By Dr. Thomas Parham
I write on behalf of the national Association of Black Psychologists, Inc. (ABPsi), our President Dr. Donell Barnett, our Board of Directors, past presidents, and Council of Elders to strongly condemn and express profound disappointment and outrage at the latest Supreme Court decision striking down affirmative action initiatives at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. This latest profanation and distortion in interpreting the U.S. Constitution represents a vicious assault on the civil rights progress of the past, and a betrayal of the blanket of protection the court is supposed to provide in addressing the inequities of the “poor, tired, and huddled masses that yearn to breathe free.”
The community of African-centered psychology is often at the center of Black life and culture. And as we come to understand that culture invites us to interrogate key elements, including the nature of reality, we endeavor to comment on the realities of life for Black people in the wake of the latest Supreme Court decisions, particularly on affirmative action.
We author this commentary in the wake of a 2023 post-July 4th celebration where communities all across this nation celebrated our Declaration of Independence, signaling so-called freedom from the tyranny, oppression, and unfair policies and practices that had the founders of this nation seeking to create a new world, new government, and a more fair and just legal system.
As a nation, we delude ourselves into believing that genuine freedom and equality exist everywhere in this country, and it is our opinion that the intellectual hallucination of equality is reinforced by selectively attending to pockets of progress while blatantly ignoring the discrimination, bias, and social misery that is so pervasive across this nation.
In July of 1852, some one hundred and seventy-one years ago, Frederick Douglas delivered his famous speech on the meaning of the July Fourth celebration for the slave and people of African descent. In his address, beyond describing the event as “human mockery and sacrilegious irony”, he answered the query and asserted that for him, it represented “a day that reveals, more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is a constant victim.”
In reading his commentary, I recall him describing the July 4th celebration and using words and phrases like: a sham; an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity, empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality hollow mockery; as well as hypocrisy; a thin veil to cover up crimes that would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on all the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States.”
As if Douglass’ words and oration were catapulted into this contemporary time and space, the Association of Black Psychologists emerge from this annual Independence Day festivities shaken by the realities of this latest SCOTUS affirmative action decision and are compelled to view this latest assault on diversity in higher education with a similar lens. This assault is not restricted to legal precedent and public policy alone, for indeed, it represents an act of aggression against the psyche of Black people whose very identity, sense of agency, and posture they assume in engaging both private and social institutions are influenced by an environmental and social context of how welcomed, safe, and affirmed they feel.
The SCOTUS decision on affirmative action does nothing to engender faith or trust in this court whose political biases and bigotry are profoundly incongruent with symbols representing scales of justice and equality.
We call on our nation’s executive branch, other federal agencies, state legislatures, community groups, faith-based institutions, and citizens across this nation to avoid allowing the latest SCOTUS decision to vanquish our thirst for authentic justice and equality in institutions of higher education, the workplace, corporations & corporate board rooms, the criminal justice system, and K-12 schools. Fulfilling the legacy of our elders and Ancestors does not allow us to feel “no ways tired”.
We will use this latest setback as the impetus for continued struggle and perseverance in the face of adversity, and endeavor to propose and create meaningful and substantive programmatic initiatives that better prepare youth and adults in our community for the challenges that lay ahead in traversing the landscape of opportunity and success.
Lastly, we will remind the community of African descent people and our allies, that the teaching, scholarship, training, therapeutic interventions, organizational consulting, and other narratives we deploy will continue to reinforce the fact that in the first place, “we should not be seeking validation from those who oppress us.”
Dr. Thomas A Parham is a Past President & Distinguished Psychologist of the Association of Black Psychologists and President of California State University Dominguez Hills
