Racism: A White Problem Plaguing Black People

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“The consequence of the replacement of the repressed (African) spirit in the consciousness of the slave by an authority symbol representing the Master, a symbol implanted in the subsoil of the collective group and charged with maintaining order in it as a garrison controls a conquered city,” suggesting that the pressures of racism contort Freud’s (and many other scholars of and before this time) and place people of color in a never ending whirlpool of anxiety, doubt, & confusion; permanently struggling to pass the litmus test for White palatability. Even Lacan’s mirror stage presents an alternative view point. If an African child is cultivated in a racist Eurocentric society with their lives being treated as liminal and not having anything in mainstream society reiterated their humanity, a shell of insecurities and crippling low self-esteem develops; about themselves, their skin color, and everything associated with their skin color. Being as it is that they cannot change the source of inequity, they begin to look into the mirror and try to mimic what society plasters on their wall of identity. When in reality the representation in the mirror is fallacy. The desire for status is replaced with that of whiteness.

Everyday, every African affected by the Middle Passage, Colonialism, and/or Imperialism is faced with the dichotomy of aimlessly striving for “normalcy” and that of knowing and loving themselves before their interaction with Europe. One party is to blame, however both parties are now responsible for the move forward. That is however if the psychological, social, emotional, economical, mental, and even physiological damage can be reversed or appeased. As the machine of racism still runs regardless of who is pulling the lever: a stand must be taken because the solution is still in the making.

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