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Monday, 28 August 2006 |
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EFFECTS OF ABUSE African Americans and Native Americans have suffered from many abuses. The abuses include slavery, dispossession of land, and genocide of culture. The ancestral African Americans were stolen or sold from Africa, while the Native Americans were swindled out of their land through false treaties and removal from their lands. It is these abuses that were perpetrated on both African Americans and Native Americans that have resulted in centuries of negative effects.
It is a little known fact that both Africans and Indians were enslaved in the United States. Both held against their will and forced to farm the land and work back-breaking and in-humane tedious tasks. These had the effect of breaking down both the body and the spirit of the African and Indian. The stealing of the Indian’s land and the stealing away of the African from the ‘Mother Land (Africa)’ brought much pain and hardship to both groups of people. Next the dismantling of the African and Native family structures and selling of family members all caused two devastating effects that have lasted centuries. These pains and hardships are observed with the vestiges of health diseases and other physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual harms. Both African Americans and Native Americans share the unwanted distinctions of having high rates of alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide, lowered life expectancy, and high infant mortality rates. Many of the effects of slavery, dispossession of land and genocide of culture abuses demonstrate how outward abuse can be turned inward resulting in personal depression. Personal depression in many instances is then responded to as personal abuses. Break this chain of abuse by reclaiming your history, culture, and honor. Know who you are and cherish it. Article by CherokeeCloud Written August 28, 2006 |
