Black Consciousness, Race Reconciliation & Racial Healing — America’s Solutions to the Lingering Anti-Black Sentiment

Someone once said that “the great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic […]”.[1]

Anti-black racism is a pervasive and historically entrenched fact of life in the United States of America. White Americans introduced the lie of race superiority, and then, slavery mainly for economic reasons.[2] And once they drunk from the bloody cups of wealth and privilege, they somehow persuaded themselves that they alone were entitled to privilege. To maintain the myth of their superiority and legitimize their lies, they fabricated legal arguments and created laws.[3] After centuries of believing in a myth that originated to support white Americans’ economic greed and survival, the issue is no longer that whites think that blacks are inferior; they simply despise backs because too often, [WE] “hold fast to the cliches of our forebears; we subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations and enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought”.[4] It is therefore not surprising that after years of black and white co-habitation in America, the racial divide and mistrust is still so salient.

However, it is today more than ever clear that black and white Americans “must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools”[5].
For a harmonious cohabitation , blacks must reclaim their humanity from the dehumanizing clutches of slavery through renewed black consciousness, racial reconciliation and healing.

Generally, reconciliation involves bringing estranged parties together, with the reconciled parties moving forward based on a new covenant between societal members[6]. Although the 13th, 14th, and 15th constitutional amendments can be viewed as the covenants that were intented to help America move forward as one nation[7], these rights supported the concept of race relations management[8], not race reconciliation which is what I believe America needs.

Looking at history, black and white Americans missed the opportunities to reconcile after the Civil War and the Brown v. Board of Education decision.[9]Back then, the focus was so much on promoting some form of equal opportunity for black Americans that those in power (aka whites) forgot that merely eliminating legal race-based barriers is insufficient to “wipe away the scars of centuries […]” of pain.[10]

During slavery, white people stripped blacks of the very fundamental tenets of their humanity: their culture and their identity by tampering with their memories and changing their names. [11] Since, blacks Americans have been traumatized to varying degrees by persistent racial violence and intimidation.[12] Thus, the need for black self-healing trough renewed black consciousness.

To rewrite history and restore upon the black Man a more human face, blacks have to re-examine who they are as a race, their values and systems. They must become black conscious. Black consciousness can be described as an awareness among blacks that “their human identity hinges on the fact that they are black, are proud of their skin color, and aware of the fact that they have their own black history and culture, differing from that of whites”.[13]This requires that they psychologically liberate themselves from the “slave mentality” created by “institutionalized racism” and “white colonialism”. They miust decolonize their minds.

To mentally decolonize themselves, blacks must focus on education, building community ties, activating the cultural archive and reformulating the black identity. Blacks must relate their past to the present and demonstrate a historical evolution of the modern black man in America. The black culture must be defined in concrete terms. In the process, blacks must remember their roots and cling to their “afro” culture, their love for music, warm weather and good food. Blacks must unite and make a strong fist together, be proud together, and speak out together because they are oppressed not as individuals, but as one black race.

While it may not be possible for an entire nation to be reconciled and for all blacks to heal from their generational trauma, perhaps a national apology can set the stage for a more open public discussion on racial reconciliation in the United States. Until then, black Americans must continue to march forth with courage and determination, drawing strength from their proud ancestors whose backs trembling with red scars, never broke under the weight of humiliation.

[1] See John F. Kennedy, Commencement Address at Yale University (June 11, 1962)http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29661

[2]Derrick A. Bell, Jr., Brown v. Board of Education and the Interest-Convergence Dilemma, 93 Harv. L. Rev. 518 (1980).

[3]Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1857), superseded (1868); also see Jim crow Laws, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws

[4] id John F. Kennedy, Commencement Address at Yale University (June 11, 1962)

[5] Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/martin_luther_king_jr_101309

[6]See Alex Boraine, The Language of Potential, in After The TRC: Reflections on Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa 73, 77 (Wilmot James & Linda Van De Vijver eds., 2000).

[7]Franklin D. Raines, Remarks at the University of Maryland Spring 2003 Commencement (May 22, 2003).

[8]William Powers, Oh My!, The New Republic, Aug. 11 & 18, 1997, at 9.

[9]Taunya Lovell Banks, Exploring White Resistance to Racial Reconciliation in the United States, 55 Rutgers L. Rev. 903, 907 (2003); also available http://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1563&context=fac_pubs

[10]See President Lyndon Johnson, Commencement Remarksat Howard University (Class of 1965); http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=27021

[11] Roots: The Saga of An American Family, Alex Haley (August 17, 1976)

[12] Taunya Lovell Banks, Exploring White Resistance to Racial Reconciliation in the United States, 55 Rutgers L. Rev. 903, 943 (2003)

[13] See Black Consciousnesss Movement, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Consciousness_Movement(last accessed May, 5th, 2018).