Afro-American Psychology Gone Crazy: Black Professor Think Young Black Males Who Kill Suffer From Mental Illness!!

[Need2riteFaster]

After a recent unusually high number of black-on-black murders in Montgomery, Alabama, the local police department declared itself utterly clueless.  

 

“Police Chief Kevin Murphy says police cannot stop these violent crimes until they understand them. But it's easier said than done, so police are getting help from other professionals to devise a plan.”

 

So they hired a Afro-American professional.

 

Earnest H.R. Blackshear Jr., Ph.D.,  Assistant Professor of Psychology at Alabama State University and Director of The Community Violence Laboratory at Alabama State University, has been appointed chairman of the Montgomery Police Department’s newly formed Montgomery Task Force on Community Violence.

 

He is a mugshot of the good professor:  http://hbcubuzz.com/asu-partners-with-montgomery-police-to-combat-crime/

 

From the articles linked below, here are the good Professor’s theories and ideas so far:

 

"We have to work on awareness campaigns to make it okay for people to understand that it's not the police's job to prevent homicide," he says. "The police's job is once a homicide occurs, to find the perpetrator."

 

“In communities filled with people released from prison, Dr. Blackshear says the moral code goes away and, what he calls the "street code," becomes law.“
 

“He says most people committing violent crimes grew up on the streets watching them happen, and because of that, suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).”

"I'm saying the personality configuration of these young black males who live in these islands of concentrated poverty have the same configuration of a combat veteran except they don't have the treatment facilities and the assistance of diagnosing and treating."

And here are the good Professor’s interventions and treatment plans:

 

"Prevention is the responsibility of the mental health community because it's a problem with impulsive control, a lack of impulse control and a lot of aggression."

 

“We need to look at what are the precursors that allow individual to get that angry to shoot another human and end their life and not have any remorse about it.”
 

“He says those with mental illness lack conflict resolution techniques and become dangerous when armed. Dr. Blackshear says treatment is vital in the fight to stop the violence.”
 

And finally in a brainstorm of brillant empirical knowledge that can only be lumped in the category of he should return his Ph.D. to the local 7-11 store from whence it came:

“Dr. Blackshear told us Montgomery Police are putting together a basketball tournament called Operation Nebula, where authorities will play against young men in these inner city areas in an effort to create better communication.“

 

Now I have no indepth knowledge of intricacies and nuances of psychology and psychiatry. However, I just have to believe that mentally ill people playing basketball with police officers cannot, in no way, be therapeutic.  

 

Or maybe this so-called psychologist has limited experience and is simply masquerading as it seems he was just dropped onto the planet the week before he was appointed to this task force. 

 

Background links:

 

http://www.wncftv.com/news/video/5-Murders-in-5-Days-Montgomery-Police-Create-A-Plan-to-Stop--173978161.html

http://www.waka.com/home/top-stories/ASU-Professor-Explains-Theory-On-Montgomery-Homicides-198376311.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Troy]

Interesting summary.  The girl from the Montgomery CBS affiliate looked and sounded like she was in high school :-)

 

The basketball game idea is nothing new they used to call it midnight basketball a couple of decades ago.  Basically the idea was to give men something else to do at night other than shooting each other.  Obviously the program was criticized.  I have no idea how effective it was. 

 

I don't think the Basketball program is a solution.

 

I'm reluctant to critique Blackshear's program based upon the so called news coverage -- you know how they do us.

 

We are however a profoundly ill people in a sick nation.  The older I get the plainer this becomes, or maybe the pendulum is swinging the other way and things are getting much worse. 

 

It is a wonder more people are out there going "postal".

 

White people blow up buildings, kill DA's and shoot groups of people up in public places.  Black men just kill each other one at a time.

[Cynique]

Since you admittedly don't have any indepth  knowledge on the science of psychology, Need2riteFaster, maybe you should withhold your criticism of the good professor's diagnosis of whatever has spawned the collective mentality that drives black youth to kill each other. I, myself, find his analysis a plausible relief from the old standby of attributing this self-destructive behavior to the ubiquitous "racist stystem" that never explains what racism has to do with the lofty aspirations of young inner city girls to achieve the vaunted status of being a "baby mama" burdened with the responsibility of raising sons without a father figure. A situation that makes these youngsters ripe for the void that a gang fills. 

 

As for the healing effect of applying a band-aid to a massive wound, never underestimate the tranquilizing distraction of basketball on the mind of a black male.