Psychiatrist Advises Ignoring Prognosis Given Black Family

Psychiatrist advises ignoring prognosis given black family

Southfield psychiatrist Rosalind E. Griffin advised women to overcome the adversities of life and forge ahead — not only through education, but also through the strength of the family and the church.

By AMY SMITH

NEWS STAFF REPORTER

On the 79th anniversary of Alpha Kappa Alpha - the oldest Greek letter organization of black college women - Southfield psychiatrist Rosalind E. Griffin told an audience to ignore the bleak prognosis given the American black family.

Griffin, addressing the 39th Founders’ Day conference Saturday at the Holiday Inn Conference Center in Ann Arbor, said that blacks, particularly women, must not let grim statistics guide their lives.

She told them that even though there were 18 million blacks living in poverty in 1984, 89 black males for every 100 black females in 1986,
a divorce rate among blacks twice that among whites, and 58 percent of births to black females in 1983 out of wedlock, that the survival rate of black families isn’t slim to none.

With tongue firmly in cheek, Griffin told her audience: “We equal the success rate of the roach and the common house rat. We will survive.”

“Take yourself seriously,” Griffin said. She advised women to overcome the adversities of life and forge ahead - not only through education, but also through the strength of the family and the church.

“Don’t lose sight of tradition as we engage in the trend toward progress," Griffin told her audience of about 100.

Griffin suggested trying "black economics” by shopping at stores that cater to blacks, instead of white-oriented department stores.

Speaking on “The Black Family: The Victims of an Unspoken Agenda,” Griffin told her audience that “divorce” in the black family is not a bad word. Rather, she said, it means that women are now in control. In 1965, when 75 percent of black households were headed by males, women had no control, Griffin said.

Despite the high divorce rate, among blacks, said Griffin, divorce is “not a dead end,” and might well be the “creative liberation” that women have been seeking to fulfill the needs of their children as well as themselves.