Mingus: Intersectionality, Loyalty, and Small Group Dynamics
Francis Kaklauskas with Issa Lucas
“I’m like Mingus, Charles Mingus,” Andre said and winked at me as the group leader. The group had been talking about musical tastes when a member asked Andre, who had been quiet, about his racial and ethnic identity. Externally, the request seemed fragmented and off-topic, but to that member, it was alive internally at that moment.
As with many moments as a group leader, it was hard to understand all the merging dynamics with certainty. We needed to explore the questioner’s internal process, but I was with Andre, who was being projected upon and called out. What does his Mingus statement mean? (Sanborn, 2026). That he has a complex racial and ethnic identity, saw himself as an outsider, was creative or angry? Seeks justice? Or something else outside of my potential interpretations? What did the wink mean? Was it a moment seeking protection, connection, asking for help to not be singled out, not to be stereotyped, or something else? I’m sure Andre remembered I was a hack jazz bassist, and believe we even talked about Mingus many years ago.
Taurus in the Arena of Life (from Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus Mingus /Impulse Records)
Fifteen years earlier, when Andre was a post-doc fellow in a university group I was leading, he was asked a similar question during introductions. He sarcastically said, “Look at me, I am an alien, bald head, big black eyes, and a green tint to my skin…in the right light.” At that moment, my feeling was not to push Andre to share more, and the group moved on.
After Andre finished his formal training and that seminar, I didn’t hear from him for 15 years, until he called to ask to join a process group for therapists. The university training group he was previously focused on the intersections and crossroads of psychoanalytic and multicultural theory. It felt like we had a positive relationship – playful but with undercurrents. He had let me know he had mixed feelings about my interest in the latter topic, and that I was almost a cliché with my interest in the former.
While in both groups’ members shared many aspects of their social identities of race, ethnicity, class, spiritual pursuits, abilities, psychotherapy specialization, gender identity, and sexual preferences, and onward. For Andre, the question of race and ethnicity was different, and while he had humorous responses, there was a tangible, felt sense of boundary. Andre was open about being gay and shared details of his long-term relationship. He discussed the impact of his middle-class, performatively Christian family and how he sees his work on neurodiversity as a form of social justice. While I was not particularly self-disclosing in that group, they knew some of my dominant social identities and personal history and surely knew much more about me through careful observation of how I participated.
After the Mingus statement, many of the typical group leader’s interventions came into my head, from asking the group for responses, to questioning the statement behind the question, or directly asking Andre what he was hoping to communicate. However, the group let it sit and went back to the topic of music. It seemed like the time when this depth of connection and conversation was building towards something.
The topic of identities continued to engage members. focused on the tension between their self-identified and assigned demographic labels. Tom, an older white man who always seeks peace, cohesion, and universality, noted a theme of self-acceptance. Andre responded, “Maybe that is true, but understand it is not that simple.” He continued to describe how he is always scanning every environment to see which subgroups he may belong to or be excluded from, aware of internalized demands about how he should act, and feeling unspoken expectations from others, including Tom, to agree with them.
Mediations on Integration (from The Clown / Atlantic Records)
At every moment, in every collection of people, there is an interplay of internalized and projected social identities, power dynamics of othering and tribalism, and conflicts of loyalty. After Andre spoke, many members discussed feeling like a subgroup of one and bringing only partial selves to the groups of their lives. Ideas that resonate with code-switching, masking, and similar concepts, but the group didn’t use that language. They pondered if bias underlies the lack of responses they get when they speak, unspoken factors that may be woven into their disagreements, their own and others’ awkward, tentative attempts towards connection, and feelings of unsafety and the desire to hide. This looked beneath the university cliché that was offered.
Crenshaw (1991) notes that while identities may be socially defined, they have tangible consequences for access to resources and opportunities, as well as for psychological and social impacts. This duality underscores the importance of understanding identity in both social theory and practical advocacy, but within a group, its spoken and unspoken aspects shape relationships, both within and beyond the group.
Freud (1923) postulated that loyalty often operates unconsciously through identification with the authorities of one’s childhood and becomes internalized, and that disloyalty generates guilt and anxiety. Object relations theorists suggest that group loyalty functions as a protection against loss, fragmentation, or annihilation anxiety (Gellwitzki, 2025). For Lacan (1977), changing loyalties destabilize our subjective symbolic order. Boszormenyi-Nagy and Spark (1973) proposed that invisible loyalties are transmitted across generations and from social kinship groups, producing relational ledgers and ethical debts. Tajfel and Turner (1973) proposed that loyalty is a signal of in-group commitment, a regulator of status within a group, and a defense against identity threat. Out-group derogation can serve as loyalty signaling and as a public performance. Being disloyal, you may even be seen as a suspect. Hardy and Carlo (2005) highlighted the moral obligation and enduring commitment to remain loyal to identity, while Fanon (1963) highlighted loyalty as central to cultural continuity and resisting colonizing dynamics.
Butler (1990) described the pressures of loyalty but celebrates the possibility that identity and loyalty may not be internally coherent or consistent. Loyalty provides belonging, but challenges free thinking and autonomy (hooks, 1990). Crenshaw (1991) discusses the complexity of intersectional loyalty as a lived tension.
Solo Dancer (from Cubia and Jazz Fusion / Atlantic Records)
In another group, Andre reported that in a recent research team meeting, he said that he was fine with all the ideas presented to the project and did not have a strong preference But after the meeting, several colleagues on the team came up to him and asked, “Why didn’t you support my position?” Some questioned the rationality of their plans, but others hinted that his passivity was disloyal to a shared identity and lived experience. One said, “I was on your dissertation committee, and that should count for something.” Another said that they were the only two queer people on the team, and they felt isolated by his silence. Another noted his passive flexibility as reinforcing oppressive power structures in academia. A white colleague asked him afterwards how he could be a better ally, so he felt safer sharing his honest opinions. Andre continued, “Maybe I should think about the latent constructs of my behavior in that meeting, but I think I’m fine if we explore the first-time diagnosis of ADHD in adults, seniors, or both. Is it okay for me to take a break?” Another member said, “It is okay with me.”
Then Andre went on, “I don’t think people understand it is hard for me to be here and hard to be out there. Pressures to be an example, pressure to join this or that, or who or what—external pressures and internal pressures.”
The group waited in silence; seconds felt longer. Rarely did Andre speak with affect. I ran through all my habitual interventions in my head, “Do others feel similar in any way?” and on and on. I had the impulse to say to Andre, “I adore you,” which was true, but as I was sorting through what potential enactment and unprocessed personal material created that thought.
Alina spoke up. “Andre, I think I see you… I feel you… It is hard to be the only Black woman in here and out there… the old boys network doesn’t acknowledge racism” Tom, said, “I know it is not the same, but I am trying to see you and you, and while I assume it’s easier for me, sometimes it is hard for me in here and out there.”
As a leader, I was formulating an intervention around the phrase “not the same,” but before I could act, Alina turned to Tom and gently said, “Thanks, Tom.” Another young, awkward, extremely anxious, and eccentric white member spoke up and said, “I hope I am not messing things up for this group. I want to do good…I know I am weird sometimes.” Andre turned to him with his humorous touch and said, “We know you’re weird, it’s okay.” There were light chuckles and then silence. Then a member asked another about their child’s health, and the group moved on. I wondered whether I should push myself to return to the earlier topics and statements, but the child’s health seemed important to the members as well, and there are future groups.
Good-Bye Pork Pie Hat (from Mingus Ah Um / Columbia Records)
In later groups, the “not the same” statement was discussed, leading to personal sharing of lived experiences of these identities. Some members said they imagined Tom’s empathic attunement and likely non-deleterious intentions; however, other members shared that “not the same” evoked angry feelings of their experience being erased, misunderstood, simplified, silenced, and stereotyped. One member cried, and grief was also present.
Of course, there were occasional critiques of my leadership and me. Perhaps naively, I didn’t see this feedback as aggression or a transference enactment, but rather as sincere efforts to help me help the group and its members. During one of the reviews of my leadership, Andre turned to me and said, “You know what Winnicott says.” I didn’t ask, but I have the wish of “good enough.”
The topics of loyalty and intersectionality continue to be extensively examined and researched. Identity and loyalty dynamics are ever-present in all the groups of our lives. Our hope is that this short article will help the reader continue to explore these topics within themselves and within the groups of their lives; and meet those who are different from themselves with greater curiosity, nuance, and compassion.
References
Boszormenyi-Nagy, I., & Spark, G. M. (1973). Invisible loyalties: Reciprocity in intergenerational family therapy. Harper & Row.
Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. Routledge
Chrenshaw, K. (1991) Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity politics, and violence against women of color. Standford Law Review, 43(6) 124101299
Fanon, F. (1963). The wretched of the earth (C. Farrington, Trans.). Grove Press.
Freud, S. (1923/1961). The ego and the id (J. Strachey, Trans.). Norton.
Gellwitzki, C. N. L. (2025). The positions of ontological (in)security in international relations: Object relations, unconscious phantasies, and anxiety management. International Theory.
Hardy, S. A., & Carlo, G. (2005). Identity as a source of moral motivation: Moral identity and its relations to moral behavior. Psychological Bulletin Review, 11(3), 515-525.
hooks, b. (1990). Yearning: Race, gender, and cultural politics. South End Press.
Lacan, J. (1977). Écrits: A selection (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Norton.
Sanborn, C. (2023, October 5). Charles Mingus (Angry man of jazz?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LA1ElWl1xa8
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Brooks/Cole.
About the Authors:
Francis Kaklauskas, PsyD, is the Past President of APA Division 49, and currently runs groups of all types through the Collective for Psychological Wellness.
Isha Lucas, PhD, is a psychotherapist and anthropologist specializing in racial and intergenerational trauma, drawing from depth psychology and contemplative traditions.