THE MOST EXCITING BREAKTHROUGHS OF THE
21ST CENTURY WILL OCCUR NOT BECAUSE OF
TECHNOLOGY BUT BECAUSE OF AN EXPANDING
CONCEPT OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE HUMAN.
JOHN NAISBITT
CONNECTIONS
___________________________________________
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us
‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He
experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as
something separated from the rest – a kind of
optical illusion of his consciousness. This delusion
is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our
personal desires and to affection for a few persons
nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves
from this prison by widening our circle of
compassion to embrace all living creatures and the
whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to
achieve this completely, but the striving for such
achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and
foundation for inner security.
~ Albert Einstein~
“Truthfulness is the foundation of all the
virtues of the world of humanity. . .”
Bahá'í Faith





6,692,030,277 - 2008
59– 62%
13.75%
12,1%
8.5%
Asian
African 920 million
Europe 802 million
Latin Americans 569 million
Who Are We?
Your beliefs become your thoughts, your
thoughts become your words, your words
become your actions, your actions
become your habits, your habits become
your values, your values become your
destiny.
Gandhi
THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE IN SAFE GUARDING THE SELF
Let me begin with the common empirical observations that people feel incomparably more
alarmed by a threat to the psyche or the soul or the self than they are by a threat to the body.
The death of the self is of far greater concern than the death of the body. People will
willingly sacrifice their bodies if they perceive it as the only way to avoid “losing their
souls,” “losing their minds,” or “losing face.” In addition, a person only develops a stable,
integrated, and differentiated sense of selfhood or identity through the process of interacting
with other humans in the community, or culture. The psyche is as dependent upon being
nurtured by those modes of relationships and community, of childrearing and education,
which we call culture, as the body is being nourished by food. One consequence of that fact
is that a perceived threat to the integrity and survival of a person’s culture is perceived as a
threat to the integrity and survival of the individuals personality or character, and to the
viability of one’s ethical value system . . .Those are among the reasons why the death of
one’s culture is tantamount to the death of one’s self. . .The loss of self-esteem is
experienced subjectively as the death of the self. People will sacrifice anything to prevent
the death and disintegration of their individual or group identity.
James Gilligan, MD. (1997)
Defining Racism
Racism is:
A System of Advantage Based on Race




European
African/Latino
Asian
Native
Member – Object
Member – Member
Member – Group
Member – Great Spirit
Dr. Edwin J. Nichols and Associates © 1967, 1987
The United States Constitution:
The First Contradiction and Resulting Cognitive Dissonance
Genocide of Natives, African Slavery
&
“Freedom and Democracy”
How America Resolved the Cognitive Dissonance:
• Anxiety that results from simultaneously holding contradictory or otherwise
incompatible attitudes, beliefs,
•1. Justify Behavior
•2. Re-label People to Fit the Behavior
•Defined blacks in a way that made ‘Chattel Slavery’ reasonable and
justified to the country.
©JDP
Historical Stereotypes: Their Role in Framing
Contemporary Beliefs and Perceptions about
People of Color
The Role of Institutions in our Education and Socialization:
•Science
•Politics
•Religion
•Education
•Medicine
•Media
•Law
©JDP
©JDP
Statue of Liberty Holding Broken Chains in Her Left Hand
Chains Now at the feet of the Statue of Liberty
12 Inch Souvenir Replica of the Statue of Liberty
THE ONLY PART OF THE CHAINS VISIBLE TO VISITORS
The Trail of Tears
During October and November of 1838 on an 800 mile
route through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri
and Arkansas Cherokee People arrived in what is now
Eastern Oklahoma during January, February and March,
1839. Disease, exposure and starvation may have
claimed as many as 4,000 Cherokee lives during the
course of capture, imprisonment and removal.
Ottawa Canada’s Apology to First Nations Natives
"Attitudes of racial and cultural superiority led to a suppression of aboriginal culture
and values," she said. "As a country, we are burdened by past actions that resulted
in weakening the identity of aboriginal peoples, suppressing their languages and
cultures, and outlawing spiritual practices.
She added: "the time has come to state formally that the days of paternalism and
disrespect are behind us and we are committed to changing the nature of the
relationship between aboriginal and non-aboriginal people in Canada."
For Phil Fontaine, leader the Assembly of First Nations, a coalition of nationwide
Native groups, the apology paves the way for lasting peace between them and the
Canadian government.
With the apology, came a $250 million fund to redress the problems caused by the
residential school policy. From the 1870's until the 1960's, the government took
children from native homes and placed them in church-run boarding schools where
many were physically abused by priests, nuns and ministers. The money will be
spent on therapy and job skills training.
Historical Beginning
The Door of no Return
Elmina Slave Castle
Ghana
©JDP
Cape Coast Slave Castle
Male Slave Dungeon Cape Coast
The only source of light and ventilation in the slave dungeons
Death Cell for African Men.
Symbols carved in near total darkness into the stone floor of the male ‘Death Cell’
symbols call out to the ancestors to deliver them from their suffering
Cell Where White Soldiers Were Held for 24 Hrs.
Stairs leading from the
Governors bedroom to
Female Slave Dungeon
Steel ball enslaved African women were chained to when they resisted being raped
Death Cell For African Women
UNESCO discovered 2 feet of human waste mistaken as ground
* United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
Church in the Center of Elmina Slave Castle
U.S. APOLOGY FOR SLAVERY
On July 29, 2008 and 2009 the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate
passed nonbinding resolutions apologizing for slavery. Nonbinding meaning that the
resolution carries no legal weight. With this resolution the federal government
acknowledged the:
"injustice, cruelty, brutality and inhumanity of slavery and Jim Crow." The
resolution states that "the vestiges of Jim Crow continue to this day." "AfricanAmericans continue to suffer from the consequences of slavery and Jim Crow -- long
after both systems were formally abolished -- through enormous damage and loss,
both tangible and intangible, including the loss of human dignity and liberty, the
frustration of careers and professional lives, and the long-term loss of income and
opportunity," the resolution states. The House also committed itself to stopping "the
occurrence of human rights violations in the future."
The resolution did not however, address in any way the issue of reparations nor did the
resolution offer any suggestions about how to repair the damage done to Africans and
their descendants. It was…just an apology.
DEHUMANIZATION VS OBJECTIFICATION
When the Nazis described Jews as Untermenschen, or
subhumans, they didn't mean it metaphorically, says
Smith. "They didn't mean they were like subhumans.
They meant they were literally subhuman.“
Then, within the human category, there has historically
been a hierarchy. In the 18th century, white Europeans
— the architects of the theory — "modestly placed
themselves at the very pinnacle." The lower edges of the
category merged with the apes, according to their
thinking.
So "sub-Saharan Africans and Native Americans were
denizens of the bottom of the human category," when
they were even granted human status. Mostly, they
were seen as "soulless animals." And that dramatic
dehumanization made it possible for great atrocities to
take place.
CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
A term used by, within and so defined by the International Criminal Court
Treaty and including any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or
systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:
•Murder;
•Extermination;
•Enslavement;
•Deportation or forcible transfer of a population;
•Imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of fundamental
rules of international law;
• Torture
•Rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, or any
other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity;
•Persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national,
ethnic, cultural,, religious, gender, or other grounds that are universally recognized as
impermissible under international law;
•Enforced disappearance of persons;
•The crime of apartheid;
•Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or serious
injury to body or to mental or physical health.
©JDP
Carl Von Linnaeus (1707 –1778)
Linnaeus properly began the science of
anthropology
He describes…
Homo Americanus as reddish, choleric,
obstinate, contented, and regulated by
customs;
Homo Europaeus as white, fickle, sanguine,
blue-eyed, gentle and governed by laws;
Homo Asiaticus as sallow, grave dignified,
avaricious, and ruled by opinion; and
Homo Afer as black, phlegmatic, cunning,
lazy, lustful, careless, and governed by
caprice.
The Formal Education of - The great Swedish Scientist
Linnaeus, the inventor of the Western system of taxonomy,
Linnaeus, after one week received his Ph.D. for a thirteen-page
dissertation from the Dutch University of Harderwijk, which one
historian of science designated as a “mail-order” institution.The
university of Harderwijk was know for selling degrees.
“A saying in the Netherlands for a person whose scientific
knowledge is questionable is “he’s from the University of
Harderwijk”
Nell Irvin Painter “The History of White People” 2010
Johann Fredrich Blumenbach (1752-1840)
“For,
©JDP
in the first place, the
stock displays, as we have
seen, the most beautiful form
of the skull, from which, as a
mean and primeval type, the
others diverge by most easy
gradations on both sides to the
two ultimate extremes (that is,
on the one side the Mongolian,
on the other the Ethiopian).
Besides, it is white in color,
which we may fairly assume
to have been the primitive
color of mankind . . .”
The Formal Education of – Johann Friedrich Blumenbach
Blumenbach received his Medical degree from the University at
Gottingen after submitting his fifteen page long dissertation, the
result of one year’s study with an older professor who owned an
extraordinarily large and disordered natural history collection.
Blumenbach, along with “scientific racists’ of Britain and the
United States began to rank facial characteristics and skin color
hierarchically beginning, not surprisingly with white as superior
and most “beautiful.” Thus, identifying beauty as a scientific
category.
Nell Irvin Painter “The History of White People” 2010
Were there “white” people in antiquity? . . .People with light skin certainly existed
well before our own times. But did anyone think they were White or that their
character related to their color? No, for neither the idea of race nor the idea of
“white” people had been invented, and people’s skin color did not carry useful
meaning. . . Not until the eighteenth century did an obsession with whiteness
flourish, with the German invention of the notion of Caucasian beauty. This
theory made northern Europeans into “Saxons” “Anglo-Saxons,” and
“Teutons,” envisioned as uniquely handsome natural rulers.
Also conspicuously missing from current libraries is the long history of white
slavery dating back to the early medieval period where Anglo-Saxon and Old
Norse literature depicts the Welsh person, a slave as drunken, and sexually
aggressive, and the notion that the Welsh and Celts generally were dark – had
hair and skin darkened by exposure to the sun—circulated as the typical coloring
of slaves,. . .slaves appear as dirty, sun-tanned people with ugly, quarrelsome,
lazy, gossipy and smarmy children. History’s most famous British slave was
Patrick , Ireland’s patron saint.
. . . Twentieth century sociologist Max Weber says it well While the nobility
believe their superiority grows out of their own “underived, ultimate, and
qualitatively distinctive being” no one in favored circumstances wants to admit
the chanciness of privilege. “The fortunate man,” is seldom satisfied with the
fact of being fortunate. Beyond this, he needs to know that he has a right to his
good fortune. He wants to be convinced that ‘he deserves’ it, and above all,
deserves it in comparison with others. . . Good fortune thus wants to be
‘legitimate’ fortune. Innate qualities are needed to prove the justice--the
naturalness and inalterability – of the status quo. In the United States, in
Samuel George Morton’s Philadelphia, where the buying and selling of
laborers extended into the 19th century, that often turned into a justification for
African Slavery. . .Thus, the 19th century rage for races turned languages into
peoples, and the word arya, meaning “noble” or “spiritual” in Sanskrit, came
to be applied to an imagined, superior race of Aryans.

What was eugenics? The English mathematician Sir Francis
Galton first coined the term in 1883. He wrote, "Eugenics is
the study of the agencies under social control that seek to
improve or impair the racial qualities of future generations
either physically or mentally." What Galton saw as a new
branch of scientific inquiry became a dogmatic prescription in
the ranking and ordering of human worth. His ideas found
their most receptive audience at the turn of the century in the
United States.

1. Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development
(London: Macmillan, 1883), frontispiece.

Mainline eugenicists (those eugenicists who were explicitly
preoccupied with issues of race), believed that some
individuals and entire groups of people (such as Southern
Europeans, Jews, Africans, and Latinos) were more
predisposed to the "defective genes." Charles Davenport, a
leader in American eugenics, argued for laws to control the
spread of "inferior blood" into the general population. He told
an international gathering of scholars "that the biological basis
for such laws is doubtless an appreciation of the fact that
negroes and other races carry traits that do not go well with
our social organization.“

2 Steven Selden, "Conservative Ideology and Curriculum," Educational
Theory 3 (Summer 1977), p. 218.
Franz Boaz
1858-1942
Father of American Anthropology
Although serious work was being done in anthropology at
the time, the field was heavily peopled with untrained
adventurers and armchair philosophers. Racial bias and
bigotry was rampant, and the gathering of information was
sometimes haphazard and riddled with an assortment of
bias. It was common practice to use small scraps of
information, or preconceived pet theories, to further
prognosticate on the "nature of man.“
Because he was so grounded in the natural sciences, Boas
was aware that what differentiated the study of humankind
from geography or zoology was the study of "culture." But
culture to Boas was not simply another synonym for
"civilization" (i.e. art, technology, and lofty ideas). And
unlike many of his predecessors he did not see culture as
predestined to some kind of linear progression, onward and
upward, until it resulted in the equivalent of civilized
European society. He also rejected the corollary prejudice
that those who hadn't "arrived", or whose society differed
from civilized European society, were simply inferior
members of the human species.
“Race is a concept of society that insists there is a
genetic significance behind human variations in skin
color that transcends outward appearance. However,
race has no scientific merit outside of sociological
classifications. There are no significant genetic
variations within the human species to justify the
division of “races.”
The Role of The Politics
©JDP
Fear of Annihilation
Samuel Thurston was a delegate to the United States Congress from the Oregon
Territory. Speaking before Congress in 1850 in defense of his Territory’s
Exclusionary Acts he argued the following:
. . .The negroes associate with the Indians and intermarry, and, if their free
ingress is encouraged or allowed, there would a relationship spring up between
them and the different tribes, and mixed race would ensue inimical to the whites;
and the Indians being led by the Negro who is better acquainted with the
customs, language, and manners of the whites, than the Indian, these savages
would become much more formidable than they otherwise would, and long and
bloody wars would be the fruits of the commingling of the races. It is the
principle of self preservation that justifies the action of the Oregon legislature.
*According to a mid 1800’s census six-hundred thousand mixed race
children were born even though miscegenation laws were in effect.
©JDP
James Madison
(1751-1836)
Blacks are inhabitants, but
as debased by servitude below
the equal level of free
inhabitants; which regards
the slave as divested of twofifths of the man.
Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826)
Blacks smelled bad and were
physically unattractive, required less
sleep, were dumb, cowardly and
incapable of feeling grief. . . .
advance it therefore as a suspicion
only, that blacks, whether originally
a distinct race, or made distinct by
time and circumstances, are inferior
to the whites in the endowments of
body and mind.

Most people don’t associate slavery with New York or the
north. The truth is all 13 Colonies had slavery. . With
estimates of 10,000 to 20,000 people buried in this seven-acre
burial ground, it’s considered the largest known site of its kind
in the U.S. Blakey’s analysis of human skeletal remains
revealed that these men and women. . .were literally worked to
death.(they suffered from enthesopathies a condition resulting
in the muscle detaching itself from the bone as a result of
people being worked beyond human capacity). Enslaved
Africans faced brutal working conditions, premature rates of
mortality, and excessive workloads, while nutritional
deficiencies were common among young children.

Michael Blakey, scientific director for the African Burial Ground project and now a
professor of anthropology at Howard University in Washington, D.C.
A valuable negro woman, accustomed to all kinds
of house work. Is a good plain cook and an
excellent dairy maid. Washes and irons. She has
four children, one a girl about 13 years of age,
another 7, a boy about 5, and an infant 11 months
old. 2 of the children will be sold with the mother,
the others separately if it best suits the
purchaser…
Conditions: ½ cash, balance by bond, bearing interest from date of sale. Payable in
one to two years to be secured by a mortgage of the Negroes, and appraised personal
securities. Auctioneer will pay for the papers.
The Role of Religion
©JDP
Church in the Center of Elmina Slave Castle
Richard Oswald
1705 - 1784
The son of a Presbyterian minister.
International Trader of Enslaved Africans
Majority shareholder in Bance Island Dominant Figure in Grant,
Oswald & Co.
Amassed a fortune from the profits of the slave trade in the late
1700’s worth $68 million today
Reverend John Newton
1725 – 1807
“Slaves, are lesser creatures without Christian souls and thus are not destined for the
next world.”
“When the women and girls are taken on board a ship, naked, trembling, terrified. .
they are often exposed to the wanton rudeness of white savages. . .The prey is
divided, upon the spot. .Resistance or refusal would be utterly in vain.”
“I sinned with a high hand.”
(Author of Amazing Grace)
The Role of Education
©JDP
The Role of Philosophy: Aristotle's Theory of Slavery
Aristotle raises the question of whether slavery is natural or conventional. He asserts that
the former is the case. So, Aristotle's theory of slavery holds that some people are
naturally slaves and others are naturally masters. Thus he says:
But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a slave, and for whom such a
condition is expedient and right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of nature?
There is no difficulty in answering this question, on grounds both of reason and of
fact. For that some should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only necessary,
but expedient; from the hour of their birth, some are marked out for subjection,
others for rule.
This suggests that anyone who is ruled must be a slave, which does not seem at all right.
Still, given that this is so he must state what characteristics a natural slave must have -- so
that he or she can be recognized as such a being. Who is marked out for subjugation, and
who for rule? This is where the concept of "barbarian" shows up in Aristotle's account.
Aristotle says:
So men rule naturally over women, and Greeks over barbarians!
The Burden of Civilizing
Sociology and Modern Social Problems
Charles A. Ellwood, Ph.D. 1913
“The problem of the Negro and of the Indian,
and of all the uncivilized races, is essentially
the same. The problem is, how a relatively
large mass of people, inferior in culture and
perhaps also inferior in nature, can be adjusted
relatively to the civilization of a people much
their superior in culture, how the industrially
inefficient nature man can be made over into
the industrially efficient civilized Man.”
ENVIRONMENT
John Muir
Have you ever visited Mt. Rainier, the Grand
Canyon, the Petrified Forest, or Yosemite?
These places are all national parks today in part
because of the work of one man – John Muir.
In the 1800’s, millions of people began living in
parts of the United States where no one had
ever lived before. To make their livings, people
chopped down forests to have lumber for
building and to clear land for farming. People
built dams across rivers. They built roads,
bridges, and railroads, and they dug mines
(1980) Beaverton, Oregon Social Studies text book
In 1906, the Bronx Zoo put
Ota Benga, a Congolese
pygmy, on display in a cage in
its Monkey House. He was 22
years old, a member of the
Batwa people, pygmies who
lived in what was then the
Belgian Congo.
In defense of the depiction of Benga as a lesser human, an editorial
in The New York Times suggested:
We do not quite understand all the emotion which others are expressing in
the matter ... It is absurd to make moan over the imagined humiliation and
degradation Benga is suffering. The pygmies ... are very low in the human
scale, and the suggestion that Benga should be in a school instead of a cage
ignores the high probability that school would be a place ... from which he
could draw no advantage whatever. The idea that men are all much alike
except as they have had or lacked opportunities for getting an education out
of books is now far out of date.
H.R. Hopps’s topless-white woman-clutching, club-dragging, bloodypawed, drooling ape, from his 1917 poster, and the April 2008 VOGUE
Magazine Cover.
Lynching as A
Social Event
Note that the participants
are in white indicating
that it was Sunday and
they had attended church
©JDP
Ordinary Citizens
©JDP
One Hundred Years of Lynching (R. Ginsburg, 1988)
Before the torch was applied to the pyre, the negro was deprived of his ears,
fingers and genital parts of his body. He pleaded pitifully for his life while the
mutilation was going on, but stood the ordeal of fire with surprising fortitude.
Before the body was cool, it was cut to pieces, the bones were crushed into
small bits, and even the tree upon which the wretch met his fate was torn up
and disposed of as “souvenirs.” The negro’s heart was cut into several pieces,
as was also his liver. Those unable to obtain the ghastly relics direct paid their
more fortunate possessors extravagant sums for them. Small pieces of bones
went for 25 cents, and a bit of the liver crisply cooked sold for 10 cents. As
soon as the negro was seen to be dead there was a tremendous struggle among
the crowd to secure the souvenirs . . .
Black Sharecroppers Quarters
“Slavery By Another Name”
The Constitution of the State of Oregon (Exclusionary Act)
: Article 1 Section 35
No free negro, or Mulatto, not residing in this State at the time of the adoption
of this Constitution, shall come, reside, or be within this State, or hold any real
estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein; and the Legislative
Assembly shall provide by penal laws, for the removal, by public officers, of
all such negroes, and mulattoes, and for their effectual exclusion from the
state, and for the punishment of persons who shall bring them into the state, or
employ, or harbor them. (Repealed November 3, 1926)
Section 6
That if any free negro or mulatto shall fail to quit the country as required
by this act. . . if guilty upon trial . . . shall receive upon his or her back
not less than twenty nor more than thirty-nine stripes. . .
*Restrictions included Chinese and Indians
©JDP
The Role of Law
©JDP
Whipping Scars
An escaped slave named "Peter,"
whose back bears evidence of
terrible beatings, told the person
who took his picture (in Baton
Rouge, April 2, 1863): "Overseer
Artayou Carrier whipped me. I
was two months in bed sore from
the whipping.
THE CASUAL KILLING ACT: VIRGINIA STATUTE
XXXIV. 1705
• And if any slave resist his master, or owner, or other
person, by his or her order, correcting such slave, and
shall happened to be killed in such correction, it shall
not be counted felony; but the master, owner and
every other person so giving correction, shall be
acquit of all punishment and accusation for the same,
as if such accident had never happened.
Convicts Leased
to Harvest Timber in Florida
Convict leasing was
so successful that by
1898 nearly three
quarters of
Alabama’s total
state revenue came
directly from this
institution.
Separate But Equal
NORM STAMPER 2005: Breaking Rank
34 year police veteran and retired Chief of Police for the
cities of San Diego and Seattle.
I’ve heard some police officers refer to prostitute slayings (or to the
slayings of blacks) as “misdemeanor murders,” employing an unofficial
code for them: NHI, no human involved.
San Diego cops confessed to myriad other acts of discrimination, including
additional dehumanizing references to blacks, . . . on a radio call “just an
11-13—nigger (11-13 being code for an injured animal, followed by a
descriptor:”dog,” “cat,” “skunk.”
It was a pernicious form of discrimination, injected with a large dose of
misogyny, that led to the labeling of the lone female officer in my academy
class as a “split tail” . . . speculated it had something to do with a
woman’s vagina.
Norm Stamper: Police - Sexual Predators
. . . In 1986, on-duty California Highway Patrol officer Craig Peyer strangled a
San Diego State University student named Cara Knott and threw her body off a
seventy-foot bridge. Motive? She’d resisted his sexual advances.
My cautious guess is that 5 percent of America’s cops are on the prowl for
women. In a department the size of Seattle's that’s sixty-three police officers.
In San Diego, 145. In New York City, 2,000. The average patrol cop makes
anywhere from ten to twenty unsupervised contacts a shift. If he’s on the make,
chances are a predatory cop will find you. Or your wife, your partner, your
daughter, your sister, your mother, your friend.
. . . It is not hard to understand why people of color, the poor, and younger
Americans Did not, and do not, look upon the police as “theirs”. . . Compare
and contrast: Are the police, as an institution, known for their protection of “the
innocent against deception” or do they deceive the innocent? Do the police
protect “the weak against oppression or intimidation” or do they oppress and
intimidate the very people they’ve sworn to protect?
Norm Stamper: Criminal justice
Race and Class discrimination are all too real in
every phase of the criminal justice system, from
arrest to sentencing. Impoverished black defendants
are far more likely to wind up on death row than rich
or middle-class whites. Of the 3,700 inmates now
awaiting execution nationwide, 43 percent are
African-American. Black defendants are not
accorded the same due process rights as whites, their
cases are not given the same scrutiny and
consideration afforded white defendants. Not now,
not ever, not in this country
Emmet Till 1955
The New Jim Crow
Michelle Alexander, 2010
In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to
use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination,
exclusion, and social contempt. So we don’t. Rather than rely on
race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color
“criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly
left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against
criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to
discriminate against African Americans. Once you’re labeled a
felon, the old forms of discrimination, denial of the right to vote,
denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and
other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are
suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights,
arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the
height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America;
we have merely redesigned it.
The Racial Dimension of Mass Incarceration
Michelle Alexander, 2010
In some states black men have been admitted to prison on drug
charges at rates fifty times greater than those of white men. And
in major cities wracked by the drug war, as many as 80 percent
of young African American men now have criminal records and
are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their
lives. These young men are part of a growing undercaste,
permanently locked up and out of mainstream society.
These stark racial disparities cannot be explained by rates of drug
crime. Studies show that people of all colors use and sell illegal
drugs at remarkably similar rates. If there are significant
differences in the surveys to be found, they frequently suggest
that whites, particularly white youth are more likely to engage in
drug crime than people of color.
Miseducation:
What impact has history had on African Americans?
• The same educational process which inspires and stimulate the
oppressor with the thought that he is everything and has
accomplished everything worth while, depresses and crushes at
the same time the spark of genius in the Negro by making him
feel that his race does not amount to much and never will
measure up to the standards of other peoples. The Negro thus
educated is a hopeless liability of the race. The difficulty is that
the “educated Negro” is compelled to live and move among his
own people whom he has been taught to despise. As a rule
therefore, the “educated Negro” prefers to buy his food from a
white grocer because he has been taught that the Negro is not
clean. It does not matter how often a Negro washes his hands,
then, he cannot clean them, and no matter how often a white
man uses his hands he cannot soil them.
Carter G. Woodson
ARIZONA’S 2010 IMMIGRATION LAW
Arizona Governor, Jan Brewer’s immigration law is said to be
the “broadest and strictest immigration measure in generations,
would make the failure to carry immigration documents a crime
and give the police broad power to detain anyone suspected of
being in the country illegally. “
Additionally, a new law has been signed in Tucson to eliminate
ethnic studies from the Tucson unified school District which
offers specialized courses in African American, Mexican
American, and Native American studies.“State Schools Chief
Tom Horne, said he believes the Mexican American studies
program teaches Latino students that they are oppressed by
white people.”
Learned Helplessness
Perceived self-inefficacy = The inability to influence events and
social conditions that significantly affect one's own life can give
rise to feelings of futility and despondency as well as anxiety.
Learned helplessness occurs when an individual perceives
independence between performance and/or reinforcement outcome.
Under this condition, whether an individual responds or not, the
probability of a particular outcome is the same. In this situation, the
individual perceives that his behavior cannot control the outcome or
events; one cannot terminate or reduce the probability of an adverse
event nor produce or increase the probability of a positively
reinforcing event.
The Role of Media
©JDP
2005 Hurricane Katrina Victims on a roof top in Louisiana Pups, on an airplane, being rescued from the Gulf Region.
~Picture from the Baltimore Sun
Hurricane Katrina – Removing the Dissonance
“A young man
walks through
chest deep flood
water after looting
a grocery store in
New Orleans on
Tuesday, Aug. 30th
2005…”
“Two residents
wade through
chest-deep water
after finding bread
and soda from a
local grocery
store…”
2010 Earthquake Victims in Haiti 2010 Haitian Earthquake: “The Result of God’s Punishment of Haitians”
Famous American televangelist
Pat Robertson
“The deadly Haitian earthquake that killed thousands of people is God's vengeance for a "pact" Haitians swore to the Devil. Robertson said Haitians have been cursed because they made a "deal" with the Devil to free themselves from the French.”
2004 Tsunami Victims in Indonesia
INDONESIA’S CHILD PORNOGRAPHY AND
TRAFFICING
An initial moderate estimate of the prevalence of child
prostitution in Indonesia is that around 30% of the total sex
workers in the country are aged under 18 years. This
constitutes around 40,000 to over 150,000 based on
different estimates of the number of sex workers.
UNICEF Indonesia, Mohammad Farid, “Commercial Sexual Exploitation
of Children in Indonesia,” Child Workers I Asia, January-March 2000
NGO's estimate that there are as many as 1.3 million
prostitutes in the country, 30% of which may be under 16
years of age.
(US Dept. of State, Country Reports on human Rights Practices-2000
February, 2001
The Role of Medicine
©JDP
James Marion Sims
(1813-1883)
J. Marion Sims was a physician in the mid1800’s who was credited with the creation of the
first vaginal speculum which was made from a
pewter spoon. Sims built a makeshift hospital in
his back yard where he conducted surgical
experiments on countless un-anesthetized
enslaved African women. Sims reasoned that
slave women were able to bear great pain
because their ‘race’ made them more durable,
and thus they were well suited for painful
medical experimentation.
So, where did Sims get all those slave women on
whom to run his experiments?
Many of the women came from slave owners who
complained to Sims that these slave women were ‘not fit
for duty.’ They were said to suffer from a particular
disorder called a ‘fistula.’ An obstetric fistula is the
breakdown of tissue in the vaginal wall, frequently as the
result of childbirth, and which affects the bladder and or
the rectum. The disorder causes leakage of urine and
feces, which made for a smelly and humiliating existence
for the women.
Medical Dehumanization of African Women
Their first pathological symptom was their primary racial
characteristic: their skin color. In a medical world that categorized
life as either normal or pathological, people of the African Diaspora
were continually condemned to the category of pathological, their
‘abnormal’ skin color serving as a foil for ‘normal’ white skin.
Pathological causes for this condition were concocted in order to
explain its prevalence. Sander Gilman explains, “Medical tradition
has a long history of perceiving this skin color as the result of some
pathology. The favorite theory, which reappears with some
frequency in the early nineteenth century, is that the skin color and
attendant physiognomy of the black are the result of congenital
leprosy.” Such medical arguments, in collusion with racist and
stereotypic scientific and cultural explanations and excuses,
provided the grounds for differential ‘treatment.’ 22
Black females were perceived to be irreligious, lustful, and
immoderate. Their protruding buttocks and genitals were offered as
physical evidence of their pathology. This was in stark contrast to
white females who, while still thought of as pathological, were
perceived as fragile and frigid.
Terri Kasalis “Public Privates” (1997)
“No white could ever rape a slave woman “The
regulations of Law, as to the white race, on
the subject of sexual intercourse do not and
cannot, for obvious reasons, apply to slaves,
their intercourse is promiscuous.”
Shoemaker’s Awl
Black infants suffered from what he
termed “trimus nascentium,” now
commonly referred to as neonatal
tetanus. Sims attributed the condition to
the indecency and intellectual flaws of
black slaves, together with skull
malformations at birth. Sims attempted
to treat this malady by trying to pry the
bones in the skulls of the tiny infants
into alignment with the use of a
shoemakers awl
Statue of Sims in Central Park
Sims’ Duckbill Speculum on display at Ellis Island
Indian Women as Sex Objects
Shadows of the Indian: Stereotypes in American Culture (Stedman, 1982)
One element Stedman doesn't address is La Belle Sauvage's
sexual overtones. Western men have always thought of "foreign"
or "exotic" women as delectable forbidden fruit. Whether it was
nubile black slaves, fiery Latina peasants, or demure Asian
geishas, they presumed the servile facade hid a siren of
smoldering sexuality. . .Other examples reinforce the point.
Malinche, the slave girl who translated the Aztec language for
Cortés, became his mistress and bore him a son. In Dances with
Wolves, Kevin Costner makes a beeline for the comely Indian
maiden, who turns out to be a captured white woman. People
(including Disney's filmmakers) want to believe Pocahontas had
blissful romances with John Smith and John Rolfe.
If you can't have one, be one
What about non-Indians who claim to be descended from Indian princesses? In an excerpt
from Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian Manifesto, Vine Deloria Jr. explains the
phenomenon:
During my three years as Executive Director of the National Congress of
American Indians it was a rare day when some white didn't visit my office and
proudly proclaim that he or she was of Indian descent.
Cherokee was the most popular tribe of their choice and many people placed the
Cherokees anywhere from Maine to Washington State. Mohawk, Sioux, and
Chippewa were next in popularity. Occasionally, I would be told about some
mythical tribe from lower Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Massachusetts which had
spawned the white standing before me.
At times I became quite defensive about being a Sioux when these white people
had a pedigree that was so much more respectable than mine. But eventually I
came to understand their need to identify as partially Indian and did not resent
them. I would confirm their wildest stories about their Indian ancestry and would
add a few tales of my own hoping that they would be able to accept themselves
someday and leave us alone.
Whites claiming Indian blood generally tend to reinforce mythical beliefs about Indians. All but one
person I met who claimed Indian blood claimed it on their grandmother's side. I once did a projection
backward and discovered that evidently most tribes were entirely female for the first three hundred
years of white occupation. No one, it seemed, wanted to claim a male Indian as a forebear.
It doesn't take much insight into racial attitudes to understand the real meaning of the Indian
grandmother complex that plagues certain whites. A male ancestor has too much of the aura of the
savage warrior, the unknown primitive, the instinctive animal, to make him a respectable member of
the family tree. But a young Indian princess? Ah, there was royalty for the taking. Somehow the white
was linked with a noble house of gentility and culture if his grandmother was an Indian princess who
ran away with an intrepid pioneer. And royalty has always been an unconscious but all-consuming
goal of the European immigrant.
The early colonists, accustomed to life under benevolent despots, projected their understanding of the
European political structure onto the Indian tribe in trying to explain its political and social structure.
European royal houses were closed to ex-convicts and indentured servants, so the colonists made all
Indian maidens princesses, then proceeded to climb a social ladder of their own creation. Within the
next generation, if the trend continues, a large portion of the American population will eventually be
related to Powhattan.
While a real Indian grandmother is probably the nicest thing that could happen to a child, why is a
remote Indian princess grandmother so necessary for many whites? Is it because they are afraid of
being classed as foreigners? Do they need some blood tie with the frontier and its dangers in order to
experience what it means to be an American? Or is it an attempt to avoid facing the guilt they bear for
the treatment of the Indian?


In the early years of the nineteenth century, a physician named
Samuel A. Cartwright argued that two particular forms of
mental illness, caused by nerve disorders, were prevalent
among slaves.
One was drapetomania, which was diagnosable by a single
symptom: the uncontrollable urge to escape from slavery.

The other disorder dysathesia aethiopica, revealed many
symptoms: destroying property, being disobedient, talking
back, fighting with their masters and refusing to work.

Drapetomania was a psychiatric diagnosis proposed in 1851 by physician Dr. Samuel A.
Cartwright, of the Louisiana Medical Association, to explain the tendency of black slaves to
flee captivity.
The Mismeasure of Woman, Carol Tarvis, 1992

IATROPHOBIA
(Greek: Iatros= healer, phobia= fear )
Fear of Medicine
Harriet Washington: Medical Apartheid
“The much bewailed racial health gap is not a gap, but a chasm wider
and deeper than a mass grave. This gulf has riven our nation so dramatically
that it appears as if we were considering the health profiles of people in two
different countries –a medical apartheid. Researchers have proffered a
cornucopia of theories for this medical divide, many of which focus upon
putative biological dimorphisms, especially genetic differences. But in
dissecting this shameful medical apartheid, an important cause is usually
neglected: the history of ethically flawed medical experimentation with African
Americans. Such research has played a pivotal role in forging the fear of
medicine that helps perpetuate our nation’s racial health gulf.”
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
•
•
•
•
•
•
Victims of Rape
War Veterans
Heart Attack Victims
Victims of Natural Disaster
Victims of severe Accidents
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
IDENTIFIED GROUPS:
DIAGNOSTIC CRITERIA:
Intense Psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or
resemble an aspect of the event.
Physiological Reactivity. . .
Marked diminished interest or participation in significant activities
Feeling of estrangement from others
Restricted range of affect
Sense of foreshortened future
Difficulty falling or staying asleep
Irritability or outburst of anger
Difficulty concentrating
Hyper vigilance
Exaggerated startle response
PTSD DIAGNOSTIC FEATURES
MOST COMMOM TRAUMA INVOLVED:
• A serious Threat to or harm to ones life or physical integrity
• Threat or harm to ones children, spouse or close relatives
• Sudden destruction of ones home or community
• Seeing another person: injured, killed as a result of accident or physical
violence
• Learning about a serious threat to: a close friend a relative kidnapped,
tortured or killed
STRESSOR IS EXPERIENCED WITH:
• Intense fear, terror, and helplessness
DISORDER IS CONSIDERED TO BE MORE SERIOUS AND WILL
LAST LONGER WHEN THE STRESSOR IS OF HUMAN DESIGN
Good Hair . . .?
My Granddaughter at 2 years old (2008)
I LOVE MY HAIR
Ghana Children
Ghana Youth
Ghana High School Age Girls
MEETING WITH THE CHIEF OF A VILLAGE NEAR KUMASI IN
GHANA
RESIDENTS OF VILLAGE NEAR KUMASI IN
GHANA
UJIMA (00-GEE-MA) COLLECTIVE WORK AND RESPONSIBILITY

A particular intervention designed for a particular cultural group can be
said to be ‘culturally specific’ if it is also informed by an anthropological
familiarity with the pertinent behaviors, ideas, attitudes, values, habits,
beliefs, customs, and so forth that are peculiar to that group" It is therefore
important for those working in positions of social service to consider the
various cultural lenses through which individuals see or perceive their
respective worlds. It is not enough to merely espouse “cultural sensitivity”
with regard to serving ethnically diverse populations, but rather to develop
a profundity of information pertinent to sustaining the holistic well being of
individuals and communities of color.
The State of Children of Color in America According to:
Data from the 2010 Kellogg Foundation Survey
Minority children have fewer opportunities than their
white peers in the following areas:
Quality health care
Quality education
Safe neighborhoods
Adequate community support
•Disparities between whites and minorities are more evident to
those in jobs engaging children as is evidence of racism:
communities with unequal systems of income and services.
What are the most salient features of effective:
Culture Specific Evidence Based Programs?
Here is what the data tells us about the elements of programs that have been
successful in working with African Americans:
 Building strong relationships
 Culturally relevant curriculum materials
 Positive racial/ethnic identity development
 Starting work when they are young
 Parental/family involvement
 Commitment and support of administrators and leaders
 Community involvement
 Program Consistency and longevity
Providing achievement opportunities or wins for participants
 Follow up and on-going evaluation
PSU School of Social Work Review of literature and programs, 2010
“If you wish to go fast go alone but if you wish to go far go together”
African Proverb
He who would do great things should not attempt them all alone.
Seneca
Accra Ghana
Ahwiaa Wood Carvers Village Ghana
Tlingít Master
Carver
Nathan Jackson, Tlingit Totem Carver
(SAMPLE) Village Chart
PROFILE
PARENT
MENTOR
COUNSELOR
CAREERCOACH
SPIRITUAL
ADVISOR
HEALTH
ADVISOR
CONFIDANT
MOTIVATOR
DEFENDER
ADVOCATE
LIST OF NAMES
Steps To Healing
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Tell the Truth: It is the Foundation for Health
Know Yourself: Our History & Your Personal Legacy
Tell Your Story: Preserve Memories for Those to Come
Look Beyond Healing: Seek to be Healthy
Build Esteem: Healthy and Accurate
Control Your Inner World: Manage Stress & Conflict
Racial Socialization: Cultural Preparation for the Future
Build Upon Strengths: Past & Current
Model Health: Be the Healing that you Seek
Look in the Mirror: Growth & Change are Continuous
To Contact:
Dr. Joy Angela DeGruy
www.joydegruy.com
Call
(Booking Agents)
Bahia Overton (503) 752-4735 [email protected]
or
Karida Griffith (917) 532-6469 [email protected]