Dr. Naim Akbar, a nationally-renowned clinical psychologist, delivered a motivational speech Saturday in the first Afro-American Society-sponsored event in the College's celebration of Black History Month.
The lecture, which focused on the psychology of self-determination in the African American community, drew a crowd of about 75 people to 105 Dartmouth Hall.
Abkar said the obstacles to African American self-determination are based on the European community, which considers other races inferior, and the re-socialization and subordination of the black community during slavery times.
"Slavery was not just an economic, political or power arrangement. It was the process of changing the psychology of people who had been free for hundreds of years," he said.
Akbar said self-determination can only be achieved through an individual's motivation to form an agenda - separate from the dictates of society - on a personal, cultural and social level.
Akbar discussed the "psychology of making a slave" and the dependency that many blacks felt during their enslavement. He said the vast majority of African American slaves lost touch with their "peoplehood" because they became what their masters told them they were.
"Part of inferiorization was the reduced motivation of being in control of one's life," Akbar said.
Akbar also discussed the role of African American college students, saying that there is no true black education anywhere in the country.
"A black education hasn't been taught in 400 years. They teach the same Classics at Morehouse that they do at Dartmouth. There are the same assumptions regardless of where we are," he said.
Akbar told the audience that they, as members of the African American community, are responsible for effecting change in the world.
"You are here because black people insisted that institutions in this country had to accommodate us. You are here because you now represent the hope of the African world," he said. "You are here in defiance of every effort to keep you out. You can take these skills and use them to change where we are going as a community."
AAm President Zola Mashariki '94 said she thought the speech was a strong start to the AAm's schedule of events.
"His visit has been long-awaited," Mashariki said. "He is a powerful lecturer."
Dr. Akbar is a professor of psychology at Florida State University. He received his B.A., M.S. and Ph.D. in psychology from the University of Michigan. Mashariki said she thinks Black History Month is needed to give black history its own voice.
"This is not to take away from the accomplishments of European-Americans, but African history has actually been written out of history completely," she said.
