"Notes of a Native Son": Will My Page Be Colored?. (3rd July 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Feemster, Ryan B.
• Is Part Of: Jung journal. Volume 16:Number 3(2022)
• Page Start: 150
• Page End: 168
• Publication Date: 2022-07-03
• Subjects: analytical psychology -- Black American males -- collective spirit -- cultural complex -- cultural trauma -- cultural unconscious -- exile complex -- individuation -- invisibility -- orphan complex -- psychic responses to trauma; Psychoanalysis and culture -- Periodicals; Jungian psychology -- Periodicals; Jungian psychology; Psychoanalysis and culture; Periodicals; Electronic journals; Periodicals; 150.195405
• DOI: 10.1080/19342039.2022.2088997
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1934-2039

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This autoethnographic manuscript uses Jungian principles to analyze three cultural complexes of Black American masculine consciousness: the orphan, exile, and invisibility complexes. The author applies the archetypal image of the orphan to better explain the collective psychic response of the Black American male to his traumatic reception in the United States. The author notes the original cultural trauma for Black Americans was their abduction from Africa for the institution of slavery, begetting the internal trauma responses that deemed exile/departure from "Black culture, " invisibility, and the internalization of oppression to be necessary complexes for their continued survival. Within this article, the author uses much of his personal narrative to capture a Black American male's heroic journey for his true self while battling a society in which he historically felt a foreigner.