Historically, the humanity of African American men has been attacked in a cruel and vicious manner. African American men have been categorized as animalistic beings without intellectual or moral qualities. In this article, it is argued that a contextualized humanistic approach can offer counselors an important corrective to the typical dehumanized view of African American men so often found in the social science literature and popular media.
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ow one thinks about African American men affects the way one responds to them. Historically, the humanity of African American men has been attacked in a cruel and vicious manner. They have been placed outside the human family and often described as beasts or monkeys . Today, much of the discourse that pertains to African American men has tended to portray them as unintelligent, drug addicted, violent sexual predators who are incarcerated and unemployable. These images of African American men so permeate U.S. culture that it is no wonder that in 1994, Susan Smith captured the nation's sympathy for 9 days when she blamed a fictitious "Black man" for carjacking her Mazda with her sons still in the car . Smith later confessed to drowning her sons. In 1989, the nation believed Charles Stuart, a Boston store manager, when he claimed that a "Black robber" shot his pregnant wife. It was discovered later that Stuart himself was the murderer . On April 19, 1989, a White female investment banker jogging in Central Park was badly beaten, raped, and left to die. The police charged a group of Harlem teenagers with gang rape. The tabloids created headlines such as the "Heroic Woman vs. Feral Beast" and referred to the young men as a "Wolf Pack," "bloodthirsty teens," and "teenage mutants" (Hancock, 2003, p. 7). Some social scientists even concluded that "teen superpredators," savage, godless, urban youth, would take over the city's streets (Hancock, 2003, p. 7). Thirteen years later, a 31-year-old serial rapist, unknown to the teenagers, confessed to the crime. All of the young men served their prison sentences.