The Psychopathic Racial Personality and Other Essays by Bobby E. Wright
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
“One of the most serious problems, germane only to Black people and our independent institutions, is our inability to support and reinforce the ideals, goals and objectives of the institutions. The White race is not faced with this problem since it has long recognized that institutions protect and sustain the appropriate direction for the destiny of its people.”
According to Dr. Bobby Wright, a destructive Black pathology is being cultivated with the deliberate intent to push Black people towards the brink of extinction. His plan is to arm you with the critical analysis necessary in order to engage this psychological narrative and work strategically to counteract it. There is a wretched and brutal truth to his argument which makes it impressively convincing even when one would wish to consider the situation cannot be so dire as outlined here. In this stark and unflinching framework, Wright injects the psychopathic racial personality and bolsters the acute necessity for a Black social theory, multimodal education for Black children and the building of Black institutions where the high ideals nurtured in the classroom can be placed into practical service.
The confluence of forces found throughout this relatively short text made it difficult to parse uninterruptedly without pausing within each chapter for deeper reflection. Wright broaches many an uncomfortable conversation about the American racial identity and interaction between groups while resolving his central thesis of the essential nature of developing the Black social theory which would guide the work of collective Black institutions. Even behind the veil of my own Black social liberal experience, it is near impossible to discern how the lines are drawn which distinguish where the perceivable context of American racism ends and the global infrastructure of white supremacy begins for Black people find their personhood under assault mentally, physically and socially at every corner of the diaspora. In the analysis offered by Wright, this distinction does not matter for survival and liberation are the only relevant metrics of success.
This is no mere exercise in political shock doctrine however. Wright infuses his understanding of culturally assisted suicide and self destructive behavior with an outlook towards solutions which would root these traits out of members of the next generation even moving to offer his own research and assistance without charge to any Black institution that should request them. In this sense, the essays of Dr. Wright are a detailed example of his purposed devotion to the cause of Black liberation which should be measurable beyond our individual ability to maintain a livelihood. Progress is determined by our collective ability to do both at the same time without failing to maximize our effort in either objective.
Ideals without pathways to implementation are comparable to a seed in the wind. It may take root or it may get eaten. In either case, the wind will decide and you will have no choice in the matter. Dr. Wright has offered an ideological treatise in the tradition of Woodson’s “The Miseducation of the Negro” and DuBois’ “The Souls of Black of Black Folks” which should remind us that there is little to be gained from depending upon the slight alteration of the social and political mechanics of a system which derives its power from maintaining complacency in the powerless. If we truly seek change, it is to be discovered by peering beyond the political tools which have been afforded us to act and developing independent auspices where we can see our changes actualize in a more immediate and measurable manner. If we choose assimilation before independence, our current political climate has shown us clearly that any changes we succeed in obtaining hang perilously on the precipice of being reversed by future sentiments.