Psychic Friends, Intellectual Enemies

Television advertising for so-called "psychics" is clearly aimed at the black community. This advertising is one of the few areas where blacks are over-represented. The list of these pitchmen reads like a roll call of black entertainers on the downside of their careers. Of course there is Dionne Warwick, but also Billy Dee Williams, Esther Rolle, Nichelle Nichols, Ted Lange, Jayne Kennedy, LaToya Jackson, Denise Nicholas and Phillip Michael Thomas. White stars do make infomercials - they just don't plug psychics. In the area of non-psychic infomercials, black entertainers are almost shut out. George Foreman sells his cooking grill, and Quincy Jones helps Leeza Gibbons sell self-improvement tapes, but that's about it.

Marketing which targets blacks is nothing new, and not necessarily something bad. But I feel very uneasy when black people are urged to buy products or services which are useless or harmful, such as cigarettes or malt liquor. Psychics don't kill or injure, but that doesn't mean they are harmless. One might argue that these services offer legitimate entertainment, but the people who are paying $3.99 per minute - that's $239.40 per hour - must believe that they're getting more than entertainment. These psychic services are high-tech con jobs. But even worse than the financial loss is the intellectual damage caused by these purveyors of ignorance and superstition.

What makes black people an attractive market for the promoters of these tele-psychics? One component of the African-American stereotype is superstition, which is manifested as excessive religious devotion and a penchant for the supernatural. These supposed traits can be traced all the way back to the Salem witch hysteria of the 17th century, when a black woman was accused of introducing witchcraft to white youngsters. Three hundred years later, Woopie Goldberg's portrayal of a medium in the movie Ghost followed in the same tradition. While it is true that the African-American community is generally more dependent upon churches, this can be attributed to the fact that other institutions, such as business, government and education were, until very recently, out of bounds for blacks. The denial of educational opportunities has also been a factor in the strength of religious belief in the African-American community, since studies in diverse populations always report that as education goes up, faith goes down. One commercial for telepsychics makes a direct appeal to faith in urging viewers to call, using the slogan "Have faith, don't hesitate."

Ultimately this appeal to faith may be more damaging than the economic loss caused by these con artists. While selling television viewers on angels, miracles, lucky numbers and psychics, they are displacing critical intellectual skills with mysticism. We already have enough believers. What we need are more skeptics. We need to trade some of the abundant faith for equally hardheaded critical thinking. This is not a trivial matter. If we're suckers for Psychic Friends, there's no telling what we'll believe.