Ongoing Genocides and the Need for Healing: The Cases of Native and African Americans

Authors

Benjamin P. Bowser, California State University, East BayFollow
Carl O. Word, Research PsychologistFollow
Kate Shaw, Private PracticeFollow

Abstract

The elimination of Native peoples and the enslavement of Africans in the U.S. more than qualify as acts of historical state sponsored genocide. A feature of both genocides is that they ended as institutional practices but have continued culturally and psychologically. The primary contemporary legacy of these genocides is racism which reinforces historical trauma and grief. Suggestions are made for how healing for Native and African Americans can begin despite ongoing racism. This includes psychological counseling for White Americans with beliefs in White supremacy. Suggestions are also made for how reconciliation can begin at the county-level between descendants of slave owners and enslaved Africans as well as between descendants of settlers and Native Americans.

Acknowledgements

We wish to acknowledge the support of the UNESCO Slave Route Project, and Aimé Charles-Nicolas of the Université des Antilles and University Hospital of Martinique.

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.15.3.1785

Recommended Citation

Bowser, Benjamin P.; Word, Carl O.; and Shaw, Kate (2021) "Ongoing Genocides and the Need for Healing: The Cases of Native and African Americans," Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal: Vol. 15: Iss. 3: 83–99.
DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5038/1911-9933.15.3.1785

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License