Abstract
Black Psychology for Students: Lessons in the African Mind is an online textbook written by Jomo Kheru for students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate Black Psychology classes. While the textbook covers African-centered psychology and is designed specifically for Black psychology courses, Black Psychology for Students attempts to address the totality of the social, cultural, political, and historical experiences of people of African ancestry. The textbook is comprised of eight chapters. Each chapter contains course objectives, knowledge checks, a summary, a chapter quiz, and a glossary. Kheru has produced an accessible and interactive textbook that combines various aspects of Africana culture with classic readings in Black psychology. Extra-curricular and outside reading sources that teachers can integrate to supplement the course are embedded in the textbook. Black Psychology for Students incorporates dimensions such as links to articles, videos, glossaries, and quizlets and is structured to interface with college and university online learning management systems.
The first two chapters “African History” and “The Worldviews Paradigm” provide students with foundational historical and conceptual content needed to understand the ideas that anchor Black psychology within an African-centered perspective. Black psychology is explored through the following sections: (a) history and storytelling, (b) are we there yet, (c) history and colonialism, (d) Sankofa, and (e) two thousand seasons. These sections demonstrate the ways African history and culture express African worldviews. In covering aspects of African history, culture, and worldview constructs, Kheru illustrates the components of the African worldviews paradigm (cosmology, ontology, axiology, epistemology) and presents several examples of the relationship between, history, culture, and psychology. The examples presented are Ani’s (1994) articulation of culture, Armah’s (2000) concept of “The Way”, Diop’s (1989) “Two Cradle Theory,” and Kambon’s (2020) “Cultural Survival Thrust.”
Chapter 3 “Europe Exposed” dispels the myth that Africans and people of African ancestry lived in barbarism until Europeans bestowed on them the gift of civilization. Kheru exposes the scientific racism that maintains and perpetuates this falsehood by discussing how Eurocentric scholars such as Rush (1812), de Gobineau (1856), and Van Evrie (1861) propagated the myth of African inferiority. Grounded in a holistic approach to understanding African phenomena that incorporates archaeology, Egyptology, linguistics, and anthropology, Kheru presents scholarship from historians Cheikh Anta Diop and Yosef Ben Jochannan to provide students with information that can be used to deconstruct the narrative that positions Africans as a people without history and culture.
In chapter 4, “African Media Psychology,” Kheru introduces an emerging subfield in Black psychology that he labels African Media Psychology (AMP). The focus of AMP is to study the design and impact of media in relation to African people. In Black Psychology for Students, Kheru emphasizes to students the importance of identifying, deconstructing, and resisting European media forms that seek to denigrate the African experience. Kheru also applies AMP to examples from popular culture such as JAY-Z, Young Thug, Sir Mix-A-Lot, Aunt Jemima, and the Cosby Show to assist students’ understanding of AMP. Students are introduced to a new theory through examples that allow them to make connections between theory and everyday life.
Chapter 5, “Names and Faces,” highlights pioneering scholars who contributed to the evolution of Black psychology. The scholars featured in this section are Amos Wilson, Marimba Ani, Kobi Kambon, Frances Cress Welsing, Wade Nobles, Naim Akbar, and Asa Hilliard. In contrast to the erasure of African-centered social scientists witnessed in the majority of introduction to psychology textbooks, Kheru moves their contributions from the margins to the center. Kheru’s approach in Black Psychology for Students is unique in that he displays to students the professional, political, and personal aspects of scholars and their scholarship. By providing relevant background information about the scholars presented, Kheru shows students that theories developed by scholars are not solely objective but are intricately connected to their particular ideological orientations.
In chapter 6, “African-centered education,” Kheru focuses on the scholarship of Amos Wilson and Asa Hilliard. Wilson’s (1992) idea of the natural genius of Black children is explored. Building on Wilson’s framework, Kheru applies an interesting interpretation of the word genius that places the word in a collective as opposed to an individual context. Kheru (2020) argues that “a genius is not one who stands out, a genius is one who has the ability to tap-into the ancestral wisdom…to bring forth, to generate new expressions of African wisdom, knowledge and humanity” (Education and Developmental Genius section, para. 4). Hilliard’s (1995) focus on cultural behavioral styles and African teacher education is underscored. Connecting Wilson with Hilliard, Kheru contends that the failure of African teachers to recognize cultural behavioral styles, and the political role and function of education leads to an inability to maximize Black children’s academic potential. Through Wilson and Hilliard, students are shown how to deconstruct and decolonize education in the process of creating a liberatory education.
Chapter 7 “We.All.Stars.” and chapter 8, “The Structure and Dialogue Method,” introduce unique subject matter and pedagogical techniques that are not standard within traditional textbooks. In “We.All.Stars,” Kheru discusses the ancient cultural role/importance of astronomy, the relationship of cultural mythology to modern science, and the contributions of Charles Finch and Cheikh Anta Diop to African metaphysics. While these topics are often considered outside the parameters of traditional social science, Kheru encourages students to think outside of established disciplinary norms and to reimagine a psychology of Black folk that is inclusive of multidimensional ways of knowing. The focus of chapter 8 is on the ways the Structured Dialogue Method (SDM) is employed in classroom settings to create learning communities that challenge traditional narratives about controversial topics. Also known as “Fight Club,” Kheru (2020) defines SDM as a “culturally responsive communications platform designed to enhance higher level critical thinking and analytical skills” (Structured Dialogue Method section, para. 1). In addition to explaining the difference between debate and dialogue, Kheru also describes the stages of the SDM model and details case studies that implement SDM. Kheru posits that the ultimate goal of SDM is to produce scholars who have honed their critical thinking skills through classroom/community dialogue and are prepared to engage in intellectual warfare.
The tone of the writing in Black Psychology for Students is personable and scholarly. Some of the content is similar to previous publications utilized as textbooks in Black psychology (Belgrave & Allison, 2018; Kambon, 2020; Parham et al., 2015). Although Black Psychology for Students does not explicitly address standard psychological issues concerning families, substance abuse, interpersonal relationships, or physical health, it does encompass a broad range of topics typically omitted from textbooks. Kheru’s ability to identify foundational African-centered literature and merge these classics with popular/contemporary culture is what separates it from previous textbooks. The presentation and practical application of the major theories, concepts, and ideas in African-centered Psychology are innovative and novel. Black Psychology for Students is a welcomed addition to the small yet influential core of textbooks in Black Psychology.
