Open AccessOngoing Genocides and the Need for Healing: The Cases of Native and African Americans
Author(s) -
Benjamin P. Bowser,
Carl O. Word,
Kate Shaw
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
genocide studies and prevention
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1911-9933
pISSN - 1911-0359
DOI - 10.5038/1911-9933.15.3.1785
Subject(s) - genocide , racism , historical trauma , grief , white (mutation) , native american , criminology , state (computer science) , gender studies , political science , sociology , psychology , ethnology , law , psychotherapist , biochemistry , chemistry , algorithm , computer science , gene
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.