Challenging Deficit Views of Black People

On January 25, 2025, memorial services were held for two giants in the field of Black psychology, Dr. William “Bill” Cross and Dr. A. Wade Boykin. As we celebrate Black History Month, it is important to honor these two seminal Black psychologists and reflect on the significance of their contributions to psychology. It should be noted that friends and colleagues who wanted to attend both services for Dr. Cross and Dr. Boykin were unable to do so because of the unfortunate circumstances of their services being held on the same day. The pain of this unbearable decision was evident at the memorial service of Dr. Cross when the first speaker, noted expert on African American men Dr. A.J. Franklin, asked for a moment of silence for his dear friend Dr. Boykin. Dr. Franklin, along with another invited speaker and distinguished scholar on race and racism, Dr. James Jones, are part of a generation of Black psychologists who, along with Drs. Cross and Boykin, helped to transform psychological scholarship on Black people.

In a recent special issue of the American Psychologist on “Foundational Contributions of Black Scholars in Psychology,” the work of Drs. Cross and Boykin was highlighted (along with several other scholars). The purpose of the special issue was to retrieve and highlight foundational scholarship by and/or with people of African descent that has been “marginalized or erased by Western psychology.” As I have previously noted, prominent Black psychologists are not recognized among the most eminent psychologists of the 20th century. Of course, in the world of Black psychology, there is no list of eminent psychologists that could be constructed that would not include William Cross and Wade Boykin. However, relegating the significance of their work to only the field of Black psychology does a disservice to them and the discipline of psychology. It unwittingly communicates that their work does not represent “mainstream” interest in psychology, which at best is a problematic message and at worst is a racist message. What could be more “mainstream” than creating knowledge to improve the lives of Black people which will ultimately benefit society? Cross and Boykin each did this with their scholarship.

Rethinking Black “Self-Hatred” and Personal Identity

Most attention on Cross’s work focuses on his Nigrescence model of Black racial identity and its place within multicultural psychology research and practice. However, equally significant is his critical review of research on the notion of Black self-hatred. For years in the psychological literature, it was assumed that in the context of a racist and oppressive society, Black people had internalized beliefs about their supposed racial inferiority, and that this contributed to a widespread collective Black self-hatred. In Cross’s book “Shades of Black: Diversity in African American Identity,” Cross traced the notion of Black self-hatred to the famous Clark doll studies and specifically to how Kenneth and Mamie Clark interpreted their data. Much has been written about the methodological problems of the Clark doll studies, and Cross provided one of the most substantive and thorough critiques where he characterized the pejorative perspective of Black self-hatred as being based on “flimsy qualitative evidence.” Cross challenged psychology to rethink the notion of Black self-hatred, in large part because it was rooted in a deficit perspective that stereotyped Black life as pathological.

Furthermore, Cross’s distinction between “personal identity” (PI) (universal traits present in all people such as self-esteem, introversion-extroversion, etc.) and “reference group orientation” (RGO) (aspects of the self that are specific to race, culture, gender, etc., in short, how one feels about a specific social group to which one belongs) was a significant and provocative theoretical contribution because it made the distinction between how a Black person can feel about themself vs. their racial group. For example, an individual can have high/positive self-esteem (PI) while also having negative beliefs/feelings about their racial group (RGO), and they would still be considered to have good mental health. While this idea was later contested by Afrocentric psychologists, it sparked an important theoretical debate about what constitutes the nature of the self among Black people (i.e., individualist or collectivist). Ultimately, Cross’s scholarship influenced psychology’s study of minoritized identities by not allowing deficit-oriented perspectives to prevail.

Viewing Black Culture as an Asset

Boykin is best known for creating the triple quandary theory, a framework which describes the developmental challenges that Black people, especially children, face in navigating conflicting values and priorities of mainstream society, Black culture, and being racially minoritized. Inspired by Joseph White’s 1970 article “Toward a Black Psychology,” Boykin created a framework that viewed Black culture as a strength in the lives of Black children. He identified nine interconnected dimensions of Black culture: spirituality, harmony, expressive movement, psychological verve, affect, communalism, expressive individualism, oral tradition, and a social time perspective. Boykin believed that one of the challenges for Black children was that these dimensions of Black culture were at odds with mainstream culture, and that schools reflected mainstream culture. Instead of trying to make Black children assimilate into mainstream culture, Boykin believed that Black children’s cultural strengths could be leveraged in a way to enhance their academic learning and achievement.

A core belief undergirding Boykin’s work was the idea that Black culture was a strength and cultural asset. Boykin’s work was significant in that he did not place the responsibility on Black children to become more motivated. In other words, he did not blame the victim. Instead, he believed that school systems and classrooms could be changed to be more culturally responsive to Black children. While Boykin’s work was rooted in Black culture and the experiences of Black children, his triple quandary framework resonated across ethnic and racial minorities and has been applied to other minoritized groups, including Sikhs, Korean American high school dropouts, and minoritized immigrant groups. Ultimately, Boykin’s work continued the tradition articulated by Joseph White of focusing on Black cultural assets to help Black children navigate their learning environments.

Bill Cross and Wade Boykin challenged deficit narratives about Black people that shaped much of the psychological literature. Like many Black psychologists of their generation, they were preoccupied with matters of race. Cross focused on the diversity and complexity of Black identity and how it was shaped by external circumstances often related to racism, while Boykin focused on countering the racist narrative about Black children’s abilities by focusing on using the strengths of Black culture to enhance their learning. Together their life’s work helped lay the foundation for the infusion of diversity, equity and inclusion principles in APA and psychology.