“IT am going to show you how good I am.” And he succeeds, but
he succeeds with an emptiness in his heart and in his mind.
Our victory leaves the taste of ashes in our mouths. We wonder
where the happiness went, and we say: “Is this all there is to
it?” Nothing hurts like failing, unless it is success. Many of us
found out when we broke into White mid-stream America that
there is just as much hell in there as it was where we were
to begin with.
We have to recognize then that it is not a matter of making
it in the system, but a matter of questioning the system itself.
It is not just a matter of equality within the system but the
very critical looking at the system in and of itself. So many of
us in responding to the contradictions projected by this system
react with rage, apathy, stereotypy, paranoia, suspiciousness
and depression, and mania — and even bourgeois nationalism.
Oh, yes, we have some bourgeois nationalist here! It is not only
the ruling-class Whites that seek to perceive the condition of
our people as a result of the moral failings of our people, or
of some moral deficiency. We have to be careful and make sure
that we also as a people do not see ourselves that way. Yes,
and we as Black Nationalists — well-fed, with jobs — have to
be very careful when we think the only thing our less fortunate
brothers need is a lesson in Egyptian history, and a lesson in
85
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
“ Ephesians 6.12.
86
Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
87
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
88
Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
kill each individual in the world ten times over, after permitting
individuals (such as Howard Hughes and others) to be worth
billions of dollars while others starve to death, after robbing
people day in and day out — the European thinks that he has
a right to sleep at night; that he has the right to walk down
the street and feel safe; and has a right to be treated civilly!
What kind of fools does he think the people of the world are?
What kind of world does he think this is that he can get away
with rape and robbery then expect the victims not to protest
in some fashion, form or other? Be that protest self-destructive
or otherwise.
But we have a system that asks the so-called helping-
professions to “keep them away from us; make them invisible;
convert their behavior; make them adjust to the system in one
way or the other. Use your diagnostic and treatment powers
as a means of giving us peace at night.” Thus, diagnosis in this
context becomes part of the problem. It becomes the means by
which the establishment denies its own culpability. It becomes
a defense mechanism by which the establishment denies its
guilt and defends its self-image and prerogatives. Diagnosis
becomes the means by which the establishment projects its
criminality and its own insanity onto its victims. Diagnosis is
in this instance, therefore, a mechanism of denial, projection,
and repression — both psychical and political.
Through diagnosis the establishment finds what it is looking
for. In its criminals it finds evidence of a criminal nature:
broken homes; un-caring, rejecting or permissive parents;
alcoholic, criminal, or absent fathers; disorganized or ghetto
neighborhoods; moral laxities; skewed values. That is to say,
in its infinite wisdom and scientific reflection the system finds
a criminal type and says: “The criminal-type that we find on
the subways generally is one that comes from a broken home,
between age thirteen and twenty-five, male, comes from a
disorganized community, smokes, and drinks intoxicating
liquors. This criminal-type is aggressive, has a weak ego, is
hostile, prone to injure his victim for no reason; he is poorly
educated, can hardly read, has identity problems; he resists
authority, has no respect for the property of others — he is
89
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
90
Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
while they are striving to make it! More token job training,
more government project-housing, more welfare, more summer
camps, more fresh-air funds, more PA.Ls (Police Athletic
Leagues)”: More of every kind of band-aid solution rather than
a fundamental restructuring of the society itself.
So the identity-program, i.e., the program for identifying so-
called career-crimindls, that is supposedly based upon diagnos-
tic technique, is a program that involves everything but a
societal self-examination; everything but fundamental social
reconstruction; everything but a radical reorganization of social
relations. We have more social workers, more psychologists,
various and sundry helping-professions. Yet we dare not say
that the society is sick! How can we say a society is sick? Only
people can be sick. People are society, of course. But I ask you,
if the society is not sick — why is it that we have so many
psychologists, and social workers, and all of these other
helping-professions? They must be attending to someone. And
we can’t get enough of them. We hear again and again — more!
more! more! more social workers! more psychologists, psychia-
trists, special educators... more! more! This indicates then that
society is having some kinds of problems. Constantly it
demands more people and more professionals who in their very
therapeutic relationship with their so-called clients symbolize
and maintain the power relations of the society as a whole, who
maintain the ethnic relations and the values that are responsi-
ble for a good deal of their patients’ illnesses in the first place.
Our very so-called therapeutic relationships reflect the class
organization of this repressive society — the middle-class
interpreting the behavior of the lower-class, the middle-class
defining the behavior of the lower-class or those that are outside
of the society. The administration in this hospital [Harlem
Hospital] and all the other hospitals of similar nature reflect
the general ethnic structure of our society itself. The adminis-
tration of rehabilitative centers and other institutions that
supposedly deal with our children, their very structures
themselves represent the structure that drives their clients
crazy to begin with — White administrators sitting on top and
Black lackeys working on the bottom. So the very essence of
91
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness .
92
Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
93
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
94
Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
95
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
choices: either she would become what mama said she would
become, or she would become better than what mama said she
would become — both being reactions to mama, both still tied
her to mama, both making her a creation of mama. The Black
bourgeoisie is as much a creation as is the Black criminal; they
are both reactionary styles, and both a means by which a people
try to deal with the dilemma of White oppression. And quite
often people think, (and she thought) that there are only two
choices: Either I react to it that way or I react to it the other
way; I react to it in terms of rage or I overachieve. But if
reactions of rage, and hatred, and vengeance are not permitted
to capture the personality, to consume and concentrate con-
sciousness and attention, perhaps then, another alternative,
another approach will be discovered. This is the thing that we
must recognize in ourselves as a people. Reactions in terms
of depression, rage and anger, reactions in terms of compensato-
ry mechanisms, are reactions that help to deny the criminality
on a certain segment of our people, and that obscures the
behavior of many of our teenagers in our current situation —
which help to maintain the situation in and of itself.
The problems confronting Black people did not just occur
under Ronald Reagan. The dis-employment of Black people is
not something that just occurred under Ronald Reagan. They
have been there all along — since we touched foot in the New
World and the European set foot on the lands of Afrikan
peoples.
Why can’t leadership deal with that issue? Why is it we say
that Black people are losing out in the so-called “alms” race,
as they call it? ALMS race! Why aren’t we questioning your
leadership when, since the 1950s — after our “great victory”
in the Supreme Court — the situation of our people is worsen-
ing? We have a leadership that refuses to confront forthrightly
t ues and the circumstances in which we fin ourselves.
Fo ourselves responsible. For the madness
isorganization that flows from that, we must hold
fy) sible-For not capturing economic and socia
co our communities, a or not bui up Pan-Afri-_
kani ilding up our brains, and studying, and
96
Eurocentric Political Dogmatism
a7
PART THREE
101
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
andone's body
y fanctlons
functions imbalanced.
imbalanced There
Wherecan
Ganbe
Bono
no“normal-
"hormal
ity” of consciousness and conduct for Blacks as long as they
remain dominated by Whites — merely socially acceptable or
unacceptable adjustments to the ever-changing demand
characteristics of White supremacy. The normality of Blacks
under White domination is by that circumstance, above all, a
102
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
103
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ‘
104
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
105
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
106
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
107
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ‘-
Ethnicized Psychotherapy
108
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
apolitical-therapeutics.
Thus, wha ay appear
to
utilization
be the of an objective, scientific approach in
dealing with deviancy in reality involves the stigmatization,
109
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
Educative Psychotherapy
110
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
111
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ,
112
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
* Thid.
113
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
114
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
115
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ,
116
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
117
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
118
The Political Psychology of Black Consciousness
119
Appendix
120
Appendix
121
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ‘
122
Appendix
123
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness \
124
Appendix
125
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
126
Appendix
127
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness X
128
Appendix
129
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
creating experiences."
“ May, Rollo. 1977. The Meaning Of Anxiety. New York: Simon and Shuster.
130
Appendix
the
Teeubordiasts to defend his vulnerable ego, self-esteem, and
ff pall Reng ote ated thesytem whichoppraases him Yfe
pathy as generated by the regimes of White supremacy is
rarely all-pervasive or generalized in their “pathologically-
normal” Afrikan subjects. Their characteristic apathies tend
to be fairly specific to certain interests and pursuits. In fact,
close observation that subordinated Afrikans are—_
conditioned by their White oppressors to demonstrate a lack |
ofisetings forandanialereet ioacauiting, earning, ordoin :
those verythings whichitacquired, learned ordonewouldead
t @ revolutionary overthrow of White supremacy Thus,
apathy in subordinate Afrikans essentially involves the
political-economic organization of their tastes, interests,
attitudes, energies, enthusiasms and sensibilities, in ways
131
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
132
Appendix
of their oppressors.
The exploitative domination of Afrikans by Europeans exists
“as something abstracted from a social matrix, apart from the
web of tasks, obligations, affections, and collective relationships,
which give people their identities, their social meaning, and
their experience of humanity and of themselves.””” An Afrikan
cannot truly be an Afrikan and at the same time a domesticated
slaweor subordinate ofthe European. Thus, his domesticated~
subordination is inversely related to his alienation. One cannot
exist without the other. Hence, the power and the glory of
White supremac amidally rests on the foundations of_
éurocentrically induced Afrikan alienation. If White supremacy
is to appear normal or natural, then alienation must appear
normal or natural — the apparent normality of one de ends
on the apparent normality of
® Parenti, M. 1978. Power and the Powerless. New York: St. Martin Press.
133
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness ‘
The
overcoming of alienation through the discovery and
reclamation of their true identity and consciousness by
oppré ; portends ering downfall of White
supremacy Ibisprincipally toGuard Ggsinst thiseventuality
that the White supremacist establishment feels compelled to
maintain Afrikan alienation as an everyday matter of course
— as the central facet of Afrikan “pathological normalcy.”
States of consciousness and related behavior in Afrikans which
contract or extends the range of this “pathological normalcy”
below or beyond Eurocentric utilitarian limits is branded
“abnormal” by the mental health establishment. The imposition
of this label authorizes and prescribes additional social control
procedures under the guises of “treatment” and “rehabilitation”
in the final interest of maintaining the White supremacist social
order.
134
Index
135
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
Conflicts 67, 69, 74, 107, 130 77, 94, 110-112, 115
Coping strategies 116 Educational system 22, 83
Crime 78, 79, 81, 90, 125 Educative psychotherapy
“Cultivating Cash” 50 110
Cultural heritage 2 Ego 29, 69, 84, 89, 122,127,
Culture 15, 23, 27, 28, 31, 131 |
58, 59, 68, 69, 101, 106, Egyptology 25, 84
110, 112, 114, 122-124, Escape 18, 19, 35-37, 40, 41,
126, 132 67, 121, 127; 129; 131
Curriculum 18, 32 Escapism 36
Ethnicization 109, 111
Daily News 49 Ethnicized psychotherapy
Davis, Angela 82 108, 109, 110
Deficiency explanations 70 Eurocentric history: 2, 27-29,
Degrees 12, 14, 17, 43, 48 33, 36; as mythology 28,
Delusion 125, 126 29
Dependency 114 European history 14, 18, 19,
Depression 85, 96 23-25, 30-33, 58, 59
Desensitization experiments European mythology 23
24 Expectations 938, 110, 123,
Deviant behavior 70, 107, 127
119 Experiential amnesia 1
Devil 29, 85, 93
Diagnosis 3, 63, 83, 86, 87, Failure 22, 67-69, 74, 75, 77,
89, 90, 92, 93, 97 84, 105, 123
Disease 74, 118, 130 Falsification 3, 25, 122, 125
Dissonance 74 Fantasy 10, 126-128
Domain of discourse 31, 122 Feminist history 14
Domination 3, 15, 25, 27, 28, Foucault, M. Discipline and
29, 30, 36, 38, 39, 48, Punishment 103, 113
67-70, 101, 102, 106, 111, Frankenstein: Dr.; monster
LIS S118 ,.0194121,. 128; 92
129,.331,.138 Freedman’s bureau 12
Dominion 22 Freedom 7, 10, 11, 18, 27,
Douglass, F. 13 29, 46, 77, 78, 81, 102,
DuBois, W.E.B. 11 129,130
DuPont 78 Freedom rides 11
Freire, P. Pedagogy of the
Ebony magazine 9 Oppressed 117
Economic: power 103, 118; Frustration 71, 76, 83, 127
system 44, 45, 47, 86 Future 7-9, 17, 20, 39, 41,
Economics: 14, 15, 17, 44, 46, 42, 53, 75, 112, 123, 124,
54, 56; of maladjustment 126
45
Education 13, 17, 18, 21, 31, Genocide 28
136
Index
137
The Falsification of Afrikan Consciousness
138
Index
73, 114, 131; transfor- Terror 35, 66, 81, 88, 92, 128
mation 94 The Birth of a Nation 33
The Black Church: business
Servitude 18 potential of 51, 55-58
Shaka (Zulu) 58 See also Religion
Shared: experience 45; his- The Politics of diagnosis 86
tory 50; identity 39, 50 The Right to lie 24
Skinner rat 15 , Time: manipulation of 41, 42
Skinnerian psychology 16 Timeless minds 41
Slavery 9, 27, 35, 76 To be oppressed 102, 127,
Smith, J.C. The Neurotic 128,132
Foundations of Social Tontine 46, 48, 49, 54
Order 61 See also Keh
Social amnesia 34-36, 38, 39, Tradition 46-48, 51, 52, 54,
40, 121-124; control 96, 55,59, 117
102, 104, 107, 118, 128, Treatment 3, 10, 89, 107,
134 order 4, 81, 106, 108, 117, 118, 134
110, 120, 134; stressors Truth 2, 25, 26, 28-30, 32,
115 33, 61, 71; 76, 93,112,
Societal amnesia 31 17122) 126
Sociopathology 101 Tubman, Harriet 13
Sociotherapy 54
Songhai 75 Validation of truth 33
Stress 55, 115, 116, 127 Victory 85, 96
Structure 19-22, 30, 31, 36, Vision 29, 114
43, 56, 65, 68-70, 73, 77,
83, 91, 93, 105, 106, 107, War on Poverty 12
108 Wealth creation 43
Sumner, W.G. 68 Western civilization 14
Supreme court 7, 8, 96 White: Jesus 37; racism 2,
Survival 8, 12, 13, 30, 71, 8, 21, 61; supremacy 3,
133 4, 101-104, 106, 107,
Susu 54 See also keh 112-116, 118, 120, 121,
123-125, 128-134
Tactics 113, 116 Williams, Chancellor The
Tawney, R.H. Religion and Destruction of Black
the Rise of Capitalism Civilization 94
56, 61 Wright, Bobby 28
139
we
=.
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\
The Falsification of
Afrikan Consciousness
Eurocentric History, Psychiatry |
and the Politics of White Supremacy
AMOS N. WILSON