Then there was the time I was in college being advised by my white guidance counselor that I should seek a career in something like auto mechanics. Little did he know that my African American grandfather obtained his PhD from Yale in 1924, and my father, like his father, had a couple of PhDs. What caused him to think I could accomplish only blue-collar goals? Charles Pinderhughes, MD, (another wise black psychiatrist) did an excellent dissertation in the American Journal of Psychiatry on “stereotyping,” that explained much of the reason (1979 Jan;136[1]33-7).
Because I was from Chicago and a psychiatrist, I was called in to evaluate several of the more than 100 innocent black men whom Jon Burge (a former Chicago police commander) allegedly tortured to get them to confess to murders they did not commit. Officer Burge was never found guilty of this crime, but he was sent to federal prison for three counts of obstruction of justice and perjury for lying about police torture.
Accordingly, in Chicago we have a saying, “The police hunt black men.” Of course, this statement rang true when a white Chicago police officer was caught on film shooting a 17-year-old child who may have had a developmental disability – Laquan McDonald – 16 times in October 2014.
Until the perceptions of race are viewed from both sides of the equation, there will continue to be racial strife, and America will not be as strong as it could be. I have tried to present some of the perspectives many black people experience as their reality. Of course, there is another side we as Americans believe in – justice and equality for all.
This election places America at a pivotal crossroads – which path will we take? Will we seek a more perfect union – or a country divided?
Dr. Bell is staff psychiatrist at Jackson Park Hospital Family Medicine Clinic in Chicago; clinical psychiatrist emeritus, department of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago; former president/CEO of Community Mental Health Council; and former director of the Institute for Juvenile Research (birthplace of child psychiatry), also in Chicago.