Abstract
In this article, a psychology of faith perspective is used to explore and describe the objects and dynamics of faith as represented in Ta-Nehisi Coates book Between the World and Me. Relying on the notions of transitional objects and transformational objects, I depict Coates’s faith—a faith that aided him in not only resisting despair but also transforming and overcoming the grammar of racism.
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Notes
The title is taken from Richard Wright’s work. Richard Wright (1908–1960) was an African American novelist who had significant influence on other writers, not the least of whom was James Baldwin.
The notion of racism is complex and often contested. Given that, I offer a brief depiction of racism that relies on psychoanalytic authors. Some psychoanalysts have attempted to define and account for racism, relying on psychoanalytic theory and concepts (e.g., Altman 2000, 2004; Kovel 1970). Culling from this literature, I briefly define White racism and identify some of its characteristics. Dalal (2002) wrote that “whatever racism is, it is essentially a dehumanizing process through which an other is transformed into The Other, from one of us into one of them. The racialized and dehumanized other is positioned outside the moral universe, with all its attendant requirements and obligations to fellow human beings” (p. 158). From Dalal’s perspective, the Black Other is depersonalized and estranged by White individuals who construct and treat Black people as inferior and White people as superior. That is, this process of depersonalization or dehumanization is contingent on the forceful use of representations wherein Whiteness signifies superiority and Blackness inferiority (Aralepo 2003). These representations are embedded in everyday social narratives and rituals, as well as in government policies, laws, and programs (Alexander 2010; West 2001). Even in the purportedly post-racial culture in which we now live (Wise 2010), representations of inferiority are hidden in laws, legal procedures, and housing practices that marginalize large numbers of African Americans (Alexander 2010). White racism, then, is the social construction and the social-political-economic use of negative representations of Black people as inferior Others to marginalize, alienate, suppress, and oppress them (e.g., lynchings, Jim Crow laws, laws that result in high rates of incarceration, exclusion from job opportunities and equal pay, housing discrimination). This social construction and use of negative representations are inseparable from the White racist’s use of positive or idealized self-representations (superiority) to secure social and economic privilege, prestige, power, and position. Moreover, racism manifests a dependency on the inferior Other for Whites’ sense of superiority.
I add the pair “hope-hopelessness” to this triad.
Although the focus is on racism, it is important to note that racism and classism are often partners. Sayer provides a helpful distinction. Sayer (2005) notes that “racism is a necessary condition for the production of ‘race,’ but ‘classism’ is not necessary for the production of class” (p. 94). Capitalism necessarily produces class and classism. Classism, which is largely based in the illusion that wealth makes one superior and poverty is equated with inferiority, is easily connected to racism, though not always. So, for instance, many African Americans are impoverished and deal with both racism and classism, whereas wealthy African American entrepreneurs face racism but not the negative effects of classism.
Winnicott did not differentiate between the transitional objects of childhood and those of adulthood, which raises all kinds of questions. The developmental achievements and complex psychological and relational realities that take place between infancy and adulthood are huge. This in itself would demand differentiation between types of objects. In this case, I associate the first TO with the primary TO—an object that is associated with pre-symbolic modes of organizing experience. For critiques of Winnicott’s theory of development see, Applegate (1989), Brody (1980), Flew (1978), Greenberg and Mitchell (1983), and Litt (1986).
Pruyser (1983) suggests that the transitional object is shared to the extent that the object is often one that is “found” in the cultural realm of family life. Moreover, parents and siblings tolerate and accept the child’s use of the object. Although I agree with their view, it is clear that Winnicott does not believe that the earliest transitional objects or what I call primary transitional objects are shared or intersubjectively held, at least not during infancy.
Winnicott did not assign care only to the mother. A mothering environment could be accomplished by fathers as well.
One might wonder what happens to primary (and secondary) TOs as the child grows. In the course of human development, Winnicott argued, the TO “is not forgotten and it is not mourned. It loses its meaning, and this is because transitional phenomena have become diffused: they have become spread out over the whole intermediate territory between ‘inner psychic reality’ and ‘the external world as perceived by two persons in common,’ that is to say, over the whole cultural field” (Winnicott 1971, p. 5).
These presymbolic embodied organizations of experience remain part of the self, though in the background. Evidence of this is seen in experiences of disruption when a person undergoes an amputation. One’s embodied sense of self is disrupted even as the more abstract narrative or symbolic organizations of self provide stability and continuity.
Foucault (1979) argues that the “body itself is invested in power relations . . . [and] is directly involved in a political field” (pp. 24–25). Coates and other African American writers (e.g., James Baldwin, Richard Wright, W. E. B. Dubois) are sources that provide evidence for Foucault’s claim.
This is also seen in Martin Luther King’s (1998) and Malcolm X’s (Haley 1964) autobiographies. They each recall a moment in childhood when they became painfully and angrily aware that the world did not accept them—when the world showed no loyalty or trust toward them. They found out that they could not be at home in the world.
For a lengthier discussion of STOs, see LaMothe (2001, pp. 109–135).
Another way of saying this is that the STO is the child’s first nascent person. The child recognizes and treats it like a person—unique, valued, inviolable, and agentic. Because the child has omnipotent control, we can expect that the child imagines the STO returning the favor, thus reinforcing a positive sense of self in the public domain.
When Calvin is in the presence of an adult, the tiger appears as it is—an inanimate toy. When Hobbes is with Calvin, he is alive and actively engaged in their play.
There are two difficulties with Winnicott’s use of the term “transitional objects” to refer to cultural objects (in particular, to religious objects). First, on its face, Winnicott’s assumption that transitional objects in adult life are cultural objects (e.g., religion, art, and science), vis-à-vis illusion and reality, seems correct. However, the psychosocial achievements of adulthood clearly indicate that adult object usage and the infant’s use of objects are not identical. For instance, Winnicott states that the TOs in infancy and childhood are idiosyncratic and not shared. There is a solipsistic aspect to the child’s use of the TO, even in the presence of caregivers. The “TOs” of adulthood, on the other hand, are often shared. Second, Winnicott contends that the TO of infancy represents the “technique of mothering,” which does not necessarily fit well with adult cultural activities. When, for example, we consider religious objects, we find that they are much more complex with regard to use, function, and representation than the transitional objects associated with infancy and childhood.
As Bollas (1987) points out, the transformational “object” does not simply refer to a discrete object. It also represents a process.
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LaMothe, R. Between the World and Me: A Psychology of Faith Perspective on Resisting Racism. Pastoral Psychol 68, 575–589 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-018-0850-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-018-0850-0