Posted on 02/03/2006 6:47:14 PM PST by Coleus
Some students at William Paterson University Thursday said they could see a correlation between the behavior of some students on campus and what a visiting professor called "post-traumatic slave syndrome."
Joy DeGruy Leary, an assistant professor of social work at Portland State University, presented more than a decade of research to a crowd of some 100 people at and concluded that generations of black families have been traumatized by the lingering effects of slavery. Her talk was the first in a series of Black History Month programs at the school.
Leary said she often hears blacks say that "good hair," or hair that is straight is more desired than "nappy hair," or curly hair.
"Why do we loathe the things that make us black?" she asked the audience. "These are socially learned behaviors."
Student Janelle Batson, 23, a junior, said she believes that lighter-skinned blacks on campus are sometimes seen as socially superior.
"This is something that is definitely affecting the black community on campus," she said.
Senior Dennis Wilson, 27, said "Many in our community are prone to dislike work because as slaves, we had to work long hours and weren't justly compensated."
Lawrence E. Mbogoni, Chair of African, African American and Caribbean Studies at William Paterson University, said in a telephone interview that the ramifications of slavery are still being felt to this day.
"What happens when someone is traumatized? They need to go through therapy," he said. "Freed slaves were never given any therapy after experiencing what they did."
Leary said drug use, high rates of incarceration, poverty, self-hate and the breakdown of the black family are symptoms that have not been eradicated from the culture.
"We are an incredible people, and a resilient people, but we have yet to heal," said Leary, who is black. "Cycles of oppression have left scars that have embedded themselves into our collective psyche."
What has this got to do with me?
Correct. For all the discrimination and extra burdens borne by American Blacks, the Black community was doing well up into the late 1950's, with no more of this social pathology than the White community. The "breakdown of the Black family" can be directly and decisively traced to socially dysfunctional liberal welfare politics. Patrick Moynihan did it in 1965.
Therapy is the Rat's answer for everything. If only everyone had therapy, things would be ideal. If the murdering, terrorist hordes had therapy they would be singing kumbaya with the west. Hell, I'm surprised the Rats don't make it part of their platform. National Therapy Care for everyone.
"most slaves were treated fairly by their masters"
Please explain to me how enslavement can in any way be described as "fair treatment".
"most slaves choose to stay and work for the same people who had previously owned them after they were freed."
Exactly what other options were available to them?
"I brought up the pet comparison because many people love their pets and treat them as part of their family, while other beat and generally abuse their pets. The analogy seemed fair, although I in no way think blacks are animals"
You also obviously don't think they are people with the same hopes and aspirations as "those of us descended from their ancestors owners".
"It's something that a number of people can (and obviously do) use as an excuse"
If they were grousing like this at a local watering hole, it would be sad enough, but at a college? Pathetic!
It's a she, she's wrong, and so are you. The fact is, none of these problems existed in the Black community after the Civil war or well into the welfare era of the 1950's. Black families were just as stable as white families, with only marginally higher rates of illegitimacy, etc., and that's despite real, rather than fantasized, racial problems.
You are misinformed and need to educate yourself at some length as to "how humans behave." So far, you have been listening to people who have been lying to you.
I agree. No one ever woke up thinking, "If I REALLY try hard, I may become a slave some day!"
One definition of malpractice is practicing outside one's area of competence. Internists typically don't know jack about empirical psychology and the "trauma business" is notorious for unethical charlatans like your latenight talkshow host.
This number is picked out of the air. The vast majority of molested children do NOT go on to molest their own children. It is one of the wretched urban legends of the 90's, along with repressed memories and international satanic cults all over the daycare industry. The sexual abuse problem is bad for many of its victims, but the numbers were not as pervasive as the feministas would have us all believe.
I suffer from my Christian ancestors being fed to Roman lions. This has traumatized me terrible. I wake up in cold sweats with the image of those large teeth eating into my belly.
We Christians need extensive therapy to overcome the horrors we have been subjected to, especially by the Romans. Some wounds never heal.
What idiocy. If that's the case, I want to free these slaves from their dependency - toss them off the welfare rolls today.
I will go with you on that.
Here is a fascinating website of interviews of former slaves.
I clicked on stories from people who were from the Athens / Eatonton Georgia area ("Uncle Remus" territory) and virtually all say things like "Our master was nice....but we heard tell of other places where....."
One story of a women who went on to become a teacher in Athens (black school, I am sure) told of when one the slaves got sick, the master went and got Dr. Long.
That was Dr. Crawford W, Long....inventor of anesthesia and the most famous doctor ever to come from Georgia.
Oh well....I'll let the former slaves speak for themselves:
Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938
That is largely a myth. Undoubtedly many slaves were beaten and/or sexually assaulted by sadistic slaveowners but the majority were not. Slaves were very expensive property and beaten, broken slaves were not productive workers.
The majority of slaves in the American South during the 19th century were well-fed, housed, provided with health care and given time off. In many ways they were treated better than the Irish indentured servents who lived in squalor and dire poverty.
Many slaved returned to the plantations after the Civil War and resumed working for their former owners --for a wage.
A radical pet activist would argue that any pet is a slave compared to the freedom a wild wolf enjoys.
If you get past the emotional aspect of slavery you will understand that not all owners of slaves tied them to trees and beat them half to death, nor raped their wives or daughters, nor sold their wives and children away from them, ect, ect...
After the slaves were freed many left and went north, a few even got on ships and went back to Africa, some joined the Union army, as free men they could go where they pleased, and the occupying union army made sure of it. Most of the ones who had been mistreated badly I can assure you didn't decide to hang around and continue working for the same people who had needlessly abused them, beyond the fact of owning them. In fact, many slave owners actually freed their slaves after a certain period of time or left instructions in their wills to free all their slaves upon their death.
Amen to that. They're not victims of what happened 140 years ago...they're a victim of entitlement run amok.
"Post-traumatic slave syndrome" must be able to skip generations. Marriage rates for blacks and whites were equal in the 40's, in spite of racism. The black family didn't start breaking apart until liberal welfare changed black culture and drove fathers out of the family.
Good one.
You're right. I've been here a long time, this takes the prize.
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