Black Consciousness...Self Consciousness

I just pulled an all nighter to complete my first research paper. Handed it in yesterday—and that was a bit of a relief. One down, one to go. I don’t know how it will fare against the rigorous grading system here, but I was satisfied with what I had done.

I had taken Steve Biko’s articles “We Blacks” and “Black Souls in White Skins?” from his book “I Write What I Like” stating that it could be used as bibliotherapy for survivors of childhood sexual abuse by the identification of the victimization of race to the victimization of gender (childhood sexual abuse).

Regardless of race, when finding the common denominator of victimization, then victim to victim, one would recognize and understand the emotional trauma that results from victimization.

Bibliotherapy is the use of literature in the healing of emotional, psychological, or physical problems.

Steve Biko was an activist against apartheid during the 50’s & 60’s. His idea of Black Consciousness was that the blacks, due to the oppression of white supremacy, had lost their self esteem, their self worth, and their identity, and the Black Consciousness Movement was a call for blacks to reclaim their identity, to rebuild their “selves”, their empty shells, as Biko had described them.

Seeing as whites will never understand what it means to be black, or the racism that the blacks face due to their skin color because they can not “become” black, the emotional trauma that develops can be similar to that of a victim of abuse, regardless of color. Being able to recognize the similarities, and sharing an understanding of victimization may also lead to a cross cultural understanding.

So, that is the premise of the paper. I learned a lot from the research and process. That, regardless of what the appearances of a person, there may be emotional and psychological links that could lead to better understandings of people as a whole, of a culture. Leading us to look past the outer to see how oppression affects an individual and have a better understanding from an emotional and psychological rather than physical point of view.