Black Anglo-Saxons

Black Anglo-Saxons is a term most commonly used to denote people of African descent who historically have been miseducated and as a result experience problems with identity formation. Those referred to as Black Anglo-Saxons have a fundamental disorder stemming from racism and global white supremacy. This disorder affects African people, predominantly in North America and Great Britain, who experience and demonstrate inordinate difficulties or maladaptive behaviors regarding their African heritage and ancestry. The term has also been used in discussing the behaviors of blacks on the continent of Africa who, as a result of their colonial and neocolonial experience, strive to become Westernized and to emulate white European and American culture at the expense of other Africans. The term has been analyzed in many areas of study beyond psychology and clinical personality assessments, such as history, education, sociology, and Africology. The term Black Anglo-Saxons has also been used to critique the historic role of the black elite and middle class and their relationship to the masses of poor blacks. Other, more creative terms that have been used include Afropeans and Afrosaxons.

The most significant written analysis of Black Anglo-Saxons comes from sociologist and Africana Studies scholar Nathan Hare. Hare's book Black Anglo-Saxons has been widely discussed and cited since its publication in 1965. With respect to its impact, this text has been compared to Carter G. Woodson's The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933), E. Franklin Frazier's Black Bourgeoisie (1948), and Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks (1967). Nathan Hare defined the term Black Anglo Saxon as characterizing “those members of the Black middle class who have lost all sense of identity and responsibility for the Black masses.” This phenomenon is the result of the racial and cultural oppression of African people, and its outcome is self-hate and the conscious or unconscious desire to cause harm to other members of African society. Author, educator, and Africana Studies scholar Julia Hare has lectured widely on the miseducation of the Black Anglo-Saxon. According to Julia Hare, in the most extreme behavioral examples of Black Anglo-Saxons, individuals deny any and all aspects of Africanity and make a concerted effort to distance themselves from the larger group of blacks. Julia Hare also notes that some of the behaviors are a [Page 114]defense mechanism rooted in racial demoralization and the fear of the established order. Hare comments on how Black Anglo-Saxons fail to appreciate the impact of their attitudes on the rest of the African American community.

Since Nathan Hare established the conceptual basis for the dialogue on Black Anglo-Saxons, other writers and scholars have also addressed the issue. George E. Curry, syndicated columnist and former editor-inchief of Emerge magazine, discussed the concept with respect to the recruitment and inculcation of young black journalists from colleges and universities. Citing Hare's work, Curry noted, for example, how few African American journalists actually cultivate any ties with their community and are willing to search on their own for any story related to African Americans. There are scholars who in related analyses have offered methods for addressing the problem. These include but are not limited to Frances Cress Welsing's examination of aspects of the behavior in The Isis Papers (1991), Amos Wilson's systematic study in Blueprint for Black Power (1998), Asa G. Hilliard's cultural response in Sba: The Reawakening of the African Mind (1998), and Katherine Bankole's observations in You Left Your Mind in Africa (2000).

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