Tag: racism

History Lessons in the Ramshorn Journal

I think I found a pair of articles from the mid-1970s in the Huston-Tillotson College Ramshorn Journal that might have a connection to each other, even though the authors didn’t know it at the time.

One of them was written by yours truly and published in December of 1975, entitled “H-TC Sponsors Education Seminar.”

The other is a New York Times editorial from January 1976 which was reprinted in the May 1976 volume of the Ramshorn Journal and was written by Christopher F. Edley, a very successful lawyer and, at the time, the Executive Director of the United Negro College Fund.

Both were written about the same time, in the era of the civil rights struggles. I’m not comparing myself to the brilliant and accomplished Mr. Edley. And I’m just going to admit that I really don’t remember much about the trip to Houston for the Education Seminar about which I wrote my article, despite my being a participant. But I think it’s hard not to notice the language I used in my description of the importance of what the education seminar was all about. While much of the text is rather dry, when I discuss what was emphasized, I sound a little more intense. I may not remember much of what we specifically did and said but I caught the tone.

When I say the trip was not a guided tour, I mean that both faculty and students were serious about what the main message was for us—as black people. We had to measure up in a way that implied that we had to be better than best. That whole section starting with “Throughout the program, our people were reminded that any person who aspires to a position with any company must fulfill particular criteria.” It was as if I were saying we had to be perfect to make up for being black. We had to be the exemplars.

The individual must exhibit creativity, aggressiveness, ambition, self-confidence, initiative, dedication, maturity, and an ability and willingness to cooperate and effectively communicate with other people. The individual must punctual and reliable. Industry demands nothing less than high-gear performance. But they pay handsomely for that high-gear performance.

As I read this now, I get caught up on all the exhortations to be scrupulous, alert, and so on because, after all, we’re in a corporate jungle which is all about survival. I could have recast the last sentence above as “But they pay dearly for that high-gear performance”—which refers to the candidate, not the one doing the hiring.

I admit that how I wrote the story may reflect my reaction to rather than the reality of the emphasis of speakers at the seminar.  But I did get the impression that I, as a black person, would be held to a higher standard than a white person. And I was uncomfortable about that.

When I turn to the New York Times article by Mr. Edley, I again am impressed with the struggle for fairness and justice, which didn’t seem forthcoming. He expressed the same sense of unfairness that I felt in Houston. The tone is almost one of outrage. He described the black people who were going to college in those days as most likely being the first ones in their families to go to college.

That’s what I was.

Mr. Edley was expressing frustration about blacks and browns just being able to get to the door of opportunity. I got the message that the struggle would go on forever—even if we got in the door. We didn’t just have to prove we were equal. We had to prove we were better.

Anyway, as I read the articles I wrote for the Ramshorn Journal 50 years ago, I begin to realize why I had no memory of having written them. It gradually becomes less strange that I still don’t really remember much of my time at Huston-Tillotson College, one of the historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) in America. But I needed that experience, even if I did pay dearly for it.

Click in the gallery; click on the picture, click the icon with an “i” in a circle, click view full size, click the plus sign to enlarge the image.

Noteworthy Black Psychiatrists on the Last Day of Black History Month

I wanted to give a shout-out to Dr. H. Steven Moffic, MD for his article highlighting the career of a notable black psychiatrist, Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint, MD, who sadly died on February 24, 2025. I’m mortified that I hadn’t heard of him before now.

It reminded me of the time I mentioned another black psychiatrist I had never heard of either, Dr. Chester Middlebrook Pierce, MD, in a post about the book “Our Hidden Conversations” about a year ago.

I wondered if Dr. Pierce and Dr. Poussaint ever met. I looked this up but couldn’t find a definite link.

Dr. Moffic’s essay, in which he mentions antisemitism. also reminded me of an essay also published in Psychiatric Times in 2020 by Dr. Robert M. Kaplan, MD. The title is “Alois Maria Ott: I was Hitler’s Psychologist.”

It gives even more texture to Dr. Poussaint’s views on whether or when extreme racism should or should not be classified as a mental illness. My own residency training experience was marked by being assigned to a patient said to have schizophrenia—who angrily shouted when he saw me, “I don’t want no nigger doctor!” My faculty supervisor didn’t think I should be reassigned to an alternate patient, a decision I’m still ambivalent about.

All Jokes Aside, What Do I think About the Book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents?”

I just finished reading Isabel Wilkerson’s book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” It was a painful read because it talks about racism in America, which is a part of my lived experience. Wilkerson’s compares it to the Nazi persecution of the Jews and the caste organization in India. The chapter on the pillars of caste make sense to me.

When I reached the last section (not at all “final” by any means), which is called “Awakening,” I was not surprised that there were no prescriptions or outlines or action plans for how to eliminate caste in any culture. It turns out that we’re all responsible for becoming aware of how we all are complicit in some way with maintaining caste divisions in society. And the word Wilkerson used for how to begin is “empathy,” or somehow becoming conscious of that tendency and to replace it with understanding.

As Wilkerson emphasizes, empathy isn’t sympathy or pity. Empathy is walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, as the song goes. But she goes a step further and uses the term “radical empathy.” It’s difficult to define concretely. It goes beyond trying to imagine how another person feels, going the extra mile and learning about what the other person’s experience. It’s not about my perspective; it’s about yours. It’s not clear exactly how to make that deep connection. She uses terms like “spirit” which may or may not resonate with a reader searching for a recipe or a cure.

Politics turns up in the book. How could it not? I’m going to just admit that I wanted to make this post humorous somehow, especially after I saw Dr. H. Steven Moffic’s article in Psychiatric Times about whether psychiatrists are to act in the role of “bystanders” or “upstanders” in the present era of political and social turmoil. He specifically mentioned the Goldwater Rule, which is the American Psychiatric Association Ethics Annotation barring psychiatrists from making public statements of a diagnostic opinion about any individual (often a politician) absent a formal examination or authorization to make any statements. The allusion to a specific person is unmistakable.

But, as a retired psychiatrist, I’m aware that my sense of humor could be deployed as a defense mechanism and it would certainly backfire in today’s highly charged political context. I’m not sure whether I’m a bystander or an upstander.

Sena and I had a spirited debate about whether America has a caste system or not. I think it’s self-evident and is nothing new to me. I suspect that calling racism (which certainly exists in the United States) a form of casteism would not be altogether wrong. Wilkerson mentions a psychiatrist, Sushrut Jadhav, who is mentioned in the Acknowledgments section of her book. Jadhav is a survivor of the caste system in India. I found some of insights on caste and racism in web article, “Caste, culture and clinic” which is the text of an interview with him.

His answers to two questions were interesting. On the question of whether there is a difference between the experience of racism and caste humiliation, he said “None on the surface” but added that more research was needed to answer the question adequately. And to the question of whether it’s possible to forget caste, he said you have to truly remember it before you can forget it—and it’s important to consider who might be asking you to forget it.

This reminded me of the speech in the movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” said by John Prentice (played by Sidney Poitier) to his father:

“You’ve said what you had to say. You listen to me. You say you don’t want to tell me how to live my life? So, what do you think you’ve been doing? You tell me what rights I’ve got or haven’t got, and what I owe to you for what you’ve done for me. Let me tell you something. I owe you nothing! If you carried that bag a million miles, you did what you were supposed to do because you brought me into this world, and from that day you owed me everything you could ever do for me, like I will owe my son if I ever have another. But you don’t own me! You can’t tell me when or where I’m out of line, or try to get me to live my life according to your rules. You don’t even know what I am, Dad. You don’t know who I am. You don’t know how I feel, what I think. And if I tried to explain it the rest of your life, you will never understand. You are 30 years older than I am. You and your whole lousy generation believes the way it was for you is the way it’s got to be. And not until your whole generation has lain down and died will the deadweight of you be off our backs! You understand? You’ve got to get off my back! Dad. Dad. You’re my father. I’m your son. I love you. I always have and I always will. But you think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man. Hmm? Now, I’ve got a decision to make, hmm? And I’ve got to make it alone. And I gotta make it in a hurry. So, would you go out there and see after my mother?”

 And there was this dialogue that Sena found on the web, which was similar to that of John Prentice. It was a YouTube fragment of a 60 minutes interview in 2005 between actor Morgan Freeman and Mike Wallace. Wallace asked Freeman what he thought about Black History Month. Freeman’s answer stunned a lot of people because he said he didn’t want Black History Month and said black history is American history. He said the way to get rid of racism was to simply stop talking about it. His replies to questions about racism implied he thought everyone should be color blind. John Prentice’s remarks to his father are in the same vein.

I grew up thinking of myself as a black person. I don’t think there was any part of my world that encouraged me to think I was anything different. I think Wilkerson’s book is saying that society can’t be colorblind, but that people can try to walk a mile in each other’s shoes.

Black History Month 2025 ASALH Theme

This is Black History Month and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) theme this year is African Americans & Labor.

When I look back on my youth, I think of my time learning on the job to be a survey crew technician and drafter for a consulting engineer company in Mason City, Iowa, Wallace Holland Kastler Schmitz & Co. (WHKS & Co.).

I was probably not the first black person to work for WHKS & Co. One other black person who was one of very few role models for African Americans was a guy named Al Martin, who I’ve posted about before.

My time there was in the 1970s and there were not many job opportunities open to minorities. I learned more than just the skills specific to the job. I learned that I could succeed in life, which was valuable later on. I developed the confidence to seek other opportunities which included going to medical school and becoming a physician.

Although racism was not absent at WHKS & Co., there was just enough open-mindedness to support my ambition to move forward in life despite the barriers to success in society that existed.

I think the ASALH theme for Black History Month in 2025 is vital to reflect on in the present day. People from all walks of life can relate to this.

Carter G. Woodson is considered the father of Black history and was the founder of Black History Month.

Just Got Isabel Wilkerson’s Book: “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents”

I just got a copy of Isabel Wilkerson’s book “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.” I read her other book, “The Warmth of Other Suns” years ago. It won a Pulitzer Prize.

I read the first section, “Toxins In The Permafrost And Heat Rising All Around.” It brought back memories of the 2016 Presidential Election, which I won’t discuss in any detail. It does seem ironic now.

I have no doubt that “Caste” will be an uncomfortable read, like Wilkerson’s first one and like Michele Norris’s book, “Our Hidden Conversations.”

Just a reminder, Isabel Wilkerson is scheduled to speak as part of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. events on February 5, 2025 at the University of Iowa Medical Education and Research Facility (MERF); Prem Sahai Auditorium. General admission is free although it’s a ticketed event, more information here.

Thoughts on the Mason City 1884 Civil War Statue

Sena and I got to talking about Central Park in Mason City, Iowa. I remember my brother, mother and I taking a walk there occasionally. One time we saw a man who lost his legs and who got around using a small platform on wheels. Later in life, I wondered if he was a disabled war veteran.

That reminded us of the 1884 Memorial Civil War Statue in the center of the park. We looked it up and found it has a complicated history. In the late 1990s it was under repair for about 3 years in Cincinnati, Ohio. When it was finally returned, it was noticed that it had not been repaired correctly. The city decided to keep it anyway, partly because some people, including a Civil War re-enactment supporter, thought the flaws were relatively minor.

Anyway, there are relief busts of famous persons on the statue. We could identify Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and a Civil War soldier. After a brief web search, we confirmed that the 4th relief bust was that of George Washington.

There are a couple of topics of interest here. One of them is the George Washington relief bust and the other is Civil War re-enactments.

The connection of the Civil War to George Washington is a little puzzling because he owned slaves. We’re aware he freed them upon his death. On the other hand, when we visited Washington D.C. in 2015, we took a tour of Mt. Vernon. It was a scenic boat trip out there. We took a picture at the dock with the dog of the guy who helped people on and off the boat. We also took pictures of the slave quarters. There were no re-enactment persons and we were told we were on our own when viewing those exhibits.

This also reminds me of the news item about a bill recently (on February 9, 2024)) introduced in the West Virginia legislature to remove the statue of former Senator Robert C. Byrd from the West Virginia State Capitol and replace it with 4 other statues: Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, Arthur I. Boreman, and George Washington. Nothing is mentioned in that news story about Senator Robert C. Byrd having been a leader in the Ku Klux Klan in the past, and filibustered against the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is from a news story posted on the web in 2020 under a link titled “time to remove monuments to senator byrd.”

Again, I struggle a bit with suggesting that a statue of George Washington, a former slave owner, would be an appropriate substitute for that of Senator Byrd. And James Madison, despite saying that slavery was incompatible with Revolutionary principle, owned slaves and made profits on their sale. Arthur I. Boreman is described as not being an abolitionist but a unionist. However, in 1865 he signed a legislative act banning slavery in the state of West Virginia.

Maybe a nice set of abstract sculptures for the corners of the rotunda of the West Virginia State Capitol?

Turning to Civil War re-enactments, I’m ambivalent about them. I remember reading a couple of anecdotes about re-enactments in the book “Our Hidden Conversations” by Michele Norris.

One of them was about black woman re-enactor who played the role of a house slave. This was in Chapter 4, “Coins in the Couch.” The six-word Race Card (p.160) said “Why Do You “Play” A Slave?”  Nicole is a slave interpreter. She makes sure that visitors to former plantation sites portray slavery accurately to tourists. She’s a public historian by training who works at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. She teaches tourists about the reality of chattel slavery, including the sale of relatives to other plantations and the ingenuity of enslaved men in improving farm implements.

The next anecdote about re-enactment in the book is in Chapter 10, “So, You Want to Talk About Lynching?” The six-word Race Card (p. 386) said “Confederate re-enactor chose intimidation as spoils.” A black man and his biracial but white looking friend were at a barbecue in Texas. Two big white guys dressed in Confederate-era uniforms were passing by and one of them placed his rifle on his knee and tried to stare down the black man. The black man stared back and this went on long enough for his friend to get nervous enough to suggest they just leave. Finally, the other re-enactor pulled the sleeve of the intimidator and they were the ones who finally left. Despite this episode, the black guy “…made a choice to accept people as I receive them.”

Apparently, there are regular Civil War re-enactments in Mason City. It looks like the most recent was from Sept 8, 2023-Sept 10, 2023. It was The Battle of Chickamauga, TN. It was held in East Park, where I used to play as a kid. Iowa soldiers in the Civil War fought on the Union side. However, I found out the battle of Chickamauga was won by the Confederates, and it had the second highest number of casualties after the Battle of Gettysburg. There was a battle demonstration and the camps were open all weekend to talk to the re-enactors. And there were food vendors.

There is a newer Mason City Veterans Monument in Central Park. It was built in 2004. It has 12 handsome black granite stones with room for the names of 4,600 veterans. We have seen pictures of it on the web. There are no relief busts.

“Our Hidden Conversations” is a Very Tough Book to Read

As I approach the end of the book “Our Hidden Conversations” by Michele Norris, I find myself doing what I often do when I feel uncomfortable emotionally. I start to deploy my sense of humor.

As a psychiatrist (now retired since 2020), I learned early in my residency training that humor can be thought of as a “mature” psychological defense.

Given the painful memories that the book evokes, I find that I self-edit my usual habit of turning pain into comedy. Maybe it’s not always mature.

On the other hand, there are times when facing what is nowadays called my “lived experience” about racism and identity in the era my wife and I grew up in, while not funny, can be peeked at most safely from the funny edge.

So, with that in mind I took a look at the web page of the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) which summarizes the organization’s position on white adoption of black children. I first read about it in Ms. Norris’s book, in the chapter “Black babies cost less to adopt.”

I was surprised to see the actual document, which has been posted since 2013. Sections of the position paper titled “Transracial Adoption Statement (c) 1972” are underlined. It expresses clearly an opposition to placing black and transracial adoptees with white parents. I might have missed it, but I don’t see another position statement that modifies it.

There are 30 state chapters of the NABSW. Iowa is not listed.

There is no National Association for White Social Workers. There is a website for the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). When I typed in “National Association of Black Social Workers” in the search field on the NASW website, almost 800 results were returned. When I applied the filter for ethnicity and race, there were 5 results attesting to the NASW efforts in countering racism. I didn’t see any mention of the NABSW. Maybe I just missed it.

I lived for a brief time in an African American foster home eons ago. I can’t think of anything funny to write about it. Has there ever been an opportunity for cross talk between the NASW and the NABSW? I’m not judging anyone here. I’m just asking.

Moving right along, I have again searched the web using the term “African American psychiatrists in Iowa.” I’ve posted about this before, looking at it from the funny edge (this allows me to take a deep breath). I still find my former colleague, Dr. Donald Black, MD listed. The only thing black about him is his name. And my 2019 blog post is the 3rd link down from the top, preceded by two from Psychology Today.

Most of the mental health care providers from the Psychology Today lists are Nurse Practitioners who are black. One of them does not look black. She looks white. She’s a psychiatrist. I’ve worked with her in the past and don’t recall her ever identifying as black. But because I’m reading the race card stories in “Our Hidden Conversations,” and because I’ve been around a little while, I’ve learned that some black people can look white. You can’t always judge a book by its cover.

A good black psychiatrist is hard to find. In fact, a black psychiatrist of any quality is hard to find. However, in general, there are notable black psychiatrists in our history. One of them was Chester Middlebrook Pierce, MD. Among his many accomplishments, he was the founding president of the Black Psychiatrists of America in 1969, which was one year after the NABSW was established. Dr. Pierce was also the president of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology in 1978. I didn’t learn about him until today. How is that possible?

There is a website for the Black Psychiatrists of America and you can try the search field to look for a black psychiatrist there. I couldn’t find any listed in Iowa. Most of them seem to be in Texas. I had a little trouble applying the search filters.

Those are my thoughts for now about “Our Hidden Conversations” by Michele Norris. This is not a funny book.

More Thoughts On “Our Hidden Conversations” Book by Michele Norris

I need to correct something I got wrong in my first post about Michele Norris’s Distinguished Lecture on January 23rd. While reading her book, “Our Hidden Conversations” I ran across this race card in the chapter “Black Babies Cost Less to Adopt:”

“Vote (for) Obama! He looks like me!”

That was the 8-year-old daughter said that. The person who sent in the card was her father, Dr. Val Sheffield and he was a medical student in Iowa at the time. Once you know that, you realize why he wondered whether he should have been “…happy or dismayed by this comment.”

Anyway, I’m a little over halfway through the book, “Our Hidden Conversations.”

The title of the chapter above, “Black Babies Cost Less to Adopt” is troubling and it has a lot to say about how it was common in the past to discount the cost of adopting black babies. Foster care of non-white kids was also a subject in the chapter. Identity conflicts are common and can lead to reminiscing about things like:

“I was not Black enough.”

“I was not Asian enough.”

“I was not Hispanic enough.”

What matters is being kind enough.

Preliminary Thoughts on “Our Hidden Conversations” Book

This is a short post about my initial impressions about the book, “Our Hidden Conversation” by Michele Norris.

I’m not finished with the book yet, but I thought I would let you know that the first chapter, “Bread Crumbs” was tough to read. I had to put it down and come back to it a few times because it brought back memories.

The chapter title “Bread Crumbs” means the clues that parents, grandparents, etc. might leave for subsequent generations to find which might shed light on one’s background, explain troubling circumstances, and so on.

I have some bread crumbs left to me by my family. Some are in the form of photos, although there is no family photo of all of us together.

I remember the hair combing routine my mom had with me and my brother every Sunday morning before church when we were kids. Our father was black and my mother was white. Dad was out of the home and we lived with mom. We were the only black kids in the church. In fact, all the members were white.

Mom used a prodigious amount of hair oil while vigorously combing our curly hair back. It took many strokes and the pulling pinched a bit. The ritual took a little while. When I look back on it, I guess the goal was to straighten our hair as much as possible.

Everyone in the church always treated us kindly and I was baptized there.

If you decide to read “Our Hidden Conversations,” give yourself a break whenever you feel like you need it.

Black History Month 2024 Theme is African Americans and the Arts

February is Black History Month and in 2024 the theme is African Americans and the Arts.

This reminds me of a blues artist I heard on KCCK on the Big Mo Blues Show last Friday. His name is Toronzo Cannon and his career as a blues guitarist and songwriter is skyrocketing. I heard his song “The Preacher, the Politician, and the Pimp.”

The lyrics reminded me of a character (or maybe more properly a non-character) called Rinehart in Ralph Ellison’s book, Invisible Man. I’m by no means an Ellison scholar but in chapter 23 the main narrator gets mistaken for a black guy named Rinehart who has many faces in the black community. He’s a preacher, a numbers runner, a pimp, and is also related to a political movement in the novel. Rinehart is all of them and none of them, moving between the “rind and heart” of who black people are in America. The implication is that the identity of black people is multifaceted and the similarity of the theme in Toronzo Cannon’s song is striking.

Cannon is also multifaceted. He’s a Blues guitar star and song writer and is also still a bus driver for the Chicago Transit Authority. How does he find time to do all that?

I wonder if Cannon got the idea for the song from Ellison’s novel. I guess I’ll never know.

This reminds me of an encounter I had with a black writer at Huston-Tillotson University (then Huston-Tillotson College, located in Austin, Texas) in the 1970s when I was an undergraduate in college. I’ve described this episode before in another post (“Black Psychiatrists in Iowa” 2019). The excerpt below includes a reference to a book review I wrote that was published in The American Journal of Psychiatry over 20 years ago:

“This reminds me of a book review I wrote for the American Journal of Psychiatry almost 20 years ago (Amos, J. (2000). Being Black in America Today: A multi perspective review of the problem. Am J Psychiatry, 157(5), 845-846.).”

The book was written by Norman Q Brill, M.D. It reminded me of my experience at Huston-Tillotson College (now Huston-Tillotson University, a private school, historically with largely Black enrollment) in Austin, Texas back in the 1970s. I wrote:

“Dr. Brill’s appraisal of many black leaders in chapters such as “Black Leaders in the Black Movement” and “Black Anti-Semitism” may be refreshingly frank in the opinion of some. He tailors his prose so as not to denounce openly those whom many would describe as demagogues. At the same time, it is apparent that his underlying message is that a substantial number of them are not only out of touch with mainstream black America but may even mislead black people into adopting ideological positions that impede rather than foster progress. Dr. Brill’s description of the issue reminded me of my own experience with this phenomenon as a freshman in the mid-1970s at a college of predominantly black enrollment in the southern United States. A guest lecturer (who, as I recall, had also written a book about being black in America) told us that the white man would never allow a black man to be a man in America. He had only three choices: he could be a clown, an athlete, or a noble savage. These corresponded to the prominent and often stereotyped roles that blacks typically held in entertainment, sports, and black churches.” 

I was taken aback by the speaker’s judgment and asked him what my choice should then be. He was equally taken aback, I suspect. He advised me to be a clown.

The lyrics of Cannon’s song “The Preacher, The Politician, and the Pimp,” Ellison’s Rinehart, and another writer’s characterization of the roles allowed in American society for black men all resonate together. What drives the similarity of this perception across different artistic platforms?

When I reflect on how I’ve negotiated my life’s path over they years, I guess I would have to admit that I’ve often played the clown. Anyone can see that in the way my sense of humor comes across. Is it the healthiest way to respond to racism in this country? In terms of the psychological defense mechanisms, I think it’s a relatively mature strategy. You could argue with that by asking, “But where’s the maturity in dad jokes?”

Hey, it worked for Dick Gregory:

“I’ve got to go up there as an individual first, a Negro second. I’ve got to be a colored funny man, not a funny colored man”—Dick Gregory.

Dick Gregory