Kobi K. K. Kambon (Joseph A. Baldwin)

Intellectual Space

It is critical to understand that Kambon did the majority of his life’s work at a Historically Black College/University (HBCU). While it is important to recognize and acknowledge the history, culture, strength, and resilience of HBCUs, there is also a conflicted reality that some scholars experience working at these institutions that present a set of issues that challenge the type of academic life to which many scholars aspire. W. E. B. Du Bois (1973) discusses how he was marooned to HBCUs for most of his teaching life, and John Hope Franklin (2005) addresses in his autobiography “the straightjacket confinement of pursuing a career exclusively in historically black colleges and universities” (p. 8). Both Du Bois and Franklin allude to heavy teaching loads combined with various administrative duties as contributing factors that led to an environment not conducive to research and scholarship. In addition to these conditions, there is also a perception that many HBCUs are reluctant and often antagonistic toward Black Studies and/or Black Studies–related curriculums. Brisbane (1974) offers some insight into the paucity of Black Studies programs at HBCUs. Brisbane argues that during the era when Black Studies programs were being formally institutionalized as a discipline at many of the Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) across the United States, many HBCUs were hesitant to establish programs. According to Brisbane, the HBCUs argument about their reluctance to establishing Black Studies programs consisted of the following: (a) the institutions alleged financial problems, (b) the assumption that only a militant faction advocated Black Studies, and (c) the “bourgeois mentality” of the staff which was committed to working within the system (Karenga, 1992).

Interestingly, Kambon almost became a casualty of this particular brand of Negro conservatism that Brisbane and Karenga describe. Kambon and Na’im Akbar corroborate an interesting story about how Kambon came to accept the position at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University when Akbar had been “forced” to take a position at Florida State University 2 years earlier. Akbar (formally Luther Weems, Luther X) was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida, and literally grew up around the corner from the FAMU campus. After obtaining the PhD from the University of Michigan, Akbar had always dreamt of returning home and teaching on the campus that he grew up on. Akbar had applied for a FAMU psychology position in 1978. However, when some of the more conservative FAMU administrators looked at his resume and saw the name change, they apparently shied away from hiring a person named Luther X/Na’im Akbar whom they likely perceived as being a “radical” Black Muslim. This was not as transparent an issue 2 years later when they hired Joseph A. Baldwin who would later change his name to Kobi K. K. Kambon (personal communication, September 10, 2010). In an interesting twist of fate, the very concept of cultural misorientation (the overidentification with European culture among people of African descent) that Kambon would develop and articulate so eloquently throughout his career was apparently an influencing factor that contributed to him obtaining the position at the institution that became his academic, intellectual, and spiritual home for 30 years. Ironically perhaps in their attempt to conserve and adhere to the guidelines of Eurocentric psychology (cultural oppression), FAMU inadvertently hired one of the leading figures in the Radical School of Black Psychology according to Karenga’s (1992) scheme. Even within a social context in which he was allowed the flexibility to step outside of maroon status and straightjacket confinement that limited the academic mobility of earlier scholars, Kambon willingly accepted the challenge of pursuing his life’s work at an HBCU. He comments,

I had always desired to do my work within the confines of our community at an HBCU. I had always felt very strong that “African Excellence” in any area of endeavor should first and foremost be demonstrated within the context of our community, not outside of it . . . So my commitment when I set out in my career was eventually to demonstrate through my own life that excellent work on behalf of African people could and should be done within an African or predominantly African context, which in my case meant an HBCU. (Kambon, 2011, p. 7)

Thus, Kambon appreciated and accepted the true meaning of a maroon. In the spirit of ancestors who carved out enough free space to build communities where Africans could grow and develop with limited intrusion from Whites, he chose FAMU as the site to structure a contemporary version of an intellectual maroon community (Hilliard, 1995).

The FAMU psychology department (Kambon, 1996a) is an extension of the emancipatory vision that Du Bois (1973) employed while at the Atlanta University Center and that Herman Canady (1939) attempted at West Virginia State College concerning the important role that HBCUs could play in the scholarly investigation of the African experience in the Americas. While Kambon did not initiate the thrust for Black psychologists to advocate a systematic study of the psychological experiences of African descent people, he is perhaps the first and the most successful at integrating an African-centered perspective at an HBCU. Relative to PWIs, FAMU is significantly lacking in laboratory equipment and space, library resources, and major financial backing. Why would such a scholar stay at an HBCU and work under these less than ideal conditions? Kambon takes the stance that as an African-centered scholar, he was going to catch hell in academia wherever he was, so why not just stay home (in the African community) and catch hell with your own people because that is where the first phase of the African liberation struggle has to take place anyway (K. Kambon, personal communication, September 10, 2010). However, it is important to note that a feat of this magnitude being accomplished at an HBCU did not occur solely by the efforts of an individual person.

When Kambon became chair of the psychology department at FAMU, he inherited a program that was already steeped in the deconstructive and reconstructive traditions of the first wave of Black psychologists such as Francis Sumner, Herman Canady, Howard Long, and Martin Jenkins (Guthrie, 1998). Prior to Kambon’s arrival, the department had already started to develop an approach to psychology that encouraged students to conduct research that benefited Black people. Joseph C. Awkward Jr. was chair of the department from 1956 to 1978. Awkward is a founding member of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi) as well as a past president of ABPsi during the 1979-1980 year. He was the first editor of the ABPsi newsletter and initiated a course titled Black Psychological Perspectives (Kambon, 1996a). Audrey Perry continued in the tradition of emphasizing the thrust toward an African-centered psychology and chaired the department from 1978 to 1982 (Kambon, 1996a). As chair of the department when Kambon was hired, Perry is the primary person instrumental in the recruitment and hiring of Kambon. Awkward and Perry are important figures in the history of psychology at FAMU (Kambon, 1996a). Prior to Kambon’s arrival in 1980 and his becoming chair in 1984-1985, both Awkward and Perry were setting the context for a program shift that focused specifically on analyzing the psychological experiences of Black people (Kambon, 1996a).

What Kambon added to the mix was a broad-based strategic plan to conceptualize a curriculum that emphasized not only Black psychological responses to racism and oppression in America but the African dimensions that undergirded the culturally specific psychology. In order for Kambon to spark this transition, he would need a strong cadre of faculty members who were dedicated and committed to the same cause. Once he became chair, Kambon actively recruited Black psychologists who pursued research agendas that advanced the African-centered paradigm. While each scholar had their own particular research area, the common cultural denominator was their African-centered approach to studying phenomena. Along with his existing colleagues at the time, Yvonne Bell and Raeford Brown, Kambon hired a number of other African-centered psychologists such as Daudi Azibo, John Chambers, Seward Hamilton, Jackie Robinson, Dana Dennard, Ola Aroyewun, and Huberta Jackson-Lowman. The goal was to expose students to some of the best faculty that African-centered psychology had to offer. This goal manifested in a FAMU faculty lineup that has included three of ABPsi’s Presidents (Kobi Kambon, Dana Dennard, and Huberta Jackson-Lowman) and two of ABPsi’s Distinguished Psychologists (Kobi Kambon, Daudi Azibo). The opportunity to teach in an environment that encouraged and embraced African-centered psychology attracted an African-centered psychology “dream team” that emphasized teaching students the African-centered paradigm and focused on the intergenerational transmission of knowledge.

Kambon (1996a) asserts,

The Psychology Department at Florida A & M University (FAMU) has adopted a unique Africentric program framework, such that virtually all of its curricula and extra curricula programming and activities as well as its physical environment reflect this distinct thrust. (p. 247)

These curriculum changes are augmented by programs that expose students to African-centered psychological theories and concepts through (a) an ongoing colloquium series each academic year featuring noted local and nationally renowned Black psychologists and scholars, and (b) an annual Black Psychology Theme Week of symposia, panels and workshops, media, student presentations, and African cultural exhibits and displays (Kambon, 1996a). Black Psychology Theme Week also included orientation class sessions during the first 2 days of Theme Week on the history of the Association of Black Psychologists within the broader framework of the African liberation movement and African mental health, workshops, and participatory sessions with students (Kambon, 1996a). The Black Psychology Theme Week exposed FAMU students and the Tallahassee community to heavy hitters in the African-centered movement such as Bobby E. Wright, Na’im Akbar, Wade W. Nobles, Asa G. Hilliard, Francis Cress Welsing, Marimba Ani, Jacob Carruthers, and Amos Wilson (Kambon, 1996a). Kambon (2011) states,

Our situation, commitment and future outlook are quite unique and different from others who are studying psychology . . . I constantly emphasize that we are creating the closest representation to an African-Centered Psychology Department that our people have had. (p. 23)

All of these events contributed to creating a space where students, faculty, and other scholars were allowed to be and know their cultural selves.

The FAMU psychology department serves as an intellectual incubator for numerous students, who after being trained, nurtured, and developed at FAMU proceed to give birth to new ideas and make contributions to the growing body of African-centered theory, research, and practice. Kambon (2011) informs that he emphasizes to “students (and colleagues at FAMU) on a regular basis that we have been given this special opportunity and responsibility from the Ancestors to share an important role in the global collaborative enterprise of making significant African history in psychology” (p. 23) and that this deep sense of cultural commitment and accountability shapes and informs how students and faculty in the department “go about doing our work in psychology on behalf of African people” (p. 24). Establishing this type of intellectual space within the ebony towers of an HBCU was not an easy task. Yet, Kambon was able to help create an African-centered psychology department at an HBCU where Black students feel free to examine and explore the Sakhu (Nobles, 2006) or what Du Bois (1989) famously referred to as The Souls of Black Folk.

Intellectual Influences

Kambon is the product of an intellectual cipher of Black social scientists committed to improving the lived conditions of African descent people. As a young scholar, his ideas were molded by colleagues and wise elders who knew and understood that in order for the intergenerational transmission of knowledge to occur, there must be training and development of others that could carry on the struggle. Kambon decided to be one of the people who would carry on the struggle. If you look at the wise elders who influenced him, it makes sense that the young scholar would follow in the footsteps of those who set the path for him. Kambon’s early African-centered education occurred at the Chicago School, not the Chicago School of Sociology and Psychology with Robert Parks and John B. Watson, or that of E. Franklin Frazier, Oliver Cox, or Julius Wilson, but at the Chicago School of Black Nationalism and African-centered thought. As a young man immersed and initiated in the Chicago School of Black Nationalism, Kambon internalized the idea that scholars should make a commitment to use their scholarship as a tool to fight against White supremacy. His professors were eminent Black scholars such as Bobby Wright and Jacob Carruthers.

Kambon (2011) acknowledges and appreciates Bobby Wright’s impact and influence on his thinking when he states, “Bobby provided me with this early opportunity to develop my emerging ideas about African/Black Psychology and African personality and mental health” (p. 6). In 1981, Wright was elected National President of ABPsi 1 year before he passed and made his transition to the ancestors. After his untimely death in 1982 while serving as President-Elect of ABPsi, a special election was conducted to replace him whereupon Kambon was elected as the 14th National President of ABPsi. Kambon dedicated his administration to continuing Bobby Wright’s legacy.

As a teacher at the Communiversity, which was housed at the Center for Inner City Studies (CICS), and as director of the Garfield Park Comprehensive Community Mental Health Center (GPCCMHC), one of only two predominantly Black freestanding CCMHCs in the country at the time, Wright was deeply entrenched in creating cultural outlets within the community. Kambon reflects that the GPCCMHC was “the most African-centered environment in a major mental health center that I have ever encountered to date” (Kambon, 2011, p. 6). The structure of the Black Psychology Theme Week at FAMU can be traced to the community education initiatives of the Communiversity and the CICS. Kambon chose Wright as an intellectual model because he was impressed with (a) the broad, multidisciplinary knowledge base he utilized and relied upon and (b) the straightforwardness and simplicity or commonsense logic in his presentation (use of one-liners, parables, and metaphors) seemingly drawn from the deep well of cumulative African knowledge and understanding of life (Kambon, 2011). For Kambon (2011), Bobby Wright “became one of the truest examples of a ‘Race Man’ that I have known in the field of psychology” (p. 10).

As a keen and astute observer of Wright, Kambon used the lessons learned from Wright’s work and applied them to his own research. Kambon builds on Wright’s (1979) focus on the importance of worldview analysis and the concept of mentacide with his highly developed theoretical frameworks such as the African self-consciousness (ASC) and cultural misorientation constructs. Whereas Wright (1987) dealt with the effects of the psychopathic racial personality, Kambon attempts to counter the manner in which the psychopathic racial personality of White supremacy impacted people of African descent with his articles “Black Psychology and Black Personality: Some Issues for Consideration” (Baldwin, 1976), “Notes on an Africentric Theory of Black Personality” (Baldwin, 1981), and “African Self-Consciousness and the Mental Health of African-Americans” (Baldwin, 1984). Based on the breadth and depth of Kambon’s research, it is clear that the seeds planted in him by Bobby Wright became fertile and produced a rich and robust research agenda that would help shape the scope and direction of African-centered psychological thought.

Another major influence on Kambon’s intellectual growth and development was Jacob Carruthers (Kambon, 1992, 2003). Carruthers was a professor and associate director of the CICS (renamed The Jacob H. Carruthers CICS in 2007) at Northeastern Illinois University and was significant in forming the Association of Afrikan Historians that was charged with operating the Chicago-based Communiversity during the late 1960s. He is the author of The Irritated Genie: An Essay on the Haitian Revolution (Carruthers, 1985) and Intellectual Warfare (Carruthers, 1999) among other significant works. Along with Haki Madhubuti, Hannibal Afrik, Anderson Thompson, Conrad Worrill, and Bobby Wright, Carruthers was a key player among an intellectual vanguard that formed the foundation of the African-centered community in Chicago that evolved during the 1960s. It was at the CICS that Carruthers offered Kambon his first opportunity to teach a Black Psychology course in 1970 as a replacement for Wright due to his expanding schedule. During this period, Carruthers was asked to read a rough draft of one of Kambon’s initial writings that reflected his evolving thinking about African-centered psychological principles (Kambon, 2011). Kambon (2011) acknowledges that Carruthers’s positive response to this early manuscript strongly encouraged him “to continue to write down my [his] ideas about African/Black Psychology with an unwavering passion” (p. 14). Kambon (2011) was extremely impressed and influenced by Carruthers’s unique leadership style and intellectual ability to make “the complex seem simple enough for all to understand” (p. 16). As a young scholar grappling with and being exposed to new ideas and thus attempting to find his place within a new conceptual universe, Carruthers and Wright provided Kambon with the confidence that affirmed his intellectual audacity to locate his own voice and begin to speak truth to power.

Based on his interactions with Wright and Carruthers, Kambon (2011) comments that he was in a position to “merge my intellectual self with my Alabama-groomed African manhood . . . I was able to embark upon my true journey toward becoming an Africentric intellectual warrior” (p. 18). Wright’s (1987) emphasis on developing a Black social theory that could confront the devastating effects of mentacide and Carruthers’s (1996) focus on developing an African-centered theoretical orientation grounded in African cultures (continental and diasporic), and both of their successes in building African-centered institutional space, manifested in Kambon’s life’s work as a willingness and desire to engage in intellectual warfare and institution building for and in conjunction with African people in the service of African liberation.

Intellectual Contributions

A close reading of Kambon’s work reveals that his research agenda, while maintaining a deep and abiding ideological commitment to African people, utilizes a combination of the critical approaches identified by Banks (1982) that attempt to deconstruct, reconstruct, and construct various ways to conceptualize psychological phenomena. Amos Wilson stated that Kambon (1992) “provides a groundbreaking approach to the study of the Afrikan personality, its nature and development . . . (his) Afrikan Self-Consciousness theory and Afrikan Self-Consciousness Scale are monumental contributions to Afrikan Psychology” (p. 236). Na’im Akbar, who along with Wade Nobles, was one of Kambon’s fellow travelers along the path to defining and developing the parameters of African Psychology contends that some of the unique characteristics about Kambon’s work are (a) his ability to construct assessment measures that attempt to add empirical validity to African-centered psychological principles, (b) his consistent focus on racial and cultural issues, and (c) his emphasis on African-centered psychology being corrective, descriptive, and prescriptive (K. Kambon, personal communication, September 9, 2010). As evidenced in the comments made by his esteemed peers and colleagues, Kambon is an African-centered scholar’s scholar.

Utilizing Akbar’s characteristics as a theoretical point of departure, this section examines major issues, concepts, and themes expressed in the scholarship of Kambon that have contributed to the evolution of Africana psychological thought. This investigation is an archeological attempt to uncover the theoretical roots of the branches that grew and evolved into Kambon’s intellectual production. It is argued here that Kambon’s articles “Black Psychology and Black Personality: Some Issues for Consideration” (Baldwin, 1976), “The Psychology of Oppression” (Baldwin, 1980), and “Notes on an Africentric Theory of Black Personality” (Baldwin, 1981) provide the essence of his intellectual contribution. When this trilogy is read in sequence, the incremental stages in the development of Kambon’s theories and concepts become evident.

“Black Psychology and Black Personality: Some Issues for Consideration” (Baldwin, 1976) is Kambon’s first published article addressing Black personality and thus his formal entry into the world of African Psychology. In “Black Psychology and Black Personality: Some Issues for Consideration,” he seeks to identify what he considered to be the important issues relative to establishing a culturally distinct psychology of and for African people. Kambon (2006) critiques the social pathology model of Black behavior that was prevalent at the time and argues that the established assessments of personality are “only measures of the degree to which other racial-cultural groups conform to norms that are defined and thus preferenced by European (Euro-American) culture” (p. 6). His reasoning emphasized the fact that “Western psychological principles applied wholesale to people of African descent result in psychological minstrels in which White psychology is painted in Black face” (Jamison, 2009, p. 66). This questioning of standard psychological principles and the theories that maintain and perpetuate them raised other questions as well. If Black psychologists such as Kambon rejected the assumed universality of European culture and psychology, then what would be the theoretical framework that would replace it? Kambon argued that it would be African Psychology, but it needed to be defined and developed so that it could be applied to the lives of African people. He was clear that the essence of the psychology of Black folk was not pathological, nor was it simply a response and/or adaptation to oppressive conditions (Kambon, 2006). It is at this juncture that Kambon begin to wrestle with the task of developing new ideas that would set the tone for the rest of his intellectual career.

There are several key concepts and themes that bind his conceptual framework. Some of the major concepts and themes Kambon addresses in conceptualizing an African/Black Psychology are (a) definitional systems, (b) African worldview, (c) ASC/African self-extension orientation (ASEO), and (d) psychological/cultural misorientation. The emphasis here is on the development of Kambon’s ideas and the particular manner in which these theoretical concepts evolved. The conceptual mapping of Kambon’s ( intellectual journey in African Psychology continues with the issue of definitional systems addressed in “The Psychology of Oppression” (Baldwin, 1980). The use of appropriate definitional systems for people of African descent is the undergirding principle that provides the conceptual cement for the foundation of Kambon’s work. Kambon (2006) asserts that

the two cultures’ (African and European) respective definitional orientations to their survival, to the world, no doubt correspond to their distinctly different racial-cultural realities. Africans and Europeans define the world from distinctly different perspectives and in distinctly different terms, and their racially specific definitions tend to characterize their distinctly different social realities. (p. 56)

Definitional systems develop over time and thus find their origin in the group’s cumulative collective experience and “represents those beliefs and patterns of behavior that have proven effective in their maintaining the survival of their life-cultural style” (Kambon, 2006, p. 57). For Kambon, definitional systems are natural extensions of a cultural group’s response to and relationship with their original geosocial environment. The issue of definitional systems takes on another dimension when the political component of intercultural interactions involving who controls the definitional process is considered. In other words, if a cultural group has the “the ability to define reality and have others accept it as their own” (Nobles, 1986, p. 7), as in intercultural conquest, domination, and so on, then that group is in a position of cultural, psychological, and even social/political power. Once this degree of institutional power has occurred, such as in the American context, the European American group in power will discredit the other cultural group’s definitional system “by making their primary survival reinforcements (e.g., social and economic security, material resources, etc.) directly contingent upon the non-European group ascribing legitimacy to the European system of social-cultural reality” (Kambon, 2006, p. 62).

This early identification and articulation of the importance of definitional systems in understanding intercultural interactions would be a conceptual theme that Kambon would continue to develop throughout his scholarly work. According to Kambon (2006), “a definitional system . . . is therefore the same as the ‘worldview’ of a social system—its peculiar philosophical orientation to the world” (p. 57). Hence, Kambon advocated that definitional systems constitute worldviews and are essential to understanding the psychology of a cultural group. His understanding of definitional systems is what helped Kambon (2004) transition to articulating the importance of the worldviews paradigm. Kambon (1998, p. 58; 2004) assumes the position that race/culture “constitutes the initial force binding people to a similar geography and history through which their similar experiences evolve into a distinct definitional system or worldview.” Of course, these ideas did not develop within a vacuum. Throughout Kambon’s development of the worldviews paradigm, he consistently references and acknowledges the work of intellectuals who diligently contributed much of the early work in developing the worldviews paradigm (Diop, 1978; Dixon, 1976; Nichols, 1976; Wobogo, 1976) and helped shape his understanding. In essence, he was seeking historical data to support the claims being made by Black social scientists about the origin and essence of cultural differences. The worldviews paradigm provided Kambon (2006) with a conceptual framework that could assist him in explaining culturally distinct modes of experiencing, interpreting, and understanding reality (Jamison, 2009). This paradigm, in conjunction with all of its various manifestations, is the intellectual anchor that grounds and centers Kambon’s work as an African-centered psychologist.

“Notes on an Africentric theory of Black Personality” (Baldwin, 1981) extends and expands Kambon’s emphasis on definitional systems and the worldviews paradigm through his elaborate discussion of ASEO and ASC in his basic model of African personality under cultural oppressive circumstances (Kambon, 1992, 2003). ASEO is defined as “a deep-seated, innate, and unconscious process . . . the fundamental content of the African Self-Extension Orientation is this spirituality” (Kambon, 2006, p. 81). For Kambon (2006), the ASEO construct is “the critical feature which gives Black (African) personality its distinguishable and unique qualities” (p. 14). Similar to Du Bois’s (1997) question “What is it between us (African Americans and Africa) that constitutes a tie that I can feel better than I can explain . . . still, my tie to Africa is strong” (p. 116), Kambon attempts to explain what he views as a deep-seated Africanness that exists among African descent people that they may not be conscious of on the surface level. While ASEO operates at the deep structure level of culture (Nobles, 1986), it is through ASC that we observe its overt manifestations and its efficacious functioning among African people.

ASC is “the awareness and knowledge that African-Americans have (possess and practice) of themselves as African people historically, culturally and philosophically” (Kambon, 2006, p. 162). According to Kambon (2006), ASC is manifested by (a) the person having an awareness of their Black/African identity and African cultural heritage and seeing the value in the pursuit of knowledge of their cultural selves; (b) the person recognizing Black/African survival priorities and the necessity for institutions that affirm Black life; (c) the person actively participating in the survival, liberation, and proactive development of Black/African people; and (d) the person prioritizing the opposition of racial oppression to the development and survival of Black/African people (pp. 132-133). Kambon (2006) instructs that “African Self-Consciousness functionally gives conscious meaning and purpose to the operation of the innate-unconscious African Self-Extension Orientation” (pp. 82-83). Thus, for Kambon, it is important and critical to understand that the ASEO and ASC are not two totally separate entities but different level manifestations of the same phenomenon.

Kambon’s early conceptualization of ASEO and ASC is important in that they assisted in changing how Black psychologists were able to discuss issues relative to the Black personality (Kambon, 1992, 2006). Prior to the thrust of Black psychologists like Kambon, many Black personality theorists were studying the psychology of Black people from an oppression-centered and/or victim-centered perspective (Azibo, 1990; Kambon, 2006). The intellectual initiative of Kambon facilitated the creation of an environment where Black psychologists could study psychological aspects of Black life in a manner that had not been explored within the traditional psychological paradigm. Black psychologists that wanted to step outside the box of Eurocentric thinking were now provided with the keys to unlock their conceptual incarceration (Nobles, 1986). A theoretical framework was introduced that if developed properly and allowed the intellectual space to grow could eventually turn the standard approach to psychology on its head. Having been formally trained within the conceptual parameters of the standard approach to psychology, Kambon understood that theory alone would not be enough to convince psychologists that there was value in this nascent African-centered psychology. Therefore, Kambon (2006) suggests that “a more rigorous and systematic inquiry into what-ever aspects of this process are amenable to empirical examination will enable us to more clearly outline the potential broad scale applicability of such a construct” (p. 14). Along these lines, Kambon and his associates developed and conducted research with several assessments to measure the various aspects of cultural identity among Africans in America, such as the African Self-Consciousness Scale (Kambon, 1996b; Baldwin & Bell, 1985), the Worldviews Scale (Baldwin & Hopkins, 1990; Robertson, 1997), and the Cultural Misorientation Scale (Kambon, 2003). Throughout his academic career, Kambon honed and refined these instruments in efforts to produce a research agenda that sought to demonstrate the heuristic value of these African-centered constructs and their relevance to everyday life in contemporary Africana communities.

Similar to Asante’s (1992) location theory and Nobles’s (1986) notion of conceptual incarceration, Kambon (1980) introduced the concept of misorientation, which was initially discussed as psychological misorientation prior to being fully developed into the construct of cultural misorientation (Kambon, 2003). In formulating psychological/cultural misorientation, Kambon makes a clear distinction between the psychological classifications of misorientation and disorientation. For Kambon (2006), disorientation referred to the absence of a reality-based psychological orientation, whereas misorientation referred to the use of an incorrect (the wrong cultural) psychological orientation. Kambon (2006) characterizes the psychologically misoriented Black person as

one who in his/her own mind is neither necessarily confused about his or her identity, nor dysfunctional in his or her behavior, according to the standards prescribed by European-American culture. For the Black person so victimized operates (thinks, feels, acts) in a manner of a European. (p. 65)

Echoing the sentiments of his teacher Bobby Wright’s concept of mentacide, Kambon (2006) argues that the psychology of oppression and the psychological/cultural misorientation that accompanies it “constitutes an ongoing process of psychological genocide” (p. 71). For Kambon, the psychology of oppression must be combated and contested through the construction of a psychology of liberation. Kambon (2006) felt it important to provide the Africana world with

a meaningful analysis of psychological oppression as an ongoing—constantly operative process . . . (for which) our people (prior to this model) had no clear frame of reference from which to ultimately examine the psychological nature of their own oppression. (p. 72)

This was Kambon’s early attempt to address aspects of Bobby Wright’s (1987) clarion call for a Black social theory. In the absence of an all-encompassing Black social theory that was advocated by Wright, Kambon presented the ideological foundation and theoretical core of a psychocultural theory aimed at understanding the lived experiences of Black people.

The critical issue for Kambon is that the European survival thrust is imposed on African people through Eurocentric control of cultural definitional systems and that this alien survival thrust does not seek to advance the best interest of African people. When ASC is weakened by the internalization of ideas that promote the European survival thrust, cultural misorientation occurs. The concept of cultural misorientation questions the degree to which certain attributes associated with the European worldview such as valuing the survival of the fittest and materialism over collectivism and spiritualism benefit the collective survival thrust of people of African descent. This construct represents a schema of basic Africana personality disorder (Kambon, 1992, 2003), and the cultural misorientation process is generally categorized as cultural oppression (Baldwin, 1980; Kambon, 2003). In the specific case of European (White supremacy domination) cultural oppression of Africans in America, it produces the collective psychological disorder of European cultural misidentification among Africans (Kambon, 1998). Kambon (1998) argues that Black psychologists must operate under the premise that “the fact that Africans share a world with non-Africans does not dictate that we must or do in fact share their cultural truth” (p. 19). Thus, cultural misorientation, which is essentially the overidentification with European culture among people of African descent, emerges in Kambon’s (1992) conceptual framework to explain the cultural conflicts and contradictions that arise as a result of the intentional distortion of ASC.

Conclusion

When scholars examine the life’s work of Kambon, it is important to consider how his early work laid the foundation for what came later. In The Role of Black Psychologists in African Liberation, Kambon makes several poignant points that highlight his paradigmatic construction. He argues,

Black psychologists, by and large, have functioned in the service of the continued oppression and/or psychological enslavement of Black people rather than in the service of our liberation from Eurocentric oppression and positive Black mental health. (Kambon, 2006, pp. 201-202)

He further asserts “that we Black psychologists must wait no longer in defining and articulating the correct philosophical/ideological basis for our people’s struggle” (Kambon, 2006, p. 212). Finally, in what can be considered the Kambonian manifesto, he argues, “we Black psychologists must intelligently, sophisticatedly, and religiously commit ourselves, our work, and our science to ultimate victory for our people” (Kambon, 2006, p. 212).

Kambon (1998) informs that his work is about more than “the imparting of psychological information from the cultural perspective of African people . . . but laying out the foundation for their psychological recovery process in the aftermath of the Maafa” (p. 70). Thus, he does not simply describe the pathology of psychological/cultural misorientation or the cultural dynamics of ASC. For Kambon, the intellectual energy spent in contributing to the development of a new paradigm is not a purely academic exercise. Kambon (2006) suggests “that conscious, collective resistance is ultimately required if we are to be able to effectively combat the psychological oppression that European-American society imposes on Black people” (p. 70). Kambon’s intellectual contributions are congruent with the mission and purpose of scholarship in the Africana scholar/activist tradition that seeks to construct conceptual systems and theoretical frameworks that provide people of African descent with social theories that are corrective, descriptive, and prescriptive (Marable, 2000). Kambon’s laborious work in developing and defining the parameters of African-centered psychology provides a blueprint and conceptual road map that future African-centered psychologists can utilize as they continue to travel along the path of navigating the intellectual terrain of African-centered psychology.