Bridging Forward to African/Black Psychology

We intentionally chose to title our closing comment as “Bridging” because we feel that the discussions and ideas captured in this issue will serve as a bridge to or scaffolding for a deeper and varied discourse about African/Black psychology. Parenthetically, we also believe that in liberating the discourse, we must first “grasp the ungraspable.” In this regard, we note that in his The Philosophy of History (1956), the great German philosopher, Georg Wilhelm Frederick Hegel asserted in a most authoritative and emphatic way that

The peculiarly African character is difficult to comprehend, for the very reason that in reference to it, we must quite give up the principle which naturally accompanies all our ideas—the category of Universality. In Negro life the characteristic point is the fact that consciousness has not yet attained to the realization of any substantial objective existence—as for example, God, or Law—in which the interest of man’s volition is involved and in which he realizes his own being. This distinction between himself as an individual and the universality of his essential being, the African in the uniform, undeveloped oneness of his existence has not yet attained; so that the Knowledge of an absolute Being, an Other and a Higher than his individual self, is entirely wanting. The Negro, as already observed, exhibits the natural man in his completely wild and untamed state. We must lay aside all thought of reverence and morality—all that we call feeling—if we would rightly comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious with humanity to be found in this type of character. The copious and circumstantial accounts of Missionaries completely confirm this, and Mahommedanism appears to be the only thing which in any way brings the Negroes within the range of culture. (Hegel, 1956, p. 93)

Several pages later he concludes,

At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the World; it has no movement or development to exhibit. Historical movements in it—that is in its northern part—belong to the Asiatic or European World. Carthage displayed there an important transitionary phase of civilization; but as a Phoenician colony, it belongs to Asia. Egypt will be considered in reference to the passage of the human mind from its Eastern to its Western phase, but it does not belong to the African Spirit. What we properly understand by Africa, is the Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which had to be presented here only as on the threshold of the World’s History. (Hegel, 1956, p. 99)

In influencing European and American thought, Hegel deemed Africa and things African, including African mentality and human functioning, as either unworthy of investigation or as evidence of being less than human and to be held in total disregard and disrespect. Hegel in fact represents one of the best and most evil examples of “scientific colonialism” (Nobles, 1976). In his “unsophisticated falsification” he not only asserts that Africa has no mind, he intentionally attempts to “reform the mind of Africa” (Nobles, 2005). He lied. He purposively manipulated the facts and truths about Africa’s place in the world, denying that Africans were part of humanity. Hegel’s attempt at infecting the world with intellectual amnesia misguided the world to reject and refuse to reflect and ponder on Africa’s thinking and the possibility of seeing Africa as a model for humanity. Its untrammeled exploitation appears natural and justified.

The contributions in this special issue serve as preliminary examinations of the awakening of the mind of Africa from the perspective of actual Black/African psychologists. The worldwide conversations reflected in this special issue demonstrate that, as Black African psychologists, our psychological understandings as well as practice have been and are continually confounded by our history of racial oppression and dehumanization. This historical experience has created a kind of collective African psychic damage that has equally infected the doctor and the patient. Regarding the mental well-being and health of African people, we, Black African psychologists, are just one aspirin or one treatment away from the pain and mental illness that debilitates the rest of our people. The doctor’s illness can be seen in our confusion about our use of foreign treatments, theories, and systems as if they were our own. We seldom challenge the appropriateness, fidelity, and utility of Euro-American psychology. We simply try to make them work for our people and communities, and then blame them for lack of responsiveness to the alienating treatment modality. Having experienced the imposition of Western social and political systems as our inheritance from colonialism and slavery, we have tried to fit them into an African (both continental and diasporan) context and when the results are African violence, destruction, brutality, inequality, failure, and underdevelopment, we say or allow to be said that that’s “the African way” or African systems do not work and are less capable. Never do we say that the African use or adoption of Euro-American systems may be incapable of optimizing the human functioning of African people. Hegel’s ghost continues to haunt us.

As we struggle for common ground in the recognition and establishment of a Black African psychology congruent with African people in Africa and throughout the diaspora, some of us, as reflected in this issue, earnestly believe that our “difference” in geography reflects and represents serious differences in thought, experience, philosophy, worldview, and beliefs which, in turn, make the quest for a common Black African psychology too difficult and almost unachievable. Hegel’s ghost, like the imagined “monster in the closet” or “boogey man under the bed” prevents us from challenging its very existence, and the serpiginous manner in which we have allowed it to affect our authenticity. As such, our training and education in Western thought, particularly Euro-American psychology, have made it difficult for us to contemplate traditional African thought as scientific and our traditional spiritual and knowledge systems as nothing more than untested religious beliefs and/or quaint native folk practices.

In spite of our Westernization, the antibody of our common core ancestral cultural legacy has kept, to a great extent, an African mind here and an African mind there from being completely torn asunder. Though extremely destructive, Hegel’s lie was and is nothing more than a phantom (a bodiless energy without real existence) that on closer examination dissolves, yet tends to leave a lingering doubt about its veracity, implanting its insinuation in a brake to collective action.

The call for the development of a common or collective Black African psychology, which Nobles (2013) believes should be called Skh Sdi/Djr, is doable and desperately needed by African people on the continent and throughout the diaspora. Our emerging Black/African psychologists (Skh Sdist) clearly see that the challenge of discovering and mastering of an authentic Black African psychology will be akin to a fundamental change in our very soul (Benjamin-Bullock & Seabi, 2013). This challenge, we believe, will require courage and character. It will require the courage to face the ghost in the dark and the character to illuminate the light of intelligence onto the human worth of things African.

Without question, this bridging forward to an African/Black psychology can lead us to more intercontinental African dialogs about “the process of understanding, examining, and explicating the meaning, nature and functioning of being human for African people,” ergo the Skh Sdi/Djr, as a Pan African/Black psychology. Immediately, it can inspire us to “engage in a deep, profound and penetrating search, study, understanding and mastery of the process of illuminating the human spirit and reality” in the form of intercontinental, coauthored, edited text about Black/African psychological theory construction, nosology and diagnosis, therapeutic interventions, counseling, policy interventions, psychology in the work/school place, and research and evaluation partnerships. Most importantly, the discussion in this special issue, we hope, will inspire and guide continental and diasporan Black/African psychologists to address and heal the untreated damage caused by human inhumanity to other humans, through colonialism, slavery, apartheid, and racial denigration wrought on indigenous people, especially Africans, and their progeny the world over.

Finally, in meeting the challenge of Srwd Ta (restoration), we recognize that we cannot restore health, wellness, and wholeness to Africa’s children without, in fact, healing all of humanity.

Now is our time to unapologetically and unashamedly do Skh Sdi and go forward in the development of an authentic Skh Sdi/Djr (African/Black psychology) created by and for African/Black people:

Ukulimala kwenqondo, ukulimala kwomuntu. ¹

Ukulimala kwomuntu, ukulimala kwomdeni.

Ukulimala kwomdeni, ukulimala kwomphakathi.

Ukulimala kwomphakathi, ukulimala kwesizwe.

Ukulimala kwesizwe, ukulimala kwomhlaba. (isZulu)

The hurting of the mind, is the hurting of the person.

The hurting of the person, is the hurting of the family.

The hurting of the family, is the hurting of the community.

The hurting of the community, is the hurting of the nation.

The hurting of the nation, is the hurting of the whole world. (English)

Ibanuje Okan, Ohun ni Ibanuje eniyan.

Ibanuje eniyan, Ohun ni Ibanuje ebi.

Ibanuje ebi, Ohun ni Ibanuje ilu.

Ibanuje ilu. Ohun ni ibanuje Orile ede.

Ibanuje Orile ede, Ohun ni Ibanuje gbogbo aye. (Yoruba)