As a young graduate psychology student who’d moved from Washington, D.C., to San Diego in the mid-1970s, Judy Sundayo went looking for community and found a family. The surprising twist was that this chosen family was filled with respected Black scholars, authors and licensed psychologists who were committed to the work of handling the mental health and well-being of Black people with care.
Read more Lakeside commuters, residents split on proposed roundabouts for busy SR-67 interchange
A friend in Washington, D.C., told her to reach out to Philip Raphael, a local psychologist who was hosting his colleagues at his home. When she arrived for her first gathering at his home, she walked into a room that included William Grier, the author of “Black Rage”; Carl Clark, the first Black male graduate to earn a doctorate in psychology from the University of Alabama, and who would later become her mentor; Charlotte Houston, the first Black female graduate from the doctoral program in psychology at the University of Alabama; and Robert V. Guthrie, psychologist and author of “Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology,” which Sundayo had recently read.
“Because I came from D.C. to San Diego, I was looking around for the Black folks, so I went over to his house to see what was happening in San Diego because I didn’t think there was anything going on for Black people out here,” she says. “Even though African Americans are a very small percentage in San Diego County, I found a family and Dr. Guthrie was one of them.”
Guthrie, a researcher, author and educator who became the first Black faculty member at San Diego Mesa College, is also widely noted as an iconic scholar and psychologist. In “Even the Rat Was White,” he traces the contributions of Black psychologists, while challenging and critiquing the widespread racism found in mainstream psychology when the book was first published in 1976. On Tuesday, the San Diego Central Library is hosting a discussion at 6:30 p.m. in the Shiley Special Events Suite taking a look at Guthrie’s groundbreaking book and its impact 50 years later with Sundayo and Guthrie’s son, Ricardo Guthrie, social justice professor at Fisk University, who researches and teaches about Afro-diasporic culture and Indigenous consciousness between Black people in the United States and Africa.
Sundayo is a licensed clinical psychologist, professor emeritus from San Diego Mesa College and current president of the San Diego chapter of the Association of Black Psychologists (ABPsi), which was recently renamed The Philip J. Raphael Psychological Association. She took some time to talk about Guthrie’s work, its significance, and the personal support he showed for Black psychology students. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
This year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Guthrie’s “Even the Rat Was White: A Historical View of Psychology.” How were you introduced to his book?
It was in graduate school (at United States International University, which is now Alliant University). Bob’s book was affirmation to me that all of the thoughts I had, that Blacks were as good as anybody else and that the tests were kind of skewed in favor of the people who were making the tests, were validated when I read his book.
I found a copy of the book that Bob signed in 1998. He says, “To Judy, whose friendship I value. Thank you for your support. Best wishes, Bob Guthrie. San Diego, 1998.” I was just telling my brother yesterday that I remember Bob saying, “I wouldn’t know what’s going on here if I didn’t hear it from Judy Sundayo. Nobody else calls and tells me nothin’” because I always used to call him and tell him when we had events. I invited him to speak, and he held a retreat for our local ABPsi chapter at his home in Mexico one year back in the mid-’80s. He was very open and supportive of our chapter and what we did, and he had a great sense humor. He was just a remarkable person, and he impressed me as caring about the students, because I was a student when I met him.
What kind of impression did his book make on you, professionally and personally?
Professionally, it affirmed that I was important as a clinician and as a psychologist; that my work would have value, even though it may not be recognized by mainstream psychology. I didn’t have any illusions of doing anything big in the field, I just wanted to be a psychologist and help people, but his book affirmed that I was on the right track. That I had agency, and I had knowledge and intelligence and could do anything anybody else could do. It encouraged me because his book underscores all the contributions by Black psychologists, which are not studied. They’re not taught to us in school. None of what he had in his book was taught to us in in my training, so his book encouraged me that I could do that. There were Black psychologists who had preceded me, and I could be successful. It still encourages me. I’m kind of in the last third of my life, but I feel that there’s nothing I can’t do.
The other impact it’s had on me is that it’s important to help students, like he did. If he had not been active with us, encouraged me, invited us into his home, I wouldn’t be doing the same thing with students today. I can see that what he did for me encouraged me, and what I do for the students encourages them. In fact, I had a client when I first started practice in ‘92, who now has her doctorate, and she’s a supportive member of our chapter. So, I think what Bob did was encourage me and inspire me to be there for students, and that’s our major mission of our chapter, is to support and advocate and mentor students.
And why do you feel like that is so important to do? What kind of difference do you think it makes in the field?
There’s a need. One thing we’re all taught in Western psychology, that the American Psychological Association and other proponents have taught for years, is we’re all taught about the major theorists-Freud, Jung, Carl Rogers – and they’re all White. The importance of Bob’s book is to highlight important Black folks, the work that Black psychologists have done for our practice because it’s important that we know, and it’s important to our agency. Just because we’re the only Black person in the room, which often happens with Black students at predominately White institutions, doesn’t mean that we can’t achieve and excel. I think Bob’s book set the stage for that, and no other book at that time was doing that. That really was the foundation of us moving, as a people, toward a Black psychology and an African psychology, so Bob was really at the forefront of that movement.
A 2020 essay in the Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences by Bedford E.F. Palmer, acknowledging Guthrie’s work, says he “provides examples of how white psychologists… developed a diagnostic system expressly in support of the subjugation of black people.” Can you talk about a couple of examples of these kinds of diagnoses, like drapetomania?
(Drapetomania) was the idea that if a slave wanted to run away, or tried to run away, that they were mentally disturbed, as if freedom is a disease or something bad. The easiest way to say it is that all of the diagnoses served their purposes, that’s really the bottom line: enslavement, money, economic advantage for White people who were keeping Blacks enslaved. He talks about it in his book, in terms of testing; I think he does, it’s been a while since I’ve read the book, but I remember that he talks about testing. One of the things that I recall was that he talked about a test used in the early days of testing development, IQ testing and all of that. There was a test given to White and Black children, where they would recite a passage and then the child had to repeat it, and the Black kids did better. He said something like, “It wasn’t by accident that, with that test, memory was deemed as not having anything to do with intelligence.” They really created these tests to support their own abuse… they highlighted the things that supported their views of racism from their own inadequacy, in my opinion.
How has the presence and work of Black psychologists helped to counter the racism that is part of the history of the practice of psychology?
I think, today, the Association of Black Psychologists nationwide and in local chapters, are concerned not so much with changing White people’s minds, and we’re not concerned with that anymore. The thrust is what we can do for ourselves and our own communities, our own families, because it’s not our job to educate them anymore. It’s our job to educate and take care of each other. I think Bob’s book was a bomb going off, saying, “Hey, look at this” because it was so well written and documented from a scientific perspective that they couldn’t ignore it. As we move forward, our focus is on ourselves.
The Black psychologists walked out of the American Psychological Association convention in 1968 because they were still giving credence to their members and historical presidents that believed that Black people were savages. When they refused to listen, they walked out of the convention and formed their own association. And, Bob was part of that group that walked out; Wade Nobles, Bob Guthrie, Joe White and many more.
Today, how would you describe the impact of Guthrie’s work, and its relevance in the practice of psychology?
In my opinion, it was the first scientific study that brought attention to the problem of how Blacks were viewed and the lack of recognition of Black psychologists. That’s the main relevance. The other is to chronicle, for the Black students in psychology, that these things existed, and what the people they may put on pedestals said about them. Come on, I mean, you’ve got to know that these people who you may be holding in high esteem did not believe you were worth educating. That you couldn’t do abstract thinking, that was their view. So, I think the impact will continue because we can’t forget, especially with the current administration in this country. We see ourselves going backward, in many respects, and the predominant power wanting to go back to the so-called “good old days” when their foot was on our necks in a more pronounced way. They’re still on our necks, but some people are refusing to see that. Younger people didn’t grow up in the era where racism was so pronounced and so in-your-face in a physical, violent way, so they may not see the importance of learning about our history. But, to me, it’s real clear that we need to not forget it and use it as a foundation for our current views. We have a number of Black psychologists who I invite to speak to our local chapter — Dr. Linda Myers, who has her theory of optimal psychology that brings in African-centered strategies to how we think about therapy and what we need to do; Dr. (Edward) Bruce Bynum is internationally known for his view of “The African Unconscious” (his book) and how, as the first people on the planet, we set the stage for civilization; Dr. Tracy Garrett is scheduled to speak at our December meeting on NTU therapy, based on the inclusive Nguzo Saba, the Black value system. I want students to hear this because they get enough of the predominately European theorists who are hailed as great people, but most of them did not hold us in high regard at all. I want our students to know that they have psychologists who do hold them in high regard, who do value them, and who are making inroads in the health of our families.
Read more Pet of the week: 9-month-old shepherd mix is looking for a quiet home
