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07-09-07, 01:56 AM
Is There A Correlation Between “Resistance” & Generational Violence?
It has already been acknowledged in this thread that violence perpetrated by colonizers most likely precipitated violence within the colonized. But we should also consider another by-product of colonization and that is “resistance.” Isn’t it only natural that some Jamaicans, or African Americans, or Nigerians are violent? Our bones are pregnant with the memories of resistance. But, if you do not teach the children what it was their ancestors resisted, or teach them about the residual psychological effects of generational resistance and how this form of extended resistance effects the culture of the people, they will continue to exhibit the signs of a resistor, i.e., excessive violence, just too name one, without knowing why they resist or toward whom they should direct their efforts. It could guarantee in-group violence for hundreds of years.
This is why Carter G. Woodson said that history can either be used to help you or harm you depending upon who controls it. If the colonizer can compel the colonized to study his published textbooks from early childhood, he can convince them that the idea of “resistance” was rare throughout the history of the land. When these children become adults they will eventually just accept the colonizers occupation as the natural order of things. However, they may still practice the habits of resistance, as these habits are now deeply ingrained within their culture. If these people live in forced segregation they will act out these habits on each other. And, complicating this mess even further is the fact that many of the habits of resistance already involved competing with your peer in order to just survive.
Stories of Resistance
Have any of you seen the movie Braveheart? I absolutely loved this movie. It is a great story of a people trying to hold onto their land and their dignity. The Scottish people resisted British oppression and dominance. Today, the story of Scottish resistance is told to Scottish school children and serves as a great source of pride about being Scottish. If, per chance, the Brits were to decide to trample the Scots under foot today, this story would resurface as a battle cry. Scottish children, young men and young women, would be reminded why they resisted in the past and this would empower them to bond together and resist in the present. Stories of African resistance are scattered about the world but no country, to my knowledge, endorses a textbook history that combines all of these stories into one comprehensive narrative. Can you imagine the children of the African Diaspora learning about resistance in the Americas, the Caribbean, and in Europe in remedial school? What would this do for their sense of pride, their sense of unity, or their “consciousness”?
How Many Stories Do You Know?
Fredblack2, your “Normal Distribution of Behaviour” post contained examples of African resistance that I am only vaguely familiar with. I know a few stories because I went to college but how many do we think the typical African knows? It dawned on me that these are the stories that I should have learned in elementary school. A story about George Washington, America’s founding father, meant nothing to me. He was not of my people. But, a story of Nat Turner and his resistance would have empowered me, not because he killed white but because it would have made me proud to know that my people were proud. Nonetheless, fearing that Blacks would rise up and take revenge on them, whites omitted these stories of resistance from the history books. If they are mentioned, they are referred to as “revolts” or “rebellions” and presented as random occurrences rather than as the nationalistic efforts of an oppressed people. Moreover, Turner fits very nicely into the early American definition of what a freedom fighter looked like; he believed in truth, liberty and justice. Nonetheless, he is presented as the “other” even to Black school children.
If Only MLK Knew Then What We Know Now
All things considered, MLK didn’t know it then, but along with his civil rights movement there should have been a “Balanced History” movement. To continue to teach the “sons of former slaves” the same narrative as “the sons of former slave owners” still meant that the slave owners were dominant intellectually and culturally. I was born a descendant of Africa but educated as simply an American. The American historical narrative is designed to make me proud of “our” valiant succession from British tyranny but how could I be proud, my people’s simultaneous attempts at freedom were met with egregious acts of violence. Our next movement, at least in America, needs to ask: “Do historical narratives have a positive or negative social/psychological effect on the people who study them and does one’s ethnicity/class, or role in the society, etc. make a difference? If the answer is “yes,” then the textbooks we read have been killing us softly for centuries and we know what we must do.
Work 2B Done
Lastly, the psychology of resistance and the collective residual psychological effects of having resisted for several generations is an untapped field of study that whites have only become aware of in the last 30 years or so. Even if they are aware that the children of the resistors may still experience residual effects of resistance, they are not likely to do anything about it. We, on the other hand, must endeavor to understand what slavery, racism, and colonization did to us psychologically, culturally and spiritually. It is already a well-known fact in psychological circles that unresolved rage will mutate into one of two things: depression or violence. Moreover, research from the past 30 years has revealed two conditions that should be of interest to us: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Stockholm Syndrome. We must become experts in these fields and engage in our own restoration effort. Teaching our children about violence: how it was used on us and how we have used it on each other must become classes that our teenagers or even children must take.
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