Racism and Discrimination Towards African Americans

The issue of racism and discrimination of African Americans have been a long issue in American society. "For the black African, America was to mean two hundred and fifty years of slavery. After that would come the belated discovery that even with freedom there were social and moral factors which would qualify that freedom for yet another hundred years and more" (Lowy 130). Not until recently did African Americans successfully fight for and obtained equal civil rights through the black movement. According to Dr. Richard Lowy, the author of Introduction to Ethnic Studies, White people have distorted the perspective and hidden the history of the African American race to believe that blacks were inferior to whites, and did not deserve the same rights, leading to such a long road of hardship before finally discovering true equality.

The most powerful weapon that White people had to exploit African Americans was the ability to steal the history of African Americans away from them. When Black people were first uprooted from Africa and kidnapped to America, they slowly lost a sense of who they were as a people. White people forced their ideas and cultures onto the African American race, eliminating any history that black people had, even their names. This brainwashing lead to the mindset of Black people to actually believe that they were inferior to White people and therefore did not deserve the same rights or treatments.

Since this erasing of the African American's true history could make such a huge impact on the course of the African Americans, it is important for African Americans to retrieve their lost history and come to terms of who they really are as a people. They will know that they are not just an inferior race to whites, but that they have a culture and background that they can embrace as equal to Whites. With this knowledge, no one can tell Black people who they are because they will have a sense of identity, and there will be no more feelings of inferiority or inequality.

The purpose of black studies and history is not only to correct white racist and Euro-centric representations of the black experience in America, but also to promote black pride and a personal sense of dignity (Lowy 131). To challenge and confront Euro-centric views, to rediscover the true black experience, and to weaken racism are all goals of Black history, and the only thing that needs to be done is to educate about black history in its truth. Black people have been taught lies about who they were for a long time by the white people, leading them to believe that they were inferior to white people, when that is not the truth. For example, before the rise of European dominance in the world, there were great African societies, kingdoms, civilizations, and interconnected trading networks that completely surpassed the social relations that the European society had (Lowy 131). Unfortunately, truths such as this were hidden from the African American peoples in order for the white man to better exploit African Americans. African Americans never learned that they came from greatness in Africa, and most other people also do not. The view of African American history of the general public is usually just that they were held as slaves by white people after being taken from Africa, and then further oppressed after the ending of slavery.

The reconstruction era started the when black people started to realize that the "truths" that the white man was telling them were actually lies. African Americans fought relentlessly for the rights that they deserve after coming to realize that they were on equal footing with white people. This era brought about the mindset of black power, that black people could also obtain power just as they originally had before having their history erased by white people. Unfortunately, the post reconstruction era features the children of the reconstruction era, who become lax. Without the realization of what their parents had to go through in order to obtain freedom, post reconstruction era African Americans start to lose the power that they once had because of a lack of education of their background.

Black history is important to giving the African American race the power and equality that they deserve. Without the knowledge, they can only think of themselves as former slaves, and could possibly be exploited again. The black race of the post reconstruction era needs to understand and take into consideration the power of their identity to secure their equality. Without their history and identity, they will lose a sense of who they are as a people and will lose the equality that they worked so hard to achieve.