Looking Back, Moving Forward: Reflection on Race and Racism.
Given the current economic climate, it seems we need to be thinking about how to make reparations and restore equilibrium regarding the politics of race and racism. Sustaining of a system of inequality has its benefits to those who uphold it. The oppressed can no longer remain oppressed and an acknowledgement of the empty category of colour that has benefited the west has to be acknowledged in order to begin the process of healing for those affected.
Decision-makers maintain systemic racism, and systemic inequalities affect the economic, social, health and educational sectors, and maintain a system which effects disadvantages to Blacks,
Asians, and other minority ethnicities. This is a system that keeps some on the poverty line. As a result they are unable to get what they need and incapable of enjoying privileges, such as access to healthy food choices, education, healthcare, housing and employment.
There is a body of evidence that shows that racism can lead to mental illness such as depression, experience of hallucinations and delusions. Evidence also confirms that BAMEs die at disproportionately higher rate when compared to white people as a result of inequalities.
We need to return to our history in order not to repeat the atrocities of the past and understand how we got it wrong. The history of the transatlantic slave trade is a history of exploitation and oppression, often difficult to read and absorb. Of importance is the ambivalence and lack of transparency of what African Slave trade meant to Britain as a whole.
Psychol Cogn Sci Open J. 2020; 6(1): 7-10. doi: 10.17140/PCSOJ-6-153
