In his “Ten Reasons Why Reparations For Blacks Is A Bad Idea For Blacks And Racists, Too” David Horowitz (2001), among other things, said that black poverty is not only accounted for by race. He asked: “Does its (prosperous middle class blacks) existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than lingering after effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago?”

Mr. Horowitz went on to suggest that one of the reasons there is still lingering poverty in the black community is: “because some blacks can’t seem to locate the ladder of opportunity within reach of others- many less privileged than themselves.”

Clearly, Mr. Horowitz believes that to the extent that there is still poverty in black America that race is probably not the sole reason for its existence; he seems to believe that character is probably the main reason for it. Well, is he correct or is he not?

Many sociologically oriented persons probably would disagree with Horowitz and, instead, point out the many obstacles still on the path of black folks in America . They will point out that racism is well and alive in America and cite numerous instances of its existence. But are these sociologists correct?

There is no doubt that there are substantial numbers of persons in the black underclass. All you have to do is visit the inner city of America ’s big cities and witness unbelievable poverty in the land of plenty. Not long ago, I was in South East Washington DC. The people looked like they were living in an impoverished African country rather than in the capital city of the richest country in the world. These people looked dirt poor and I asked myself: am I in America or am I sleeping and dreaming that I am somewhere else? I had to pinch myself to make sure that I was not sleeping-dreaming and that I am in America .

Simply stated, there is poverty in black America ; the question is: what accounts for it?

Sociology tends to describe what exists in the empirical world. To the extent that sociology provides causal factors for the situation it describes it is to attribute them to the dynamics of the environment. The sociological construct of reality is that we are all determined by society, that the individual is a product of social forces that are largely beyond his control. If the individual turns out okay he is seen as the product of propitious social forces, such as good family, good economy, in short positive external influences made him who he is. Conversely, if the individual is poor he is seen as the product of external factors, such as dysfunctional family, racism etc. It is always the external that shaped the internal.

Sociology can be pretty much summed up thus: the individual is a product of others behaviors.

No one with eyes to see can deny the fact that human beings are influenced by their external environment. If, for example, a society provides all children with free elementary and secondary education the chances are that the average individual would go to school. If, on the other hand, a society does not provide free education to all children, and education is paid for, the chances are that only a few, the children of those who can pay for it, would go to school.

In yesteryears Europe , education was the preserve of the well to do and the poor were not educated. Thus, it came to pass that the rich looked down on the poor and thought that they were naturally unintelligent.

Those same poor Europeans came to America and their children were provided with free elementary and secondary education and they turned out as good as the children of the upper classes of Europe .

In other words, it was not nature that made the European poor seem shiftless but lack of access to avenues to improve themselves. The conditions of the environment affect the individual’s life chances. In this light, the peculiar institution of America , racism and discrimination are deemed responsible for the existence of the black underclass.

The human personality can be shown a product of the past environments of human beings. Thus, even if we allow that genes determined the individual’s personality, we can demonstrate that his genes were produced by his past environment, from his ancestors’ struggles to adapt to changes in their environment. That is to say that, ultimately, the environment determines whatever each of us does.

Within the overarching influences of the environment, physical and social, the individual’s personality makes some difference in what he gets out of life. There are personalities that seem maladaptive and simply unable to relate well to other people. Such persons are not likely to get far in life.

Of course, how far the individual goes is limited by the society he finds himself. In America , at least, until recently, blacks could not realistically aim for certain positions in their society. Certain positions in the polity were deemed off the playing fields for African Americans.

Fifty years ago, an African American that wanted to become the president of America would be considered living in fantasy land, if not deluded. In fact, he would be considered psychotic for believing that what is not possible could be possible for him.

Be that truth as it may, it seems to me that the individual’s personality, though a product of his past environment, affects how far he gets in this life time. If the individual has a personality that is unable to get along with other people, his life chances are severely limited by that personality. Therefore, for such a person to get along in his world he has to improve his personality.

Whereas, the entirety of personality cannot be changed, since aspects of it is determined by the individual’s biological heritage, some aspects of it can be changed. If the individual learns acceptable social skills and gets along with other people, goes to school and acquires relevant skills demanded by his economy that he has aptitude in, his chances of overcoming poverty would be increased.

I am saying that poverty has a lot to do with the individual’s personality and improvement of his personality improves his life’s chances of overcoming poverty.

Many members of the black underclass seem to have problematic personalities. If they improve their personalities they will be better served in the American economy.

Since improvement of the individual’s personality, I think, is correlated with better adaptation to his environment, I will briefly define personality and is disorders. I suggest that those with problematic personalities improve them. I am not suggesting that they go to psychotherapists for help; I am suggesting that they form self help groups and or attend classes where they learn about their personalities and how to improve them.

PERSONALITY

The term personality is derived from persona, Latin for mask. The assumption is that personality is a mask, and not the real self. Personality is supposed to be a learned pattern of responding to society and its demands on the individual, a pattern that may not include all there is to the individual, just as the actor is more than the roles he plays in a play. Jung, who coined the term personality, believes that beneath the mask of personality is another self, possibly a spirit. Jung had no proof for his hypothesis that personality is the false self and that the real self, the self beneath the mask of personality is a spirit self.

Let us just say that each of us has a persona, a mask and that beneath it may be more to him, what that more is I do not know and at present not inclined to speculate on. Speculation is not facts; in this paper, I will restrict myself to self evident facts.

Personality is the individual’s habitual pattern of thinking and behaving, his observable and predictable pattern of responding to stimuli emanating from his environment (physical and social).

Each of us has a habitual pattern of relating to other people and to his world in general. Whereas all human beings are in many ways alike they are each unique. All human beings inherited the same compendium of human genes hence are alike; all human beings behave alike, which is what makes them human beings, those who are alike. But within our general sameness are variations both in our genetic structures and in our behaviors. Each of us inherited a different set of the same human genes and each of us while behaving as all human beings do has a slight variation to the generalized human behavior pattern. The specific manner that each of us thinks and behaves is his personality.

PERSONALITY DISORDERS

Generally, most human beings have normal personalities. Normalcy is derived from the term norm. Norm is how a group of people do things that enable them adapt to their world. To be normal is to conform to ones group’s norms, to behave as the group’s norms, the group’s culture expects one to behave.

Culture is that which enables people to adapt to their world in time and space; thus, to be normal, which to conform to a group’s culture, is to do what enables one, within ones cultural environment, to adapt to the world, to survive.

To say that most people are normal means that most people do those things that enable them adapt to the exigencies of their world and meet the normative expectations of their society.

To be normal does not mean to be healthy. No one has one hundred percent physical health and no one has one hundred percent psychological health.

I would say that over ninety percent of humanity is normal in personality structure and that the other ten percent has personalities that are sufficiently different from other people that they may be said to have personality disorders.

A personality disorder exists when the individual is not able to successfully adapt to the exigencies of his world and, particularly, where he is not able to have harmonious relationship with other people in his cultural group. Persons with personality disorders generally produce interpersonal conflict; they do not get along with other people and other people do not get along with them.

There are many types of personality disorders. The more serious personality disorders are called mental disorders or psychoses; they are schizophrenia, mania, depression, delusion and so on. The lesser mental disorders are called personality disorders and anxiety disorders.

Briefly, Schizophrenia, a psychosis, is characterized by the presence of hallucinations and delusions. Hallucinations can occur in any of the five senses: auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile etc.

Mania is characterized by excited sensorium, euphoria, affective lability, poor judgment and delusions of grandeur (and in rare cases hallucinations).

Depression is characterized by loss of interest in the activities of daily living, a sense of guilt and worthlessness and desire to die. The depressed person has no interest in food, sex, sports, work, socializing, and personal grooming and just wants to be left alone, to mope and is often fatigued.

In delusion disorder (aka paranoia) the individual believes what is not true as true; such as believe that he is god, and in minor forms believe that he is a very important person and want other people to treat him as such.

There are hundreds of mental disorders and even the ones mentioned above have different types.

Schizophrenia has many types, such as disorganized, paranoid, catatonic, undifferentiated, simple, remission etc; delusion disorder has many types, such as grandiose, jealous, erotomanic, persecutory, somatic etc; mania has degrees, such as cyclothymia, hypomania etc; depression has degrees, such as dysthymia, major depression etc. Each mental disorder would take hundreds of pages to explain. For our present purposes, however, a simple definition would suffice.

Whereas all mental disorders are, strictly speaking, personality disorders: disorders of the person, disorders of the self, there are those specifically called personality disorders. At present the psychiatric establishment accepts ten personality disorders: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, antisocial, borderline, narcissistic, histrionic; dependent, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive and passive aggressive personality disorders.

Those with serious personality disorders, the mentally ill, generally are less able to work and earn a living by themselves. Generally, they are treated with psychotropic medications (neuroleptic medications for schizophrenia; anti mania medications for mania; anti depression medications for depression; anti anxiety medications for anxious persons).

Those with personality disorders are able to work and make a living; indeed, some of them are professionals: medical doctors, engineers, lawyers, professors, even heads of state (both Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were narcissistic cum paranoid personalities). Personality disorder does not affect the individual’s intellectual functioning but affects his interpersonal functioning. Personality disorders are not treated with medications, but with talk based psychotherapy.

Briefly, paranoid personalities feel inordinately inferior and inadequate and desire superiority; they are keenly aware how other people see them and if they feel demeaned, belittled, slighted etc they quarrel with the person they believe is humiliating or degrading them; their objective is to be seen as very important persons; they are generally suspicious and do not trust any one and feel that people would take advantage of them and are therefore guarded. They are always scanning their environment trying to ascertain that dangers are not going to spring unto them. Such persons tend to do well in occupations where suspiciousness is a premium, such as police.

Schizoid personalities are not interested in being with people or making friends and keep to themselves; they do not seek other people’s approval and could care less what other people say about them. Such persons tend to do well in occupations where independent, undistracted work is done, such as technical, mathematical and engineering work.

Schizotypal personalities generally believe that they have extrasensory powers and believe in such unscientific subjects as spirits and psychic phenomenon; they are perceived to be odd and eccentric. These people populate religions especially the New Age variety, with its beliefs in disembodied spirits, crystals and such nonsense.

Antisocial personalities have underdeveloped conscience and often engage in criminal behaviors; they steal, kill etc and do not feel guilty or remorse; in fact, they enjoy hurting other people. These persons are in and out of jails or in politics (where they tell the people lies, tell them what they want to hear and in the meantime steal from them).

Borderline personalities are afraid of social abandonment and will hurt themselves so as to make other people, their love objects, feel guilty and not leave them. They generally have confusions in many areas of their lives: gender confusion (many are lesbians), occupation confusion etc. The universities are crawling with borderline women shouting at every man they see for being sexist, patriarchic and oppressive (read, for not loving and providing for them).

Narcissistic personalities feel inadequate and seek attention and admiration from other people so as to make them seem special and adequate. Generally, they are high achievers and are found in the ranks of successful persons in their society. However, when they meet with failure, since their sense of well being is predicated on been seen as successful, they tend to become depressed. Narcissists feel superior to other people, in fact, some of them feel so superior to other people that they do not mind exploiting other people, using them to achieve their goals and discarding them as soon as they are no longer useful to them. These people love their self images and do not love other people. They often marry beautiful women and use them as trophy wives, decorations for their parlors and to get other men to envy them. Whereas they may shower their wives with fine clothes, jewelry and other creature comforts, they seldom love and pay attention to them, hence such women feel lonely (and some seek lovers elsewhere; this is the syndrome of the old rich man’s wife who has affairs with the neighborhood poor boy who truly likes her).

Histrionic personalities are drama queens and want to be the center of attention. This disorder, like borderline is mostly found in women. They are plentiful in the performing arts (actresses, singers, gymnasts and any professions where the woman is the center of attention and feels that other people are admiring her beautiful body; generally, she wants admiration but does not love other people and will marry an admirer and divorce him when she finds a better admirer; she has poor and shallow affect).

Dependent personalities, perhaps due to sickness in childhood, feel weak and powerless and want other people to take care of them; they are lacking in initiative and are followers of assertive persons. Think of minimum wage workers and welfare recipients.

Avoidant persons are shy and feel that as they are that they are no good and believe that if other people know them as they are that they would reject them, and to avoid rejection they avoid other people; in social isolation they manage to retain a fragile positive self esteem. On the job these people do their jobs but do not make waves and are generally bypassed and not promoted to managerial and leadership positions. Think of the proficient technician who trains others and in time they become his boss. It takes assertiveness, positive self esteem and self confidence to make it in our competitive world.

Obsessive-compulsive persons feel an inner pressure, something that they cannot prevent, compelling them to do certain things and do them compulsively. These tend to do well as scholars and researchers; the universities are full of them.

Passive-aggressive persons are afraid to assert themselves least they are rejected by other people, so they go along with other people, please them, but resent been a push over, a door mat, and occasionally show their resentment of those they believe take advantage of their lack of assertiveness, those who use them, by doing things that defeat their objectives. (Most normal persons have some passive-aggressive traits; thus, it is now questioned whether this is a separate diagnostic category; indeed, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, forth edition, has removed it from its list of personality disorders.)

CONCLUSION

Mr. Horowitz’s suggestion that racism is not the only factor making for poverty in contemporary America seems correct. I reached this conclusion from my own experience. For example, I have left lots of jobs because I did not like them. Upon completing my doctorate I no longer liked what I studied. I left my teaching job and tried other jobs. Since I have energy and enthusiasm for whatever I currently enjoy doing, I tend to rise to the top of whatever I tried. Subsequently, I would find such jobs uninteresting and quit and go searching for something more interesting. My idealistic personality seeks an ideal job. Since there is no such thing as an ideal job for every one (you have to make your job interesting), I wasted a lot of time searching for what does not exist in the real world. The individual has to make the most of our imperfect world and not seek perfection that does not exist anywhere on earth.

The lesson I learned from my life experience is that the individual’s personality plays a role in what he does and gets out of life. The environment held constant for every person, what the individual brings to it, his personality, influences what he gets out of it. Of course, what other people do also influence what the individual gets out of life.

It is not only character that determines the individual’s life chances; character and environment determine what the individual gets out of life. If so, it helps to change both the environment and the individual’s character if he wants to increase whatever positive outcomes he expects from life.

If we want to reduce poverty in black America , we have to change the racist environment African-Americans live in, as well as change those character attributes that are known to militate against making it in the work place. In the work place, as well as in society in general, the individual, if he wants good outcomes, must get along with other people. Well ordered personalities help all of us get along with one another.

While political activists work to make America a less racist place, mental health professionals ought to be working to help African-Americans develop healthy personalities, the type of personalities that stand them in good stead in America .

My response to David Horowitz is: you are right and, at the same time, wrong. You are right in asking us to pay attention to character issues; but you are wrong in minimizing the racism that is still potent in the land. Whereas positive character is always beneficial, in the end, racism largely determines what African Americans get out of America .

One does not have to play the victim game and blame white America for ones fate to recognize the reality of racism on the ground and deal with it realistically.

REFERENCES

Horowitz, David. http://members.cox.net/polincorr1/pol3.htm 

American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, (1994) Washington , DC . American Psychiatric Press.

FURTHER READING

Beck, Aaron. (1990) Cognitive Therapy for Personality Disorders. New York : Guilford Press.

Ellis, Albert. (2004) Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. New York : Prometheus Book Publishers.

Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD

May 4, 2007

Dr Osuji can be reached at ozodiosuji@gmail.com

Robot  Villager

# 1 var sbtitle3919=encodeURIComponent(Character V...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 04.05.2007 05:48

Johntina  Villager

# 2 So, is it possible that racism in America affects the original Africa Americans more than the immigrant Black Africans! To the extent that Black African immigrants like writer and many others have proven more successful in America than those born Americans, racism cannot be reasonably blamed for backwardness of the Black race. The problem with Black people is deeply psychological (there is something wrong with the mindset of Black individuals) and the fact that we are not organised in groups, has kept us going backward. The psychological effects of slavery and colonialism can only be addressed if we could begin to organise ourselves where it matters. I have come to understand that the kind of individualism found among Black people is a feature of primitiveness. We can only survive by organising ourselves as groups and not as individuals struggling to impress white masters as we presently are. Yes, our major problem is individual antagonism and scramble to win the approval of the white masters. We are always struggling to be the best Black man, the first Black man or woman to achieve it, the youngest Black man/woman to reach that and of course some stupid people are now anticipating the first Black president. Individual scramble for the firsts among Black people rather than group organisation has been our main bane since end of slavery and colonialism because we have clearly succeeded beyond target as individuals, but shamefully failed as groups. The Black ace would benefit more f people like Obama, Jesse Jackson, Colin Powel, Condoleezza Rice etc could come together and use their powers and influences to mobilise enlightened and successful Black individuals for real development and progress for the Black race. These people should organise themselves at the highest level and speak for the Black race rather than leave our fate in the hands of white glory seekers like Bob Geldoff and Bono... They should have since taken over from the white colonisers to free us from World Bank/IMF manipulations. It can be seen that every other major racial group is organised (whites, Asians etc) and have succeeded because they are so. Black people only need to organise as groups for progress of both group and individuals to begin. This is a fairly obvious fact because the simply reason why every other racial group have conquered us with ease is because they understand themselves and could plan their strategies successfully while we do not understand ourselves and are unorganised to withstand pressures from outside. For example, in West Africa, Lebanese, Indians and now Chinese organise themselves and dominate and control our markets. Here in Britain also, Asians dominate African food stuff and hair attachment markets and I am sure there is no where on this planet where Black people dominate anyone else’s market. My point should not be misunderstood as I am not advocating for Asians or Lebanese or anyone else to vacate their shops, but for us (Black people) to stop blaming other people for our shameful failures. You cannot Blame Asians for knowing we are stupid people and cashing in. We only need to realise our failures and learn from them how to organise ourselves rather than hate anyone. I still stand on my point that we have no valid excuse! We have always remained weak and easy to conquered because we have not recognised the need to build strong communities or societies. The fact that the failure of Black people is a universal issue not restricted to America makes it clear that racism ought to have expired as an excuse for any Black person or group. The fact that the most racist white country would treat Black immigrants far better than the best Black country would treat them should cause supposedly educated people like this writer to think home! To my mind, it is stupidity that makes a person from Nigeria being one of the most unjust places on earth (as well as the epitome Black failure and possibly inferiority) to find time to see racism in America. If white men were by any chance as bad to us as Black people are to their people, we probably would not have found anything other than toilet cleaning jobs in Europe and America. John Iteshi Posted by Johntina| 05.05.2007 06:53

techsista  Villager

# 3 Here's the funny thing: those "poor black people" in the American inner city are financially worth more than 90% of Nigeria's population. Sad isn't it? Now, when you add billionaires like Oprah Winfrey, Robert Johnson, etc. (I'll leave out the Wall Street millionaires, athletes, entertainers, lawyers, and doctors for now), you start to see that African Americans on the whole have come a loooong way since the 60s. And all this without the inherited land and property that many of their white counterparts count on. (One of the security guards for my building is a young white woman who makes $10 an hour. I'm still paying a mortgage. She owns her own home free and clear because her parents left it to her. Though she doesn't have much of an education, she also doesn't have to pay rent. Many of her black colleagues with the same pay and education level struggle with out-of-control rental costs, etc. They work hard, but don't have that added advantage of willed property. So while salary-wise the guards may appear the same, the playing field wasn't level to begin with.) Many inner city blacks migrated north from the south in search of jobs and a life less tinged with overt discrimination. Since for quite a few, the inner cities have become traps, some have started to move back down south (reverse migration). An interesting trend to watch. Posted by techsista| 05.05.2007 08:27