Africans, mostly those in America, have a bitter history in the country. The African Americans live in a country that they once experienced injustices and dehumanization resulting from slavery. Despite the years of recovery, the history of African Americans still stands as one of the most important in the American reconstruction and dark period. The importance of African history is overwhelming, regarding the idea that these people had to survive and adapt in the diaspora with a different culture ( James, 2017). The psychological perspective of this history and its cultural aspect is critical, not only to the African Americans but to all people. Understanding the mental aspect of this history is a crucial step towards eliminating the stereotype and dehumanizing the Africans. Despite the need for all people to recognize African Americans' history, most teachers do not feel comfortable mentioning this history . Therefore, it is one of the areas that America's educational curriculum avoids as much as possible. In this discussion, the aims are to pinpoint African history's psychological importance and some of the reasons that American teachers avoid the topic.
The Psychological and Cultural Importance of African History
The importance of African history from a psychological perspective deals with the impact the history has on the Africans and other people's mental makeup. Africans underwent numerous waves of injustice before the colonial period ( James, 2017). Those who went to different countries, such as the US as slaves, had to survive and develop new ways to adapt. They had to face numerous challenges, which impacted how they see themselves in society . Understanding this history reshape how these people think, and some of the mental issues they face in their current life. Understanding the history of Africans from their cultural perspective is also essential to people on how they see the behaviors of the African in different countries ( Malindi, 2018). The cultural aspect of African history deals with African acts and how people perceive them based on such behaviors. The Africans had to change their practices to adapt to new ways and rules they encountered throughout their lives. Therefore, they had to change their culture. Understanding such culture change is critical to people in the manner they interact and view Africans. Thus, the Africans' history is significant both psychologically and culturally to all.
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First, understanding African history is critical psychologically. It makes people change their physiological perspective concerning the Africans and other races, which is good for the fight to end racism. People need to realize that Africans have multi-dimensional cultural groups. The sources of these groups are the forces of colonies and slavery the Africans had to endure in history ( James, 2017). The Africans have their culture originating from their motherlands. However, they also have the norms they adopted from their colonies and their slave masters. Therefore, the combination of the two cultures brought in a third culture, which is a reactionary culture ( Malindi, 2018). The reactionary cultures are norms that Africans had to develop through creativity and innovation to adapt to the environment. For instance, African Americans had to adapt to slavery and slave experiences. In this manner, other groups such as Pidgin had to change their culture and language to Creole. Through such experiences and culture change, the Africans had to withstand the mental pressure and psychological stress that came with such changes. Therefore understanding such culture and psychological challenges help people understand the best way to interact with Africans. By understanding the culture and mental aspect of their history, people can understand the social and psychological vulnerability of Africans. Such can be critical in building a better relationship between people and thus end racism and oppression in different countries worldwide.
Understanding African history boosts people's psychological strength as they learn adaptive measures and techniques to cope with stress and discrimination in society. People need to understand that Africans' culture and psychological makeup was affected by the systematic dehumanization over the years. Therefore understanding their history is critical in unveiling the instance that led to mental pressure and stress in their lives and understanding the strategies they used to adjust and overcome mental anxiety ( Malindi, 2018). Slavery, racism, Jim craw laws, and colonization are some of the incidents that cloud African history. The aftermath of these events followed a period when Africans were striving to re-humanize themselves from such dehumanization. It was a period when the Africans were attempting to establish their self-esteem and confidence that suffered during the colonization and slavery period. The impacts of these incidents in Africans lives were stress, injustices, mental pressure, and double consciousness. These effects still live with Africans today. The unity among the Africans resulted from the strategies that were in place to overcome such anxiety. The family togetherness culture among them is understandable as a plan to reduce oppression from slave masters. Therefore, people need to know how Africans were coping with mental pressure and culture change. The psychological and cultural aspects of African history, help people understand some of the unique cultures that African exhibits, such as the family's importance. Studying and understand African history is the best opportunity to understands such psychological and cultural aspects of Africans.
Finally, understanding the psychological and cultural aspect of Africans' history help understand their struggles, as well as the struggle of other races, face in foreign countries. Such an understanding changes the mental perception of other people, and this is useful in the fight to reduce victimizations among different races in the world( Malindi, 2018). Most Africans were slaves in different countries. As a result, they suffered from psychosocial identity mediation. According to social identity theory, there is a link between psychology, wellbeing, and identity among different groups. Following the argument, the impact of racism, discrimination, and injustice among the Africans, mostly African Americans, affected their social status( James, 2017). Therefore, it can explain the reason that makes some of the African students perform poorly in the schools. It also helps justify the reasons that most of the Africans in foreign countries are poor. The Africans strive to balance social injustices and their personal goals. Therefore, the struggle they face comes due to the crimes that happened a long time ago ( Malindi, 2018). Therefore, when people understand such suffering, they change their view of Africans and other races, which helps minimize victimization. The change in psychological understanding that comes after understanding the history of African makes people understand them ( James, 2017). They know their struggle and get inspired by the fact that Africans have a bitter history. They get inspiration from the fact that despite such mercilessness, Africans were mentally influential and thus survived such injustices and discriminations.
Reason for Limited Exposure intheU.S. Education System
Racism, social injustices, segregation, and slavery are some of the incidents that African Americans endured. The events are tormenting to the extent that one would believe that a large part of American history should cover such injustices to reduce any chance of reoccurrence. However, the situation is different in the U.S. ( James, 2017). African Americans' history has less coverage in the American syllabus despite the significant role in reshaping America's history. There are numerous reasons to explain such a situation.
First, there is guilt that still lingers to date because America, a decent and wealthy country, had to draw their wealth by enslaving Africans. Mentioning this pathetic history to both African Americans and white Americans descents are tricky for some teachers. Also, there is still racism and discrimination targeting African Americans. Therefore, giving them a priority in the syllabus is like praising and elevating them. Though this is the right thing to do, doing so means propagating the "blackness" in the country, which some white teachers do not seem to like.
There is also a lack of interest from different people in the education sector to understand the significance of African American history in the country. Therefore, lack of interest and understanding of African American history implies there is no need to study and give it significant coverage in the country's syllabus( James, 2017). There are any holidays with the dedication to the specific events that took place in the country that were part of African American history. However, teachers do not bother teaching African American history on such days. The implication is that racism and discrimination are still obstacles to exploiting African American history in the country.
In conclusion, understanding African history is healthy psychologically. Through reading the history of African, people come to realize the injustices these people went through, and this act as motivating factors to overcome stressful events in the country. They also understand the strategies these people were using, and this can be applicable today to overcome different psychosocial challenges. Further, it changes people's perception of how they view different people and socializes with them. Thus, it reduces their mental stress and pressure they feel upon associating with people they do not like.
References
James, T. C. (2017). African American Students in a California Community College: Perceptions of Cultural Congruity and Academic Self-Concept within a Black Culture Center (Doctoral dissertation, Pepperdine University).
Malindi, M. M. (2018). The impact of globalization on African languages and cultures: a study of selected discourses (Doctoral dissertation, North-West University (South Africa), Vaal Triangle Campus).
