Conclusion of a two-part story
“‘Race,”as we currently carry such a notion in our head, is a myth, a fiction, or a stage of false consciousness,” Professor Mahmoud El-Kati writes in “The Myth of Race: The Reality of Racism.” Over 20 years ago, the Cultural Wellness Center (CWC) created teachings to deconstruct the myth of race and form a new definition of self. In the second of this two-part story, the focus is psychology.
When Minkara Tezet came to the Cultural Wellness Center 11 years ago, he was in a “state of internalized rage.” For years this rage festered in reaction to feeling attacked.
“You walk out the door with me one day, and you see what happens when I leave my home,” he says. “How people treat me in the grocery store… I’m not crazy, it’s happening.”
Psychosis? No: the experiences of a Black man living in a racist society.
He saw this attack subtly in college, learning nothing of leading Black thinkers on psychology, his chosen field of study. It sent a message he refused to accept that there was no significant body of knowledge among Blacks on mental health.
He discovered Wade Nobles and Na’im Akbar while writing his graduate thesis. “I had to study them on my own as a result of trying to understand ‘How do Black people talk to their people in therapy about race?’”
At CWC, his answers came from first studying himself: “I like thinking about thinking,” he says, which may have been what drew him to psychology. “I like thinking about what we think about… As I discover that part of myself, what I realize is this is my contribution to our effort.”
He also discovered different types of intelligence: the mind, which is valued as intelligence in the U.S; the gut, or instinct; and the heart. “You aren’t taught that your heart has intelligence in this society,” Tezet explains. “You’re taught that your heart is a liability.
“In an African context, the heart is the seat of intelligence,” he continues. “It is the soul of man. It’s where the creator dwells.”
Racialization is a part of a philosophy of objectification. It assigns material values to almost everything. Tezet explains, “It’s not just about racism; it’s really about resources — humans, animals, the trees — all of the resources that exist on the planet. They are objectified in a way that has turned humanity against its home.”
Identifying with his culture rather than his race allowed him to rise above victimization. Abandoning the rage, he gained a sense of power.
“I realized what I could do is fully embrace my Africanness,” he says. “I could fully embrace a Black man with a higher intellect. Not in an egoic sense…but to a higher intellect that allows me to say that my heart’s intelligence will trump any kind of objective intelligence that I can face in this society.”
In his role as griot of psychology at CWC, Tezet works to help others gain a better understanding of their cultural identity. “As Black people, what are the things that are underneath our current existence that have allowed us not only to survive but [to] have a life that our ancestors might not have been able to imagine?”
Preparing our children
Each year in the U.S., the “educational gap” records the struggle of children of color in the educational system. Racism makes navigating the system difficult for them without preparation.
“You educate [people] in a way that says you got to listen to the person who knows the best,” Tezet says of this system. “And we’ll tell you who knows best by how we promote their books, how we promote their thinking.”
How do parents prepare their child for success in this environment? “Create space at home around our rituals and our ceremonies that allow [them] to see the fullness of who [they] are.
“The job of a parent is to teach a child their gifts,” he says. “My curiosity about the things that [my child can] do, that I’m amazed at [their] ability to do at such a young age, I want to focus on that.”
The educational gap is evidence that schools are not meeting the educational needs of children of color. “I want my children to know that the reason they are [successful] in their class is because of what we have at home.”
When African American children are confident in the classroom, they excel. Their contribution to classroom discussion can provide more nuance to the instruction. “That’s a part of education that I don’t think is lifted up,” Tezet says.
Ending victimization
Studying culture considers the journey of Africans in this country. “We created tools. We created machines. We created everything this society needs to get its foot off our back,” Tezet explains. “And it never gets acknowledged.”
As victims of racism, African Americans await acknowledgment of discrimination. Yet a presidential executive order ends DEI and rebukes “wokeness.”
“We can’t do it by racialization, because it just makes me angry to think about what you’ve done to my people,” says Tezet. So, waking those moving within a supremacist system from their slumber by acknowledging racism is not a priority.
“My job is to become conscious of who I am, what my mother and my father gave me.
[I] think about what the creator has endowed in me in order to free myself and my people.”