Racist States of Mind: Understanding the Perversion of Curiosity and Concern

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Racism is a treacherous phenomenon with many faces that allow it a remarkable capacity to co-exist with support for ethnic and cultural diversity. In both its subtle and virulent forms, racist states of mind reveal a bewildering mix of anxieties, feelings and fantasies about the real complexities of life and living that a recognition of difference and diversity can potentially bring forth. These are often expressed in a nostalgic gaze that is infused with a toxic interplay of grievance, murderous rage, and vengeful feelings and fantasies that have resulted from a real or imagined narcissistic injury to the self, group, or nation.

In a racist state of mind grief and mourning for such losses are replaced by manic omnipotent states which aim to triumph over feelings of powerlessness through an inflated sense of self that claims superiority over others who are made to become the bearers of inadequacy or inferiority. The compensatory excitements of hatred, cruelty, and violence can lead to a collapse of a triangular mental space that damages the capacity for curiosity and concern for others. The tragic consequences of this psychic assault is a rupture at the very core of identity and the self which aims to thwart the desires and emotional freedom of others.

In this book the author explores the quality of thinking in racist states of mind and suggests that the fantasy dramas of the primal scene provide an essential framework in which racial and racist fantasies exist as deep structures of thought and feeling. These are intrinsic to psychic life and functioning, universally present in contemporary culture as well as the consulting room where they constitute the passions of the transference. The author explores the predicaments and challenges of engaging with these states of mind in the consulting room, group, organisational, and societal life.

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"Black Psychoanalysts Speak" a film about race, culture, class and the unrealized promise of psychoanalysis

The film features interviews of the eleven Black psychoanalysts who participated in the conferences as well as two other participants. The film is intended to raise awareness of the need for greater openness and understanding of cultural and ethnic pressures in psychoanalytic training, in transferential and countertransferential interactions, and in the recruitment of people of coulour into psychoanalytic training.

These participants contend that psychoanalysis has a long history as a progressive movement devoted to the common good. Psychoanalysis asks us to examine the processes of self deception that perpetuate both individual unhappiness and social structures that are inequitable and oppressive. Yet psychoanalytic education has for the most part focused on training and treating the relatively privileged. The Black psychoanalysts here examine this dilemma and engage in a vibrant and thought provoking discussion about race, culture, class and the unrealized promise of psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing (PEP Web) has made an important film available without subscription on their website.

Watch Black Psychoanalysts Speak online here.

KIRKLAND VAUGHANS: I had an analyst who was exceptionally bright, exceptionally on. But when it came to the issue of race, he was thoroughly blocked. He said to me in his career, he had only treated one Negro. That was his word-- one Negro, which I smiled. He told me, he said, the treatment didn't go well, because all the guy wanted to do was talk about race. I couldn't get him off race, OK? I smiled again.

KATHLEEN WHITE: One of my teachers was one of those old white guys who could not hear the word "race." He used to take his cane and beat the table.

ANNIE LEE JONES: There has been near violent reactions to the things I say about the way racism, culture, and economic inequality affects my life and my work with my patients. I presented in London at the Freud museums, and I talked about race. One psychiatrist grabbed me by my arm and wouldn't let me go up this steps.