Harvard prof kicks off COLORS week

Alvin Poussaint, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, spoke about the psychological aspects of racism Tuesday to about 100 students gathered in the Nursing Education Building. The lecture kicked off a series of discussions to be held this week called Campus Organized Lectures On Racial Sensitivity. Poussaint told the audience there are two points of view concerning racism. In the first view, he said, racism is a mental illness. And in the second theory, he added, racism is an innate quality that people innately have. "Human beings have the propensity to be racist and that this is inherent in the human condition and has always been so," he explained. "People need, in order to unify within the group, scapegoats," he continued. "They need people to project their own evil impulses on to maintain the unity in their group." In his speech, Poussaint concentrated on the mental illness aspect of racism. "What could be crazier, that you have to decide to kill, but that you have to commit genocide," he said. "Racism is a psychotic adaptation." The Harvard professor discussed the perception of "blood tainting." He said once a white person has produced offspring with a black person, the white family members are "tainted." "Fifteen drops and [white people] get rhythm," he quipped as the crowd laughed. Poussaint discussed blacks in American history, as well. He said blacks were not even considered whole people during America's younger years, according to the Constitution. "Definitions [of race] have nothing to do with anything scientific or psychological," he said. "Black people are still suffering from the scars of 250 years of racism. This has to screw up your head profoundly." People have racism ingrained in their minds, Poussaint added. He said people make a "minority adaptation" because they feel they should be acting a certain way. "Black people don't feel welcome," he said. "Everyone in a majority should go through a minority experience." At the conclusion of the speech, Poussaint was challenged with a series of questions about randomized housing. "When you consider randomized housing you have to look at the motivations behind it," he said. "Students need the support of their particular group and they should have the choice to decide where they want to live." People are "missing something," he added, if they do not get to know people from other groups. Co-chairpersons of Colors, College junior Kristofer Love of Alpha Phi Alpha and College junior Matthew Sharron of Sigma Chi, said they enjoyed the speech. "I was very impressed with the doctor," Love said. "I feel that the psychological effects of racism in society is something we tend to ignore." Students said last night they think the speaker was provocative. "Poussaint's lecture described how racism is ingrained in our society, not just socially and economically, but mentally," said Wharton graduate Brenda Robinson. "That's a painful truth."