Black History Month Reflections & Interview with therapist, s. malefi hall-adeyefa
Welcome to February. It’s that time of the year designated to celebrate Black achievements within the U.S., although, in later years, the recognition has moved beyond the West, celebrating Black accomplishments throughout the Diaspora. I’ve often heard criticisms about the brevity of February being the month we celebrate a people whose contributions, intelligence, labor, and, unfortunately, exploitation have been instrumental in the early ascent of our country and its persistence as a superpower up to the present day.
The answer to this lies in the genesis of what was initially called Negro History Week. Its founder, author, scientist, and self-proclaimed “radical,” Dr. Carter G. Woodson, launched this week during February to coincide with the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, both observed during the same month. The ethos influencing the creation of a week that valorized a people who’d been on the receiving end of micro and macro forms of racism and racial violence, antipathy, degradation, and vilified for centuries is further elucidated by his own words:
If you teach the Negro that he has accomplished as much good as any other race, he will aspire to equality and justice without regard to race. Such an effort would upset the program of the oppressor in Africa and America. Play up before the Negro, then, his crimes and shortcomings. Let him learn to admire the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin, and the Teuton. Lead the Negro to detest the man of African blood—to hate himself. The oppressor then may conquer, exploit, oppress, and even annihilate the Negro by segregation without fear or trembling. With the truth hidden, there will be little expression of thought to the contrary (Woodson, 1933).
As a Black man of Nigerian (Yoruba) and African American descent born and raised in the United States, I haven’t experienced the luxury of racial obliviousness. Quite the contrary, due to the embedded racialized notions and nearly canonized mythos of white supremacy, not only have I been race-conscious since childhood, but, like many Black folks, I was subjected to tropes and narratives that often vilified and demonized people who looked like me.
Marketing pioneer and author Tom Burrell, who I had the honor of presenting with years ago, in his groundbreaking treatise Brainwashed: Challenging the Myth of Black Inferiority, offered, “...Black children use television to learn ‘new facts and information about life’ and to learn how people ‘behave, talk, dress and look.’ The scary reality is that Black children perceive media-fed behaviors as true reflections of life.”
The images, stories, and concomitant experiences associated with those narratives have a profound effect on the mental health of Black people. In fact, researchers have clearly identified the correlation between perceived anti-Black racism and diminished health outcomes as well as psychological distress (Pieterse, Todd, Neville, and Carter, 2012). This calls for efforts to countervail these insidious and damaging racialized stories in their disparate mediums. Whether in 2024 or 1926, when Negro History Week was founded, the zeitgeist has changed only slightly,’ often depicting Blacks as less than human.
As a socially responsible therapist committed to anti-racism practices, namely anti-Black racism, it’s of import to understand the social, cultural, and historical contexts of historically marginalized people and the profound multi-generational effects it can have on their thinking, mood, health, genetics, and the relationships they’re engaged in.
Black History Month is an opportunity to unpack beautiful stories of empowerment, achievement, and pride. However, like Woodson, I don’t subscribe to the idea of only celebrating Black people and the diverse cultures we’ve given birth to; Black History is American History and, as such, is to be celebrated and acknowledged throughout the year.
Below are some resources to check out year-round:
Websites, Articles, and Social Media Accounts to Follow
Online Resources for Finding a Black Therapist
Sista Afya (and their preferred list of Chicago providers)
A practice that is providing limited free counseling visits for Black patients
References:
Burrell, T. (2010). Brainwashed: Challenging the myth of Black inferiority.
Pieterse, A. L., Todd, N. R., Neville, H. A., & Carter, R. T. (2012). Perceived racism and mental health among Black American adults: a meta-analytic review. Journal of counseling psychology, 59(1), 1.
