Family & Corrections Network

Managing Multi-Generational Anger In African American Males

by Virgil A. Gooding, Sr., M.A. and M.S.W.

Anger and Your Heart. If you are hot tempered or feel like hitting someone when you get angry or feel annoyed, cool it. You may be setting yourself up for a heart attack. A study of nearly 13,000 people found that anger, even in the absence of high blood pressure, can increase a person's risk of a heart attack by more than 2-1/2 times. Stress hormones released during anger may constrict blood vessels in the heart, or may promote clot formation, which can cause a heart attack.

The rate of incarceration and other correctional programming experienced by African American males in the United States represents an epidemic. Though various offenses are cited as reasons for this odd situation, the accused have one thing in common besides their color. They tend to be exceedingly angry. In fact, they are often enraged. Routinely this is the most vivid emotion experienced by these and other African American males and fathers. Although these feelings are intense, there is often no clear external event or circumstance that seems to relate directly to them. Thus, many of those affected do not know why they are so angry and cannot find ways to cope with, process, and escape the consequences of "free floating anger."

In order to even begin exploring and accessing the depth of this kind of anger, we must identify its roots. This anger is not limited to current events and day-to-day realities. Rather, it brings into play "historical memories" fueled by anger that has been accumulated, vicariously, as a result of situations and suffering experienced by past generations of African Americans from the slave period to the present.

This "multi-generational anger" is:

• Not event specific and is pervasive.
• ·Often results in excessive explosiveness.
• ·Usually not understood by the person or others effected.
• ·Not responsive to traditional anger management curriculum.
• ·Often projected inwardly through dysfunctional behaviors (i.e.: substance abuse, crime, under achievement).
• ·Physically and psychologically damaging.
• ·Misinterpreted by others as a genetic pre-disposition toward violence.

"Multi-generational anger" stands in stark contrast to the "event related anger" that traditional anger management programs target. Thus, when these programs don't work for African American participants, the participants are labeled as resistive and anti-social. They are in need of lengthy cognitive restructuring programs; best delivered in "a more secure setting." But, is this really the case? Is event related anger really that different? Event related anger is associated with a particular situation or event and abates as the memories of the event fades with time.

It is:

• Experienced as a happening relative to place and time in the space-time continuum.

• ·Amenable to personalization and the person can understand and isolate the feelings.

• ·Less likely to be projected in a generalized manner over time.

• ·Usually temporary and not pervasive.

·Usually not the cause of lasting physical or psychological consequences unless severe trauma is present.

Clearly, event related anger and multi-generational anger are not the same. Multi-generational anger adversely affects problem-solving techniques and skills, life?s expectations, self-esteem, and the personal freedom of African American males. It taxes America?s criminal justice system and diminishes a very important national resource; the energy and creativity of African American men.

Since traditional anger management programs do not work, what must a program addressing multi-generational anger in African American males contain? It is essential that such a program examine the impact of systematic racial oppression. It must explore how internalized racial oppression is a psychological response exhibited by racially different individuals to the negative messages inherent in racism. The curriculum should isolate both 'system beating" and "blaming the system" as ineffective approaches to self-actualization since the first involves acting out against the system and the second relieves one of responsibility for one's own behavior, and neither work anyway. It must illuminate the folly of total avoidance and rejection of Euro-Americans and the Euro-American system since co-existence with this system is a reality. Rather, this system must be truly understood and modified to assure self-actualization, survival, enhanced self-esteem, and the empowerment of future generations.

Participants in the program should learn to embrace "self and their African heritage." It is important that the devaluation of other African Americans and African Culture be discouraged; just as the overvaluing of Euro-American culture should be challenged. Additionally, the political significant of race and racism must be discussed. Participants must learn that attempts to bury or earn acceptance through conspicuous consumption, using status and degrees to prove self-worth and race sabotage are self-defeating strategies.

The "split-self syndrome" comprised of polarized thinking that is hierarchical in nature needs to be introduced. This sort of an "either/or, all or none, good or bad" thinking about ourselves or others tends to remove texture from our lives and the personalities of others. It disallows recognizing growth in ourselves and those around us leaves us stuck in a never changing world. Participants must learn that this sort of thinking induces them to evaluate and compare themselves against Euro-American standards. They must come to know that this approach encourages them to distort self-perceptions often resulting in splitting off that part of self that represents the "African American me or African me" because it is devalued in the Euro-American system.

Often African American males who might be in a managing multi-generational anger program have developed a habit of not identifying or utilizing resources and pro-social support systems available to them. The program, if it is going to be effective must assist them in activating both internal and external resources and support systems. They need to be able to acknowledge their own personal strengths and pro-social coping skills and to develop strategies where they can bring these to bear, at a moments notice, to make choices that will promote their long-term safety, freedom, and self-actualization. External resources such as: family, pro-social friends, organizations (not gangs), and institutions (i.e. churches) should be presented as some of the most indigenous support systems.

Program participants should be encouraged to adopt African American models of mental health that stress:

• A conscious awareness that many in this society are hostile to their very existence, but not all are so disposed. (Remember the fallacy of all or none hierarchal thinking).

• ·An awareness of the stresses associated with racial oppression.\

• ·A lack of a desire to oppress or to be oppressed.

• ·A need to be involved in shaping and controlling one's own destiny.

• ·Steady involvement in self-confrontation.

• ·Thinking, feeling, and acting in a single motion rather than fragmenting oneself into intelligence and emotion.

• ·Having a sense of self, which is collective or extended.

• ·Having a clear sense of one's spiritual connection to the universe.

·Being steeped in our own culture, history and values.

It is important to know that if an individual has been programmed or socialized to believe false, distorted beliefs about themselves, then he/she will develop a belief system and life-style to justify and support those beliefs. Participants must discover ways to reject distorted images of themselves. Errors in thinking, such as the way to wealth and freedom is through selling drugs or other criminal enterprises, must be debunked. Being alert to seize pro-social opportunities to grow must be cultivated, and maximization of personal strengths must be a motto of the program.

Regardless of how well a managing multi-generational anger in African American males curriculum has been thought out and put together, this phenomenon has already had a damaging effect upon potential participants. Therefore, some sort of healing process must be employed. This process requires assisting participants in letting go of any distorted and false, anti-self, anti-African messages that have been internalized. Thus, the participants must be guided through checking all their thoughts and perceptions of themselves against as many as possible alternative perceptions and perspectives. They must become aware of their feelings and deal with them honestly and constructively. Anger must be released constructively and appropriately so they manage it instead of it managing them. Participants must come to know that anger can disrupt information processing and problem solving efforts; that it can instigate aggressive behavior, and that it can build up and fester until it causes problem behavior or illness.

They must also know that it can serve as a cue that something is wrong, that it can energize coping activity, and that it can be managed. In reality, anger can be effectively managed by gaining insights into what provokes it and preparing to handle situations when they occur or by avoiding them and not falling into the "multi-generational anger trap."

Note: Multi-generational anger is experienced by other people of color where being racially oppressed is part of this history. Its negative effects are reportedly a factor in the high rate of suicide among native peoples in the U.S., Canada and Alaska.

Virgil A. Gooding, Sr., holds a M.A. and a M.S.W. from the University of Iowa. He is a licensed Independent Social Worker (L.I.S.W.) and is a Treatment Coordinator/Family Therapist for the Sixth Judicial District Department of Community-Based Corrections located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is the Clinical Supervisor for Foundation II, which is also located in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. He is also in private practice.