Pantechnicon; Black Child Care; Alvin Poussaint; R. Kaiser: Russia

You're. You're you're. Dr. Alvin F. Poussaint is the associate professor of psychiatry and associate dean of students of the Harvard Medical School who sent along with Dr. James Comer has written an informative guide on how to bring up a healthy black child in America. And tonight on Panda gun we'll talk with Hussein. Also in the program Frank Fitzmaurice talks with Robert Kaiser author of Russia the people and the power of. Black childcare. Should it be any different than white child care. The authors of black child care published by Simon and Schuster believe that growing up black in America where policymaking and attitudes are largely controlled by whites poses many

special problems for black parents and their children. The emotional and psychological development of black children was recently the topic of discussion with pantechnicon Reporter Eleanor stout and co-author Alvin Poussaint. We were getting many questions from black parents themselves about issues with their children about high density how to respond to certain situations what's the best way to to raise them some of these questions having nothing to do with race but a lot of them in some way connected with race or racial factors that affect child rearing patterns in the black community that have been held over that now are not associated with race for instance. The question of how aggressive should you be. You know that looks like it's not a racial question at first but actually it has a racial meaning because black people black parents used to raise their children to be docile not to be aggressive to be compliant

because they were afraid that they would get into trouble with the WHIZZER So I just I'm. And so it was a survival technique to teach him how to be passive. So then by parents they began to ask you know particularly after the desegregation formally was ended in the New Black assertiveness they began to say well. How do we teach our child now how aggressive should he be. Should we you know what what survival skills as he need now and how can we help him to excel in and develop new ways of living in the world. And so that even that question you have to look at it in a racial context how black people were affected in the country and in the ways that they pattern their children. But as a black person say to a child a child himself school and one of his classmates has called him the hunky will or a nigga and the parents first inclination is to say well why didn't you know. Why didn't you just knock his head off. But how

should I how should a parent react to that. Well I think parents have to first of all. Let the child know that he's a good a good person and that anyone calling him names like that is something's wrong with the other person. They should be very supportive too that you know to their child and then they should teach him how to assert themselves in such a situation that is that they should not take it they should say you know let the person know that they don't like it in no uncertain terms. Although we do not recommend that that line of attack be violence that they learn how to negotiate or talk or say I don't like that if you call me names like that I want to have anything to do with you. And if you keep doing it to me after I tell you to stop I'm going to get angry. You know that's like shop assistants on that is going to lead to a fight. If that you if the child doing the name calling can accept the limits imposed.

Is there a particularly good age. Do you think when a black pound can start explaining to his or her child about what what race is all about. Yeah. Yes there is that's usually the time at which the children themselves begin to. Raise questions about race in one way or the other and that can start at 3 years old 4 years old sometimes later depending what kind of environment and what kind of input is coming in to the child. For instance a child my foot pick up something and another little kid might say your skin it looks dirty right and comes home and says Mama mice right. This is not my story any of the kids what's matter with my skin. Well I would be a time in those cases you know simple lines that you know people come in different colors your skin is brown some people's is white my skin is brown like mommy and daddy and you know that that kind of thing. They might they might raise questions not only about color but about head texture. They might wonder

why is my hair long and light brown. Why children have similar questions when they're around black children. They might say why is my hero Willie like that and then they may like to touch it in other things. So it's it's it's frequently learning about differences and parents should not should not panic when their children bring up issues that way. Sometimes in their own wish to protect the child against any kind of racial slights they might over react when frequently the child is raising questions and being curious. Child may come home and for whatever reason might say I would like to be white and I've seen many black parents get all very frightened and upset when they do this John. Well in that case first of all they should not get all anxious about it if they can help it. But they again it calls for some discussion that people come in.

Different colors and brown and all the colors all nice colors that color is nice and you might in fact understand maybe the child might make a remark like that because they have a lot of white playmates sometimes exclusively white playmates. And this is just kind of a wish to identify with them to be like the other people. Or it could be that someone saying something to them that picking up something that somehow being Brown is not nice. And that case the parents would have to. How to handle that. You you're talking about. I think I have the impression when you're talking about kids who are fairly young in age what do you do though as a black parent when your kids are let's say seventh or eighth grade or other even into high school and perhaps they go to a school where there are a number of white kids and they've been home and they have been with these families and they lose some respect for their parents

and they're kind of ashamed of their parents these black kids. How do black parents adjust to that and what should their attitude be and what should they say how do they get over the policy if if if if the parents were doing a lot of things that that we say suggest in the book or that we felt a good thing that is instilling a sense of pride and self-respect which would also mean respect for the family and the parents and so on. Hopefully that wouldn't occur. But I know that it does occasionally occur and it's not only related to college issues but sometimes class issues. You know that my family is poor and black and and and that's that's worse and that and the wish to Xscape that they might reject reject their parents. Well excuse me occasionally a black teenager will be so brainwashed that they do want to be white and they kind of turned.

The racism on themselves that they don't like other black people and they turn it on that on their family. And I've seen examples of that in those cases I think that's a very serious you know a very serious problem and that you know something needs to be done I mean you can you can talk to them you try try to get to help them to understand. If it's if it's really very severe that is if a black teenager really hates being black it amounts to a kind of emotional disturbance. Even though it's one that partly stands a large part stems from the society you might have to get professional counsel as to what to do with such such a job. But some of them may just Xscape into it and live that way. All right here in Boston have you encountered any any parents in your practice who have asked you what attitude they should project at home with their children or even teachers who are working with black UFOs in regards to

school busing. Well of course his divided opinion among black people themselves about about busing and some parents will say I'm absolutely not going to expose my child to that kind of abuse that they feel are going to get being bused to a school where that's going on. Others who see it politically and that is it's one of the ways in which you continue to break down the walls of segregation and discrimination as a society. And it's a burden that black people have to bear. They also feel that by shaking up the system that a better system will come out of it that they'll be better quality quality education for for all both white and black and that there's no there's no mileage in that. Keeping the status quo for themselves. And that if if if bussing is one of the ways that you you shake up the system to try to get something new and they're willing to go that go that route. So it's it's it's

something that the families individually have to decide about and there's pros and cons on both sides. And I lost many black parents unless they feel like going to get something that's worth it. I'm not going to want to do it. On the other hand it's that there's this political dimension because we we do know that busing in Boston has stirred up a lot of issues and caused a lot of things to happen in the schools that may improve the schools for everyone of black people and continue to fight with regard to segregation and Boston it would not have happened. And the fact is you know they can talk about neighborhood schools and so on the fact is that that the courts decided that by intent this city was segregated and that in taking the law. That's right. That's breaking the law. That that was done you know deliberately It didn't just develop that way.

And. And so it's illegal and that's the basis on which the court court acts. And fact of people trying to make it an issue of quality education. Well bussing. We didn't this song I'd go to the boss because of quality education people inside the bus because the law says schools cannot be segregated particularly if it's done by the intent of two legal mechanisms and that's what the issue is. And that then children should be bussed Now the issue of quality education is another one. Not intervening making them up that way frequently blurs the legal legal legal issue in terms of quality education then how much do you think parents black parents should push for black studies in schools. Well look school I think black parents should push for full goods. Good quality education on all levels. I think it's important to have black

studies in in the schools both for the benefit of the white children and for the black children because black studies and black people have been so long ignored in the history books in the sociology books except in very sometimes very negative ways and that this would be. We already have white studies and this would be adding another dimension. And I think not only black studies but the schools have to make a much bigger effort to talk more about and teach young people more about different types of people Spanish speaking Native Americans so they get a sense of the whole nation because they all get out there and they live with each other. And if they don't if they come out of school with distorted or steer it type notions of blacks anyone else is going to make it difficult. And I think what we see in fact in the south Boston reaction to busing and that attitude toward blacks is a result of segregated. Educational

system that promotes racism. Say that perhaps if those children were raised in a different kind of environment and had gone to school with black children since they weren't kin to God and they have to get a kind of a different reality perspective you had you then begin to see even if you want to still stereotype you still have to know that people are people and not you know don't have horns and that type of thing. We're talking about teachers who are too strict. Now what about teachers who because she might be working with black kids and she's white. What about teachers who don't expect as much from black kids who really should because the black kids should perform as well as his classmates Well that's the other side of the coin and another another form of prejudice. Even even though it's more well-intentioned or liberal unquote. But to have low expectations of black children and feel that they can perform is to see them as inferior. And then too it's

to have them not perform because children do respond to the expectations of the teacher. About their ability and studies have have shown this is similar and says in order for teaches who who are too lenient and whom do not discipline black children because they feel they have suffered so much. You know so that they can't bring themselves to say no to him or don't do this or stop doing that. A lot bad too and that sometimes masquerades that kind of problem under a form of liberalism and and song but not to set limits for black children to discipline them is doing them a disservice and it's not not helping them. So that's not a it's a sound approach either. Do you try to help children to develop set limits take responsibility in black children after learning that white children have to learn that. With you and.

Dr. Alvin Poussaint co-author of black child care and guide to emotional and psychological development of the Black Child published by Simon and Schuster. I was I was OK. I. Was ok. I m Kaiser has been writing for The Washington Post since 1963 as a part time reporter while in college and later as an irregular correspondent from London a city reporter a correspondent from Saigon and eventually from 71 to 74 he was chief of The Washington Post's Moscow bureau. I His first book was called cold winter cold war a history of the origins of the Truman Doctrine. Since that time is work is a

period in New York magazine the observer of London Esquire. He's now on the Washington Post national staff. He lives in Washington is dispatches from Moscow were awarded the Overseas Press Club prize for the best foreign correspondents of the year 1974. So now let's talk about Russia. The people in power with author Robert Kaiser. Bob Kaiser. It's been a number of years as a foreign correspondent in and out of the more exotic capitals of the world. In a nutshell how did you summarise your role as a foreign correspondent What's your your job back with your responsibility back the people back on your writing for. I think it depends a lot on where you are. I was in the war in Vietnam and it was a very clear responsibility then to report about an American misadventure. The kinds of things that concerned us then were completely different than what I was right about when I got to Russia Russia. But I was told I

was in got mom and I would next go to Russia. And I began to think about what what my role there ought to be. I began to read what journalists have been writing from the Soviet Union. And I quickly came in. The conclusion from that society the my principal objective should be to try to bring it to life that the tradition of Kremlinology and official reporting of means reporting the editorials and statements in prov the speeches the leaders who's who's the head of the Politburo that all seem to be very fruitless and has a kind of mindlessness and repetitiveness just keeps going and going and it never really leads anywhere. So I set out from the beginning to try to find Russians and try to answer what I guess I think is the fundamental journalist's question in ordinary circumstances which is what's going on here and how does it work. This book I've written is as a kind of a compilation of my answers to that. How does it work. QUESTION And I really I really thought

that Americans all foreigners have this romantic image of Russia and not unlike the romantic image we had of war before Vietnam. I could add that I want to try to get behind and I think that's that is the best foreign correspondents role. I think we're at a time in journalism when the time when it's changing right now if I were in Western Europe I would try to be reporting about things that the Europeans do better than we do. I set out with that notion in Russia too I found there weren't too many actually. But it's time that Americans I think get a lot more cross cultural exposure. You mention that the our notion of Russia is kind of clouded in pretty mysterious and it's been said by by you and some other writers that the notion that the Russians themselves frequently like to foster. Why do they like to be so mysterious why do they want to hide behind that cloud that they've created.

I knew in Russia the family of Maxime would be enough the old Commissar of Foreign Affairs and a very wise distinguished gentleman. He used to tell his family you know we have this spying mania in this country we're so afraid of foreigners I think we're not afraid that they'll find out what we have but that we'll find out what we don't have. And I think that's a lot of the explanation of why the Russians try to hide their real selves and the real facts of their society from the rest of us. They are the world's greatest bluffers. We see it all the time. I think they scared us into a race to the moon because we didn't look carefully at what they were doing in space. We just saw that they put some dogs up and cement up and we jump to the conclusion that they were on the way to the moon. We now know that they were no where near the moon and still don't have anything like the capacity that would be required to take people to the moon. But we fell for that bluff. We fell for a bluff I think in the Great we deal in 72 we didn't pay attention to how desperate their needs were and how and how useful a tool it would be to control the sale of wheat and we just let him rob the bank.

I think that this is an ancient Russian trait I think we have to talk in the English language about Potemkin villages. Russians invented them that's the false front of religion like our old western movie towns it's the same principle. Russians are terribly insecure by instinct. I think that if we realize that a lot of their behavior that seems irrational or dangerous begins to make sense I think they're often covering for their own sense of weakness and inadequacy with a kind of a bravado that is often misleading. What is it that they have to feel so insecure about Russian literature seems to be filled with an attachment to the motherland and pride in the homeland and so on but but you seem to feel that that's actually a some kind of insecurity that they're talking about. Well it's not inconsistent there is this enormous attachment to Mother Russia. It's a very real phenomenon very fierce. But it's

a different situation. Talk about comparing Russia to other countries and to the interaction between Russia other countries and B when it comes to standing up against the Americans or standing up to be compared with the Americans which I think now is the principal official goal of the Soviet Union to be recognized as our equal in every way when they begin thinking comparatively That way they recognize that they really are way behind you know variety of areas. Russians are so often distorted by their Marxism their thinking is often confused by Marxist slogans but in some areas Marxism helps them enormously and I think one of the best examples of. That kind of area is their assessment of the relative power and strength of different countries. We have tended to look at the Russians rockets and armies and tanks and say oh my god they're as tough or tougher than we are.

They as Mark says don't do it that way. They look at economic power. They look at the strength of alliances. They look at the cultural power in the sense of what a culture is able to produce that's useful and they understand that when you look at look at a power in that broad Marxist way they don't come off so well. They're really way behind us they have an economy that produces industrial goods that are essentially unsaleable in a free world market because they don't match up to quality. They have a currency that is useless in the world economy because it's essentially valueless. They have the scientific community which cannot produce that mentions that are crucial to modern technical power for example metallurgy. One of the reasons they never got close to the moon is they never invented the light superstrong metals that were crucial to the American space program. It's still impinges on a jet plane Brugge production. Beyond that even if they had the inventions the nature of their economy and the planned economy the

obsession with filling quotas and norms discourages technical innovation so even if a Russian inventor comes up with something good it becomes a terrible hassle to get it into use. All of these factors contribute to a relative Russian weakness which they are very conscious of it doesn't it doesn't take much for a Russian to realize the significance of the fact that when they want to enter the automobile age they have to go to Italy and buy a automobile factory which they did it a whole factory from. When they want to satisfy a national hunger for flatware for plates and cups and saucers they have to go to England and buy factories to make them this enormous purchase of foreign technology a billion dollars to the Germans to build the steel foundry. These are all symbols of their own inability to do things for themselves that we can easily do for ourselves. You've been talking about the insecurity of the Russian people and Russian leaders. I wondered how that fits in with the much

publicized these days lack of individual human rights at home in Russia. Repression of intellectuals repression of ethnic minorities and so on how does that fit is that a part of the insecurity too. It is indeed I mean this is a fascinating subject I think there are two sides to it their insecurity exists on two levels. One of the theories that I advanced in my book is that there's a insecurity at one level is a personality function it's part of the national character. It comes from the way Russians are brought up as children Russian babies are swaddled wrapped tightly often with this wooden brace so they can't move as infants. They're deprived of freedom and self-reliance discouraged from suffering Lions from the earliest age. They are taught to be dependent. And I think this breeds a kind of insecurity and individual insecurity I can't be left alone because if I'm left to my own devices I won't know what to do. This kind of collective feeling which when an understood brilliantly and exploited in the kind of collective spirit

of Marxism Leninism. Robert Kaiser author of Russia the people in the power recently interviewed by Frank what's more it's begun. I'm Greg Fitzgerald. Cold War earth. Would you say. Back to the music look each week introduces our Friday night feature the Tanglewood credit a

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