Black Psychology and the African Renaissance: A Report from the World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures

By Wade Nobles and Vera Nobles, Oakland, CA

At the invitation of President Abdoulaye Wade of the Republic of Senegal, we attended the World Festival of Black Arts and Cultures’ largest global gathering of Black artists, writers, journalists, filmmakers, intellectuals, scientists, civil rights leaders, elected officials and youth leaders (including a delegation of prominent African American personalities from the United States) in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa, from December 10-17,  2010.

His Excellency, President Abdoulaye Wade, opened the Festival with a vision for the African Renaissance which included : (1) a United States of Africa by 2017; (2) that the Diaspora be recognized as the sixth region of the African Union; and (3) that Africans from the Diaspora have unfettered access to every African nation in the United States of Africa.

The opening ceremony rivaled the best that China could present.  A special reception was held for the U.S Delegation--and the Haitian students and families--at the Monument to the African Renaissance (53 meters high). Surpassing, in height, the Christ Redeemer (38 meters high) in Brazil and the Statue of Liberty (46 meters high in New York, the Monument to the African Renaissanceis a 164 ft bronze statue rising atop a 100-metre volcano looking out over the Atlantic Ocean (toward the African Diaspora) on the edge of the African continent. With the strength and integrity of the Black man holding on to the Black woman and raising up the Black child, the Monument of the African Renaissance immortalizes the Black family as the foundation for the renewal and restoration of the African world.

By far the largest delegation, the US delegation (120 members) included: Members of the National Black Caucus of State Legislators; Dr. Sheila Walker, U.S.A, Afrodiaspora, Inc.; Richard Gant (actor and film maker) and family; David Haley, Kansas State Senator (nephew of Alex Haley); Runoko Rashidi, African Genesis Institute; representatives from the National Conference of Black Mayors; Drs. Rosalind and Leonard Jeffries, ;Dr. Ruth Love ; Dr. Ron Daniels, Institute for the Black World, 21st Century; Dr. Joyce King (Benjamin Mays Endowed Chair), Georgia State University; National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education; Dr. Hassimi Maiga; Dr. Mario Beatty, Chicago State University; representatives from the National Basketball Association (NBA); Frederic M. N. Bertley, Franklin Institute; representatives from the National Association of Black Journalists; Melvin Foote, CEO, Constituency for Africa; and Elsie Scott, President of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

As part of the official United States Special Delegation, we (the co-authors) participated and presented in major Symposia on “Africa’s Place in Current Global Affairs. ”  Vera presented at round table on the role of Culture in the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015, with the response to HIV/AIDS as entry point. Her remarks were entitled, Spoken Medicine: HIV/AIDS and 4-stage Glioblastoma (Brain Cancer)--Key to Prevention and Intervention. I presented at Permanence de la résistance des peuples noirs : Session I : Les lectures pluriells des résistance des peuples noirs. My paper was entitled, “Shattered Consciousness and Fractured Identity: The World-wide Memetic Conversion of the African Mind,” sub-title: Black Psychology and the African Renaissance.

The following are our joint recommendations and proposed initial follow-up activities to be included in the report that President Wade will present to the African Union Summit at the end of January in
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

“Shattered Consciousness and Fractured Identity: The World-wide Memetic Conversion of the African Mind”

Black Psychology and the African Renaissance

By Dr. Wade W. Nobles, ABPsi Past President, Oakland, CA

The mental liberation of African people worldwide, is dependent on our ability to assist in the re-conceptualization and reconstruction of African reality—independent of Eurocentric and White supremacist conceptualizations. Therefore, an African understanding of what it means to be human must be the starting point of any discussion of an African Renaissance.

The repair of the shattered African consciousness and fractured Black Identity requires a well-constructed multi-level (Local, State, National, Global) campaign to articulate what it means to be African. Focusing on the essentiality, expression, and experience of being African in the “ideational space” and “intellectual atmosphere” of a world infected with negating and nullifying ideas and beliefs about being African, the “To Be African – We Are Family Campaign” should set as its unifying goal the redemption, advancement and empowerment of being African everywhere.

With the sub-theme of “We are Family,” this campaign should explore the essentiality, expression and experience of being African in the context of all geo-political realities; i.e., the USA, South America, Europe, the West Indies, etc. Every informational instrument and/or communication outlet (media outlets, educational systems, religious groups fraternal/sorority orders, business and private practices, and legal structures) that disseminate ideas, information, symbols, signs, sounds and beliefs should be recognized as capable of altering the beliefs and behaviors of African people.

It is, therefore, recommended that the African Renaissance be guided by an international  “To be African –We are Family Campaign.”

One imperative in Black psychology has been the recognition of the damaging impact of colonialism and chattel slavery on the African mind, identity and consciousness (Nobles, 2006, 2007). For well over thirty-five years, many African American psychologists have devoted their careers to developing Black psychological theory, therapy and practice to address the needs of people of African ancestry. Black Psychology, as such, is grounded in the special cultural and philosophical fabric that defines the humanity of African people.

Black Psychology assumes that people of African ancestry share a unique reality which is based on a common “essentiality of being,” similar cultural beliefs and practices, and concrete historical experiences.  Black psychology is, therefore, the self-conscious “centering” of psychological analyses and applications in African realities, cultures, and epistemologies. It is grounded in, and an application of, African deep thought and wisdom traditions. The restoration (suruja ta) of the African psyche in Africa and throughout the Diaspora is fundamental to the success of the African renaissance. To do anything less in the language of the Wolof, would be “DA Fa Shair” (Too high)

Accordingly, it is recognized that Black Psychology is the critical discipline missing from the discourse on Africa’s renaissance and development. Black psychology, as a system of thought and action, examines the processes that allow for the illumination and liberation of the African spirit. Black Psychology is culturally congruent with the humanity of African people; and since a people’s culture anchors them to reality, Black Psychology should be a starting point for all recovery, restoration, and understanding of both continental and diasporan Africans.

It is, therefore, recommended that the discipline of Black psychology serve as a key praxis in the restoration of the African mind, identity and consciousness.

Summary Recommendation

The African Renaissance be guided by an international  “To be African –We are Family Campaign.”

The discipline of Black psychology is central to the restoration of the African mind, identity and consciousness.

Connect traditional African healing techniques with modern medicine and the best of any other healing traditions.

Explore the utilization and adoption of the Healer Women fighting Disease Model which uses the technique of re-Africanizing as a prevention model for HIV prevention and the achievement of the HIV/AIDS Millennium Goal.

Proposed Follow Up Activity

The Association of Black Psychologists should partner with our professional colleagues throughout Africa to engage in the development and advancement of an African Psychology (grounded in African philosophy and wisdom traditions in order to liberate the African mind) to design and implement African centered mental health programming for both Continental and Diasporan African people.

As Executive Director of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life and Culture, Inc., I will assign the Institute’s Scholar in Residents to identify and partner with African traditional healers and African centered healing practitioners to design, implement and evaluate programs for utilizing traditional African healing in combination with the best of Western and other healing traditions.

With the approval of the Board of Directors of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Black Family Life and Culture, Inc., we will develop and deploy a technical design team to establish, throughout Africa, “Family Life and Culture” field sites capable of conducting on-going in-vivo African Centered research, health and healing services.

The Fulfillment of Ancestral Possibility and Divine Destiny

The implication this moment in time has for The Association of Black Psychologists, especially our students and new career professionals, is almost unimaginable. The ABPsi--and the discipline of Black Psychology that we have created--are being recognized as essential to the healing of the perpetual damage resulting from a world made toxic by colonialism, slavery and dehumanization. As evidenced by the call of Haiti and Katrina and the unrelenting psychic and physical assault, trauma and tragedy in Black communities throughout the world, the restoration and rebirthing of the African family and psyche to health and wholeness may very well depend on what we, The Association of Black Psychologists, offer to the world. Black Psychology, grounded in African philosophy and wisdom traditions from the Continent and the Diaspora, can heal the world. This is what we have been made for. This is what we came from heaven to do. This is our time. We are the fulfillment of Ancestral Possibility and Divine Destiny.

References

Nobles, Wade W. (2006). Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational Writings for an African Psychology.  Chicago:  Third World Press.

Nobles, Wade W.  (2007).  “Shattered Consciousness & Fractured Identity: The Lingering Psychological Effects of the Transatlantic Slave Trade Experience”, Final Report. Chicago, IL:  The Illinois Transatlantic Slave Trade Commission.

Nobles, Wade W. (2009) The African Sense of Being: Reclaiming Humanity for Us All, Unpublished Manuscript, Oakland, Ca.

Nobles, W.W. , Lawford L. Goddard & Dorie J. Gilbert.  (2009).  “Culturecology, Women, and African-Centered HIV-Aids Prevention” Journal of Black Psychology

, 35(2), 228-246.

Spoken Medicine: HIV/AIDS and 4-stage Glioblastoma (Brain Cancer):  Key to Prevention and Intervention

By Dr. Vera L. Nobles, Oakland, CA

Standing on own Cultural Ground in Healing and HIV Prevention

“The fundamental task and challenge of the African centered scholar/intellectual is to defend and promote the interest and image of Africa and Africa’s children by understanding the past, present and future of our human story through the Africanization of the epistemological, terminological, aesthetic and hermeneutical groundings of the scientific, artistic and investigative discourse” (Nobles, 2009). Likewise, both healing and HIV/AIDS prevention require us to simultaneously understand the past, present and future of Africa and Africa’s children and ground the healing, therapeutic process and rehabilitative discourse in an African episteme and praxis.

In our cultural tradition, to heal is to regenerate the body’s energy (spirit). We have used different techniques to do this: (1) Nature The earth (futu) has the ability to heal through the nkisi which are the healing plants (in other words the Earth’s pharmacology); (2) Traditional rituals; (3) Collective action (family reunions, dancing, singing, picnics, carnivals, prayer circles, parades; and (4) Spoken medicine which usesNommo the power of the spoken word. Today, we must stand on our own cultural ground to achieve total health and healing if we are to experience a restoration of wholeness.

The Healer Women Fighting Disease Integrated Substance Abuse and HIV Prevention Program

Health disparities in the African American community have been recognized in every Surgeon General’s report since 1985. The disparity found in HIV/AIDS is monumental. Since 1995 more African Americans were reported with HIV/AIDS than any other racial/ethnic group. Although African Americans represent only 13% of the national population, they represent more than 50% of the new cases reported.

The Healer Women Fighting Disease Integrated Substance Abuse and HIV Prevention Program research demonstrated significant changes in behavior among African American women that could lead to reduction in HIV/AIDS rates (Nobles, Goddard & Gilbert, 2009).  The Healer Women group experienced “Re-Africanizing” (a shift or change in their personality attributes and behavioral dispositions). The research clearly suggests that in regards to utilizing an African Centered Behavioral Change HIV/STD Prevention model, the state of  “character refinement”, “cognitive restructuring” and “cultural realignment” for African American women at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS reflected a “standing on new cultural grounding” (different “mode of being”) at the end of the prevention experience.

Standing on our own cultural ground can never be overstated. To do less is to turn our backs on our ancestors.  We need their support. I have had the honor of personally knowing, working and studying with an Nganga from the Kongo, a Babalawo from Nigeria, an Okomfo from Ghana, an Ndepp from Senegal, and a Sangoma from South Africa. Europeans are draining our Holy ones of the information that we need for our renaissance. Unfortunately, we call the work of the Holy ones old fashioned and witchcraft.  They and their gifts from God need our support and protection.

It is, therefore, recommended that as part of the African Renaissance, we systematically link or connect traditional African healing techniques with modern medicine and the best of any other healing traditions.  HIV/AIDS prevention programs in Africa should explore the Healer Women fighting Disease Model which uses the technique of re-Africanizing as a prevention model for HIV prevention and the achievement of the HIV/AIDS Millennium Goal. I also recommend to the commission that as part of the African Renaissance, we link or connect traditional African healing techniques with modern medicine and the best of any other healing traditions.