Parable ofthe Witch Doctors
Witch doctors fromaround the world are in Oakland for the 40th anniversary of theAssociation of Black Psychologists at the Marriott. As in the case ofHarry Belafonte’s Gathering a few months ago, hardly anyone in Oaklandknows of the event. I was able to attend as a journalist for theOakland Post, even though I must be considered a lay psychologist withthe publication of my manual for a Pan African Mental Health PeerGroup: How to Recover from the Addiction to White Supremacy. I amtruly horrified that as an artist I was compelled to write a manualon Pan African Psychology when we have an association of 1,500Afro-centric psychologists. But it was declared by one of the youngTurks on a panel that not only are we a “fucked up people,” but ourso-called healers write in a language the people cannot understand.And it is not only the academic gobbledygook but add in a fair measureof Yoruba, Fon, Bantu and Swahili. This psycholinguistic crisis onlyadds to the trauma and the treatment thereof when said psychologistsattempt to address the myriad problems of their community or family asthey prefer to designate our people.
But the academicgobbledygook is what is required for acceptance in the circle ofEurocentric psychology of which most of our African psychologists arebeholden for paychecks and academic proficiency. I asked one Africanpsychologist doesn’t this make you schizophrenic? No, he said, it makesus culturally diverse. But he was bullshitting and in denial as arethe entire group except the Young Turks who see through the bullshitand are attempting to face the cold reality that we are “a fucked uppeople..” Stop talking about our glorious past, about the glories ofKing Tut—we won’t be able to match the accomplishments of King Tut inten thousand years! See my poem King Tut Was A Black Nigguh.
BeforeI go forward on the negative, let me state the positive of theAssociation of Black Psychologists. The stress on psychology as trulyand essentially dealing with the soul or Spirit is solid. And this iswhat distinguishes the African healers from the Europeans who refuse todeal holistically with the human and his essential spirituality.
Butthe young Turk or was it the elder Na’im Akbar who asked the questionare we to be remembered for getting paid or receiving the love of ourpeople for doing the needed work toward their salvation?
Thetopic of one session was black fathers. Black males do notautomatically enter the realm of black manhood. How does a fatheradvance from male to manhood. Take responsibility for the youngwarriors he has sired. Guide and teach them, otherwise known asmanhood training. Take them to the jungle and confront them withterrible creatures who will defile them, frighten them and abuse theminto manhood. These terrible creatures with masks will help them learnthe ways of the tribe, how to have sex with young girls withoutcuming inside them, but they will learn how to discipline themselvesso they do not impregnate. The young men will go into the jungle tolearn how to kill the lion and bring him back on their backs. Theywill learn how to build a house without nails, as in the Yorubatradition of manhood training.
They will gain knowledge of angermanagement and knowledge that women are not chattel property as in theWestern patriarchal tradition. They will learn how to understand thefeminine principle, the yen and yang of life, the sun and moonconcept, how to combine the Sky god with the Earth Mother concept,thus they will become full blooded men with wisdom of fatherhood andmotherhood.
Dr. Lionel Mandy, a student of mine througbiblo-therapy--he's studied my writings since the 1960’s, said wecannot consider the father without the mother, the relatives, thecommunity, in other words, a holistic approach to fatherhood. Thefather is thus not an isolated phenomenon but part of a social unitthat cannot be separated.
The session on African TraditionalHealers had persons leaving with desire for a strong drink, as thesession was a head twister. One departed the auditorium wondering howwe will ever heal when the doctors are themselves in urgent need ofhealing, caught in a matrix of Afrocentrism and Eurocentrism otherwiseknown as psychotherapy.
The Association of Black Psychologistsconvened an international panel of healers to address the topic of howwe can use traditional healing methods to restore the mental health ofour community. Of course psychotherapy must be abandoned because it isnot holistic and thus cannot heal the myriad issues of black mentalhealth which transcend the personal to the communal, the economic, thephysical, the political, the social relations that have severed causingthe black nation in North America to avoid eye contact, to subsist ongarbage food prolonging the agony of fear and the ever present traumaof life in a hostile society.
Facilitator Dr. Wade Nobles saidthe paradigm was to seek recovery, rather than a shift. The firstslavery is gone but the second slavery has arrived, it being caused bythe end of labor as we know it in the age of high technology, alongwith slave wages. Thus the idea of white supremacy is to confine theAfrican population, no matter if such confinement is at San Quentinprison or Stanford University, at which one can receive an excellentwhite supremacy education, permitting our children to come home hatingus and everything we’re about, when they don’t understand what it isthat we're about, as Amiri Baraka has noted. Thus they sufferimprisonment of the mind, the spirit--mis-education, in short.
Spiritwas the locus of discussion with the African traditional healers.
Noblesasked them how was it possible for us to be in tune with theancestors, the gods, the living and the yet unborn, yet find ourselvesvictims of the holocaust?
The African healers, Oulimata Dioup ofSenegal , Kia Museki of Kongo, said many things that were true butnever answered the question. And the North American African healersfared no better. They suggested lack of humility or what we in dramacall the tragic flaw of pride or hubris as a factor in our fall...
OneSister psychologist suggested we were victims of the cycle of history,which sounded like the Sisyphus syndrome DuBois and Baraka havedescribed as the knot we’ve been caught in. Healer Museki of Kongoillustrated with a rope how we tied the knot around ourselves, and hesaid we were caught in external knots as well, such as slavery andcolonialism. He said it will not be until we reintegrate with the seedof a seed from a seed until we reach harmony with that first seed ofseven million years ago that we will be healed. The knowledge isoutside of us, but we are living computers who have the power to storedata. The Kongo healer noted we are a sick people; even with one, two,and three PhD’s some of us possess, but we have the power if we pluginto the seed of the seed from the seed
As I said, none of theabove answered Nobles’ question. He became very frustrated and agitatedwith his panelists, even claimed that the Yoruba god of thunder,Shango, was in the house. At this point Nobles should have turned tothe audience for answers—when the leaders don’t know, why not turn tothe people, why persist in an inordinancy of ignorance. To continuequestioning the panel for answers only revealed the lack of humility orarrogance that caused us to fall.
The discussion changed to theneed for ritual. At this point I became agitated, frustrated with thepanel, and I learned many in the audience felt the same. Yes, there is aneed for healing rituals. The African healers mentioned rituals thatare done to heal community, which was Nobles’ desire, to find ways toheal community, not individuals.
But rituals begin with myth orthe story. And when it comes to our myth, our story, our narrative, wemust turn to our mythologists, our indigenous healers, but no, thearrogant North American African, as Dr. Hare notes, is persistentlyseeking answers from other worlds, anywhere but here, thus we seek theAfrican Healers who obviously cannot heal Africa, or the Arab Muslimimams who can do nothing to liberate Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Sudan,Palestine, Jordan, or the Gulf states.
I found it interestingwhen the sister psychologist mentioned cycles of history. ElijahMuhammad, in his mythology, told us history was written everytwenty-five thousand years. Isn’t it strange the white man in thedocumentary Zeit Geist mentions the twenty-five thousand year cycle ofhistory we’re in? Elijah told you about a mother ship with dimensions ahalf mile by a half mile, yet you called it poppycock. But when whitepeople claimed they saw a space ship with the same dimensions you acceptit. Elijah told you the myth of Yacoub and how he geneticallyengineered the white man, you said he was a racist nut. But when thewhite man speaks of cloning a man you are fascinated.
Elijahsaid you are the manifestation of the living God, but you rejected this.But when Ernest Holmes tells you in Science of Mind you are God, youknock down the Science of Mind church doors. This behavior reveals yourabsolute and total addiction to white supremacy. Yes, you are victimsof white witchcraft, sometimes in black face.
--Dr. M/Marvin X
8/3/08
www.parablesandfablesofmarvinx.blogspot.com
https://theblacklist.net/
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