The “Messy Auntie” Just Might be a Psychopath
Traditionally, African Americans have been denied individuality and were forced to hide their human flaws by the hegemony. However, at this point in history, we need to give abnormal psychology some due diligence. By the way, I do not own the copyrights to any of the music that you will hear, and I am not posting those videos just to make money or as click-bait. I am using them to demonstrate points in an educational manner.
Let me just start by saying this: Black Americans are human. Black Americans are individuals. Black Americans suffered a type of inhumanity that denied humanity. While there was nothing peculiar about slavery as an institution, slavery in the Western hemisphere was unique because it was coupled with scientific racism. Slaves in the Western hemisphere were the only slaves in human history who were told that they were not part of the human family. Slave women in the Western hemisphere were the only slave women in human history who were told that they were animals, then raped or forced into paramour relationships by the same men who told them that they were animals.
Since African Americans were denied humanity, they were denied individuality and the space to make human foibles. Over time, African Americans learned to hide what we consider “bad behavior.” African Americans hid out of fear of inhumane punishment for even minor offenses and for fear of “airing out our dirty laundry” for the all-seeing white world to turn into a media spectacle. And white folks often did both these things. What they would brush off as “boys being boys” for unruly behavior in a white teenager, would get a Black teenager jailed or even lynched. And is Black-on-Black crime any more “interesting” than white-on-white crime? Are Black people more criminal than any other population? No, I agree with Foucault and his writings about the carceral. Black people are not more criminal, they are monitored more closely for behavior that confirms racists stereotypes of the dominant culture.
For protection physically and mentally, African Americans learned to wear a mask and hide. “We wear the mask that grins and lies…”The famous first lines of a poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44203/we-wear-the-mask
Additionally, African Americans do not trust the medical community — and with good reason. The science of psychology, for the most part, was developed out of scientific racism. Phrenology was the study of human skulls. It was developed by a cousin of Charles Darwin, Franz Joseph Gall in 1796. Scientific racists quickly latched on to phrenology as a means to justify their racism with scientific language. Supposedly, African people had the wrong skull shape and skull bumps for complex intellectual activity. The scientific racists who eventually took over phrenology and caused it to be discredited, frequently compared African skulls to primates’.
In addition, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a respected medical professional of the University of Louisiana, developed mental illnesses in order to support slavery and cruel/inhumane punishment of Black people. Most scholars know about Cartwright’s theory of why slaves ran away: drapetomania. But he had another theory that explained “rascality” in Black Americans: “dysaethesia aesthiopica.” Please use the following link to read Dr. Cartwright’s entire article, “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race.”
Today, it is ludicrous to think that an enslaved people do not want to be free and/or will fight their oppression by any means necessary, but Dr. Cartwright was a practicing physician and at one point, the Surgeon General to the United States (under Andrew Jackson). His pronunciations concerning Black deviant behavior were taken as the scientific “proof” that slave owners and proponents of slavery used to justify keep African people oppressed. The science was made to fit the agenda of those in power.
To a certain extend, psychology grew out of phrenology and when it was applied to people of African descent, it was never objective. To a certain extent, the way that psychologists have treated people of color still has lingering bits of scientific racism and racist agendas. Almost all therapeutic language is based upon a white “norm (whatever that is),” and anything and anybody else are “deviant.”
Reader, I wrote all of that to ask this: Is it any wonder that African Americans are distrustful of the medical community and are dismissive of psychological diagnosis and treatment? However, in the 21st century, when oppression is not always obvious but hidden behind bureaucracies and daily microaggressions, it is time for African Americans to give psychology some due diligence.
Because of the role of scientific racism and obvious biases, because African Americans have needed to hide ourselves and put forth a good face at all times in order to gain the most menial employment, because the medical community used African Americans as experiments, because African Americans have had to be outstanding or near excellent in everything while their white counterparts can afford to be mediocre and obtain professional jobs with advanced pay, because all African Americans had for over a century (as far as any type of therapy is concerned) are the Bible and the Blues, because the psychology community itself ignored the hardships of Black Americans and dismissed them until Francis Cecil Sumner and Inez Beverly obtained advanced Ph.D.s in psychology and began to write about the mental plights of Black people, because many Historically Black Colleges and Universities do not even offer psychology at the graduate level and Black people were discriminated against in the psychological field, but pushed toward social work which was considered appropriate for all Black mental practitioners, because not all Black students could attend Howard, which housed the only psychology program in America at one point and most of us did not learn the language of what was wrong with us, because Black people were denied real mental health services and were sentenced harshly in court even when psychologists found them mentally incompetent and denied that Black people could have mental problems that contributed to their criminal behavior while relying on this defense sometimes for white criminals, certain things have become part of our psychological culture that are downright harmful to African American children, families, and communities. Sometimes, what should be positive personality attributes are turned against us by the dominant culture and members of our own families/communities who want acceptance from the dominant culture.
I am going to share a few of the cliches in the African American community concerning people’s bad behavior and the ways in which those cliches hurt us.
1.) We are “strong” both physically and mentally. Yes, in order to survive, African Americans have had to show superhuman emotional and mental resilience. While some African Americans want to distance themselves from folk culture, I relish in it. I cannot speak for every respective African American community in the United States, but those old folk in my hometown of Centreville, Mississippi knew how to LIVE. They did not just exist, Reader, they LIVED. They would regale me with stories of 1932, horrible droughts, and plowing a whole field with a stubborn mule for just a quarter a day (yes, 25 cents) while raising sizeable families. But abusers see mental tenacity as a challenge. I cannot tell you how many jobs I have had where sexists white supremacists and pathologically jealous Black people have tried to “break” me. Reader, I know that you won’t believe this, but since moving to the Memphis area, I have been told by older African Americans, that my work life is made difficult because of the way that I walk. As one lady described it, “You walk like you don’t need nobody. And that’s what makes people attack you like they do. “ I asked this lady how was I supposed to walk. How am I to change my walk, which I have had since I was 11 months old, to appease fragile egos and earn a paycheck? And as far as needing people, when I walk in to the English classroom, I don’t need the “help” of white colleagues. I attended the same schools that many of them did and received the same education. Why should I dim my intellectual bub and teaching competence in order to allow white people, some of them with a degree-level lower than mine, to live out a paternalistic fantasy of always having to show Black people the “proper” way to do things? Why should I lower my eyes and round my shoulders to appease Baby Boomer-era Black people who are forever reminding my age group about their plights picking cotton as if I owe them an apology for being born after the mechanization of the cotton field? If I need faculty development, I sign up for it routinely. But truly, I do not need a white person to hold my hand professionally, do not ask them to do, and will not. They can go play “The White Man’s Burden” somewhere else. That’s Kipling. Read it from the next link if you like.
2.) The “Messy Auntie” may have Narcissistic Personality Disorder at least or she may be a psychopath at most. All of us have one in the family. She is the aunt who keeps mess going. Funerals and weddings are her time to shine. When everybody is already upset and people are not exactly thinking rationally, she strikes. Not only is she messy, but her children are, too. As a matter of fact, the two-faced, gossiping aunt’s children fight one another as they vie for her affection and approval. When they are not fighting one another, they come to the family reunion and fight other folks. Nine times out of ten, they fight right next to the table with the good drinks and banana pudding, and turn over the whole table. At a funeral, they act okay, but the repast is another story. This aunt is always talking about somebody, and when you dig into her past (and sometimes, the present), you learn that she can’t afford to talk about nobody and really needs to get somewhere and sit down. (If I could preach a sermon, the name of it would be, “Get Somewhere and Sit Down). Reader, Black folks who might be reading this, that messy Auntie and her children have a problem. Let’s stop excusing their behavior. If you have never heard of Narcissism Personality Disorder, PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR, and learn about it in the next link. Also, when you read this, know that there is no cure for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It is on the same spectrum as Anti-Personality Disorder (a plain old psychopath or sociopath). The best way to heal from these people is to simply stop talking to these people and stop entertaining their histrionics.
3.) Hurting people do not have to hurt people. Let me be as clear as possible here: ABUSE IS A CHOICE. I cannot tell you how many people, who were chronologically old but only 13-years-old mentally, abused and hurt me. It happened to me as a child by family members, it happened to me when I was a graduate student and this Black “feminist” tried to get me expelled from the program because I refused to drop my South Mississippi accent, and it happened to me at my first full-time job, where the older professors at this HBCU decided I just was not “Black enough” to relate to students due to the four years that I spent at a white institution and stressed me to the point of giving birth prematurely. When I try to share my testimony with other Black people, they are absolutely dismissive. They tell me, “hurting people hurt people.” Well, I know people who were treated just as harshly and come from dysfunctionality that makes my childhood look like a constant Disney land vacation, yet they do not hurt anybody. In fact, their own experiences makes them hyperaware of how they treat people, and they go out of their way to make sure that they do not intentionally hurt others. To brush off real abuse with the phrase, “Hurting people hurt people,” relieves the perpetrator of blame and nullifies my experiences and all of the people who have suffered invisible narcissistic abuse from people who look like us. We go silent and the abusers go on to hurt others.
And let me tell you why I say abuse is a choice: Do you know a husband who belittles and even beats his wife? Why doesn’t he belittle or pick fights with other men? You know why? He knows that he is a coward and afraid to fight a man, who could potentially open up a can of whip-ass on him. He afraid to speak to the boss harshly, even when that boss harangues him, because he knows the boss has to sign off on his paycheck and could potentially fire him. Out in the streets or in the work world, there are immediate consequences for bad behavior and poor choices. In the sanctity of our homes, the abuser can use his/her loved ones as emotional punching bags without consequence. In general, wives and children are not physically able to match a grown man’s fist, so this person picks fights that he can win. And this goes for women as well. I know children who were raised by narcissistic mothers who are scarred for life. Their mother takes crap from people at the job all day long, and when she gets home, she yells and screams at these children, claiming that she is just “out of patience” with their bad behavior. That’s a lie: she’s discharging pent-up rage and choosing a soft target. And love restrains us. An abusive spouse knows that all he/she has to do is turn on the charm and the person in love will forgive. An abusive mother knows that a child’s love is often unconditional, and that child needs her approval and may do desperate things to get it. All she has to do is keep breadcrumbing the unsuspecting victim and her bad behavior is rewarded with more love and loyalty than what her trifling behind deserves.
4.) Absentee fatherism is not an excuse for habitual, life-long bad behavior. The dominant culture has painted Black men as absentee fathers. And some well-meaning therapists/social workers/psychologists/life coaches/counselors often use this as their first line of treatment. Well, not having a father to claim one is difficult, but what about women who are divorced? Black women do get divorced. What about men who were killed in war? There are Black men in the military: always have been. What about Black men who were killed on the job? That happens. As adults, we need to acknowledge that missing a parent is damaging. Yes, it is. However, we should not use that as a default to explain away and excuse all of the bad behavior that some people display. What about those people who had a father in the home, but the father was abusive or in no way instrumental in helping the mother to raise the children? People who are well into their 50s sometimes blame their criminal behavior on lack of a father. Okay, come on. Does coming from a single-parent household excuse you for stealing at the local corner store when you are 55? I think not.
5.) Sticks and stones may break my bones. Reader, I do not have to finish this line for most Black Americans. It is a line that I was taught in order to give me some kind of immunity to bullying. In today’s environment, bullying has gone beyond mere growing pains. It is all-out war on the minds of our children! Sometimes, adults mix themselves in with children’s arguments and fights. Instead of teaching the children to play the dozens or to ignore the bully, how about we work with school officials to address the problem? Some of these little bullies simply mirror the behavior that they see in the house and replay it at school. This is why many parents of color do not want their children to have any kind of counseling. They are terrified that their bad behavior inside the home is going to spill out to the public, or worse, white authority figures. In addition, unchecked bullying in childhood leads to bullying in the workplace. There is a silent epidemic of workplace bullying due to overt and covert narcissists. While adults with Narcissistic Personality Disorder cannot be cured, some children can be trained away from this if the behavior is caught early enough. Children who are abusive and manipulative to others grow up to be abusive, manipulative, two-faced, passive-aggressive bullies at work. We can stop this if we see it. And suspension, sending the child home to narcissistic, abusive, manipulative parents does not work. Many times, these parents justify the behavior of their children and bad-mouth school officials.
6.) Haters gonna hate. This sounds good in Hip Hop language, but it is still a way to excuse bad behavior (with style, of course). We even had two hit songs about it, regionally. We had a RAP song and a Blues song!
Now, this is not cute in real life. Has it ever dawned on us that as Black people adapt and adopt white supremacist capitalist patriarchal (that’s bell hooks’ phrasing, not mine), that we are being stricken with pathological jealousy? While most of the current literature on pathological jealousy focuses on romantic partners, we have seen it in the Black community for almost two centuries, and traditionally say that some Black folk act like “crabs in a barrel.” Pathological jealousy in Black people, because it often cosigns and condones white supremacy. I once worked at a small HBCU, as aforementioned. Some of my older colleagues were eaten up with jealousy at not only my youth, but my ability to get things done. They often accused me of being a “sell-out,” and chose to ignore the white people who were faculty members. If I, because I went to a Predominantly White Institution, was not “able to relate to Black students,” what about the 65-year-old white faculty member who also went to a Predominantly White Institution? Reader, does n’t that sound irrational to you? When we had meetings, if I said anything, I would be met with resistance and tongue lashings. I refrained from answering in kind when I know that if these same people were on the streets, they would be punched in the mouth for the level of disrespect that they showed me. Reader, do you know why I refrained? Do you know why I would get in my car and cry all the way home? Most of the people attacking me were older than my parents, and I just could not allow myself to put on a “Darky Show” for some of my more paternalistic white colleagues (Please do not take this statement and use it as a blanket to cover all non-Black faculty members at HBCUs. Some people, regardless of color, really care about the well-being of the students at these schools and work damn hard). Something in me, maybe my sense of pride in my own people, just would not allow me to give in to this. In one meeting, when the Vice President of Academic Affairs went off on me for simply asking a question, I looked over at two of my white colleagues and actually saw them smirking. They were looking for the explosion. It would have been entertaining to them, but I did not retaliate and these two paternalistic racists were thoroughly disappointed. Many times, I cried because I was embarrassed for these older Black people should have known better.
And this is not the only instance of Black pathological jealousy that I have experienced and I am not the only person who has suffered from it. Do you have that cousin who is lazy, will not hit a lick at a snake as far as working is concerned, but who hates your success? Is he always downgrading you by saying, “You forgot where you came from?” Have you been kept from a job/pay raise/promotion, because you worked in a white-dominant job, and instead of the few Black people who work there banding together and helping one another, they fight you in every way and never miss an opportunity to belittle you in front of the boss? Are you or were you a graduate student in a Predominantly White Institution and were completely abandoned by Black faculty members while they nurtured and fussed over mediocre white cohorts? These last questions are most tragic, because in the academic and work worlds, pathological Black jealousy does not thing but aid white supremacy and operates to confirm age-old stereotypes about Black people. It aids white supremacy, because it limits the numbers of Black people in some very high-profile spaces in favor of a few “pets” who simply do what the hegemony asks. If more Black people were science Ph.D.s, wouldn’t diseases that afflict Black people, like sickle cell anemia, be public health crises and have more research dollars devoted to them? Would we have better treatments for the aggressive prostate cancer that ravages Black men? Would there be more of a focus on uterine fibroids and triple-negative breast cancer, two conditions that affect Black women more than white women?
These people are who James Baldwin feared and wrote about sometimes: they are Black white supremacists. And while that skit on Clayton Bigsby from Chappelle’s Show almost killed me with laughter, it is not funny in real life. And sometimes, the consequences are dire.
Okay, this post is super long. This post is also a part of a series that I will be doing on Black people and mental health.
This does not come from my teaching binder, but from my experience of being a Black woman in narcissistic America. Oh yeah, I also have a second Bachelor’s in Psychology and never quite stopped studying it.
