Chapter One
ETHNICITY ISSUES "A Man of Ethiopia" (Acts 8:27)
One of the first challenges faced by Philip in Acts 8:27 was
the fact that the eunuch was an Ethiopian, a man of a different
ethnicity and nationality. This same issue confronts the non-black
counselor seeking a therapeutic relationship with black
counselees. If counselors are to experience a successful chariot
ride through the course of counseling, it is important that they
recognize the possible impact of ethnicity. When this factor is
not taken into consideration, it may lead to mistaken presumptions
concerning behavior observed in counseling. Often blacks
are viewed through ethnocentric glasses and evaluated by
white middle-class norms.
On the other hand, counselors can be influenced by
ethnicity in stereotyping African-Americans as a people. This
notion is just as counterproductive as the view that depreciates
the importance of racial factors. Counselors need to be aware of
these factors without attaching too much significance to either
of them. They should maintain a balanced view. Counselors,
whether clinicians or clergy, must be cognizant of their own
values about African-Americans and how they may negatively
influence the therapeutic alliance. As a general Christian ethic,
we ought to operate on the following premises: "God is no
respecter of persons: But in every nation he that feareth him,
and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him" (Acts 10:34-35);
in Christ "there is neither Jew nor Greek" (Galatians 3:28)
and God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to
dwell on all the face of the earth" (Acts 17:26).
Even so, the question still remains: what is the role of black
ethnicity in therapy? Since most counselors, Christian or
otherwise, have had little knowledge of blacks, a good place to
start is their familial kinship history from West Africa to
America.
WEST AFRICAN FAMILIAL STRUCTURES
From the work of black scholars we learn that each aspect
in the lives of West Africans was permeated with the African
belief in strong kinship bonds. The notion of rugged individualism
dominated European economic philosophy. However, the
West African land was owned not by individuals, but by the
tribal or familial group. Various African tribes shared in the
area of kinship an intra-tribal sense of collective unity and
adopted the philosophy "we are; therefore I am." Consequently,
an individual was nobody because the self was defined
in relationship to others. One was a son, a daughter, a parent,
or a grandparent, and had a large or small place in the village.
One was known in relationship to others and shared the
reputation of kin. A wastrel or cowardly brother was one's own
shame; a relation who brought glory to himself was one's own
pride; and the kinsman whose name one shared carried force
and qualities of others. Each person was linked through family
to others in the village so that, to the West African mind, the
village became the family writ large.
Huggins' description of the sixteenth-century family life
typical of West Africans stated:
You would have yourself centered in your mother's house
with her other children, your brother and your sister. Most
likely, there would be near at hand women like your mother,
the wives of your father, their children, your half brothers
and sisters, like yourself from your father's seed. At the core
of the Universe would stand your father. There would be a
senior wife who stood above the other women in authority.
Then there would be the co-wives with your mother and all
the children ranging in age from infancy to adulthood.
In this kind of compound, the familial network of relationships
extended outward to encompass uncles and aunts,
cousins, nieces, and nephews. In addition, the compound often
housed other individuals, slaves captured in war who worked
in the family interest but were allowed to enter the family
through marriage.
From West African history we learn several things about
kinship patterns that existed within the socio-cultural and
ethnic framework of the ancestors of African-Americans.
In the first place, there was a strong sense of family. It was
a force so powerful that one's personal identity was determined
by it. Second, this familial identity was intergenerational and
multigenerational. Third, the black male occupied a prominent
role in the family, which carried the veneration of spouse and
offspring. This, then, was the socio-cultural orientation that the
people of West Africa brought with them on slave ships to
America.
Notwithstanding, a controversial question still remains: did
the descendants of West Africans brought to the United States
continue the kinship patterns under which their predecessors
were socialized? There is evidence that vestiges of West African
culture remained part of the social fabric of blacks in America.
BLACK FAMILY KINSHIP PATTERNS
The belief that residues of West African culture survived
and remained part of the cultural scheme of blacks is referred to
as the Africanity theory. There is credibility to this theory based
on evidence of afroisms found among the blacks of North
America, the Caribbean, and some parts of South America.
These afroisms are used in art, music, religion, and kinship
relations of these regions. Concerning kinship, the work of
Gutman has shown that black families exhibited amazing
survival resilience in the face of adverse conditions. Gutman
examined documents and census data that had accumulated
between 1750 and 1925 and discovered most black homes were
two-parent homes and that a strong kinship network remained
intact. His research refuted the myth of the matriarchal black
family wherein domineering black women headed single-parent
homes in the absence of black men. The evidence suggests
that blacks did maintain a strong sense of family kinship in
spite of that peculiar institution known as slavery.
Furthermore, black families continue to sustain strong
kinship bonds and intergenerational networks. African-Americans
are a multigenerational kinship people. It is not unusual to
have two to three generations living in the same house. The
grandmother in particular is a central figure in many black
families and is often involved in rearing a couple of generations
of children. The multigenerational kinship patterns of blacks is
not merely a socio-economic adaptation. Middle-class blacks
often perpetuate the same kinship designs even though they
are of a different socio-economic stratum from poor blacks.
To understand black families, it is important to note that
most of them draw from two sources to form their familial
identity: their West African roots and their American roots. In
other words, one must think of the black family as West African
in nature and American in nurture. As a result, familial
kinships often maintain six characteristics:
1. Black families may be comprised of several individual
households with the family definition and lines of authority
and support transcending or going beyond any one
household unit that comprises the family.
2. They maintain elasticity-that is they are structurally
expanding and diminishing in response to external conditions.
3. They have a child-centered system (the general organization
often requires and focuses on children).
4. They often have close network relationships between
families not necessarily related by blood.
5. They have flexible and interchangeable role definitions
and performance.
6. They have multiple parenting and interfamilial consensual
adoptions.
An example of some of the features of black-family structure
and network is illustrated in the following case.
(Continues.)
