Edited Dictation Equals Mis-education for African American Youth

Updated: June 19, 2016

 

“Why kill you when I can mis-educate you and get the same results?” Unknown (paraphrased)

Edited Dictation Equals the Mis-education of African Americans ~ It stands without question that the mental health and social mobility of African Americans in the U.S. has an inextricable bond with the erroneous concepts, philosophies and paradigms that are set forth based on distorted cognitions. However, what may not be as explicable within this dynamic is the origin of these distorted cognitions that play such a substantial role in the development of the collective psyche of the African American.

The science of psychology, at its core, is the discipline of examining the mental processes of humans to help develop a more lucid perspicacity of their behavior as individuals, as well as their behavior is social groups. In developing an efficacious modality through which blacks can be treated and healed as it relates to the generational trauma that they have experienced, it is necessary to engage the pathological self-hatred in the African American from a position of veracity.

What we are witnessing here, in contemporary America, is the most enduring case study on subjugation through psychological manipulation in the history of mankind.

Unfortunately, we are also the subjects of this study, and it is time that we grapple with all of our false realities, as they have been inculcated into the depths of our collective psyche. Before we can ever experience freedom as a physical condition, we must first establish it as a mental reality!

The first thing that we must understand is that the science of psychology is cultural in nature. In other words, while certain disciplines must be observed that remain true to the science of the mind, it is imperative to give substantial consideration to the environment and culture (Akbar, 1996). What this means is that the African American experience is so unique that it cannot be anatomized through the lens of Euro-centric psychology. Fortunately, we have great minds, such as Dr. Na’im Akbar, who have taken the time to deconstruct the Eurocentric concept of psychology and then reconstruct it in a manner in which it could serve as an efficacious mechanism in evaluating the mental processes and behaviors of African Americans.

 

When attempting to unravel the complex fabric of social discord within the black community, it is impossible to ignore the role that education, or should I say mis-education, or with even greater veracity — “edited dictation (Ntwadumela, 2016) plays in the overall dynamic.”

Carter G. Woodson had a lucid perspicacity of the pernicious impact of failing to effectively education blacks. He wrote:

“If you can control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. When you determine what a man shall think, you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one (Woodson, 1933).”

Edited Dictation Equals the Mis-education of African Americans

True freedom, liberation and empowerment must first become an entrenched state of mind, and this will, in and of itself, ensure that we will work to transform our mental truth into a physical condition.

This is what Carter G. Woodson meant when he said, “… when you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions.”

You see, this works both ways. If you mis-educate a person, the manner at which they are mis-educated will, in essence, guarantee their negative behavior, but if you effectively, accurately and holistically educate a person, you are establishing the foundation that will drive their success.

We cannot continue to trust a failed and hostile system to educate our youth and ever expect to change our condition! It simply produces drone-minded individuals who lack the capacity for critical thought.

“The most obvious symptom is their absence of original thought. Ask them a question and they will end up reciting what someone else thinks or thought the answer was. What do they think? Well, they never thought about it. Their education consisted of learning how to use the library and cite sources (Reese, 2000).” ~ Charlie Reese

In order to fully understand the role of mis-education, or edited dictation in the disruption of functional fluidity within the black collective, from a social and mental health perspective, there is a need to gain an understanding of the etymological development of the word “educate.”

 

Educate — Latin – (educatus) the past participle of educare to rear, educate, from educere, to lead forth, or more in-depth to educe. 

As a transitive verb — 1a. to provide schooling for 1b. to train by formal instruction and supervised practice and supervised practice, especially in a skill, trade, or professional 2. To develop mentally, morally, or aesthetically especially by instruction 2b. to provide information: inform 3. To persuade of condition to feel, believe, or act in a desired way > intransitive verb: to educate a person or thing.

While humans are born with certain genetic pre-dispositions (McLean, 1998), the human mind is basically a blank slate at the time of birth, meaning that all information and thought processes are learned — having been presented by someone else. During the early, developmental years, humans learn primarily through the indiscriminate behavior that they observe in their parents and older siblings. As humans, we have the proclivity to practice in action what we see, even before we ever understand it. This natural proclivity to emulate behavior is why it is immensely important for parents to take an impacting role in the education of their children. In fact, the most historical definition of the verb “educate” is “to rear” or “to lead” and “guide.” In other words, educating a child is a holistic process that extends far beyond the attainment of academic skills.

Everything from the concept of God and religion to what is right and wrong, are the result of environmental influences. The human conscience is the intangible manifestation of cultural and social norms and standards that form the paradigms and parameters that govern the behaviors, and even the thoughts of every human. This means that what we are exposed to plays an enormous role in what we will become.

So, how have the cognitions of blacks been impacted, and by what? The truth is that this is a very complex dynamic. There is not one influence that has absolute control over how cognitions are developed, which is actually a very good thing. However, one of the most prevalent influences is the presence of white supremacy as an institutionalized system of thought and governance is the public education system. Because those in power have the capacity to determine inclusion, exclusions and acceptance, as well as define that which is acceptable and at what level, education is an ideal mechanism for establishing and reinforcing perceptive truths. The core dynamic of human existence is, thereby, determined, not by a real and measurable standard, but by the perception created by the limited and controlled release of information — or as stated earlier — edited dictation. In fact, the dominant group has the capacity to determine the very survival of everyone who exists within its power structure. So, this draws a reasonable inference that the global existence of white supremacy racism means that the complete diaspora has been, in some way, negatively impacted by the intentional mis-education of the masses.

Because the dominant group controls the information and how it is disseminated, they control the perception and reality of the masses; they are the possessors of the dominant truth, and this is the case even when this truth is the culmination of the most perpetuated lie in history.

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White supremacy has effectively used the mechanisms of a fallible institution — the public education system — to serve as one of its most powerful mechanisms used to interpolate false truths into the reality of all who are exposed to it on a consistent basis. Truths can be distorted and presented in multitudinous ways, including environmental realities, or even truths about the person who is learning. We have definitely seen this in the area of the African American student. As recently as 2015, textbooks were being released by McGraw Hill that portrayed slaves that were transported to America via the transatlantic voyage as migrating workers, instead of slaves (Fernandez & Hauser, 2015).

It has been the constant modus operandi of white supremacy to rewrite history, subsequently rewriting the narrative of the black existence, while also rewriting the narrative of their history and existence as a race. The primary concern of Carter G. Woodson when he wrote the Mis-education of the Negro was the manner in which public education was distorting or completely withholding the history and heritage of the African American people from them. The rewriting of history offered information that served to underwrite the white supremacist’s theory of white superiority, further reinforcing the collective inferiority complex shared by the vast majority of blacks in the U.S.

We understand that one of the most effective methods for subjugating a group of people is to enslave them mentally, and this is accomplished by stripping away their identity, religion, language, spirituality and autonomy (Embley, 2011). Not only does this action extricate this group from their inherent position of power, it renders them vulnerable and highly susceptible to mental suggestion — allowing their captors to completely re-calibrate their psychological compass.

The chattel slavery that our African American ancestors suffered was the mechanism through which whites accomplished the complete mental and physical subjugation of the African slave, and this was accomplished with impeccable efficiency, and calculating, vicious and genocidal intent (Ntwadumela, 2016).

It was the initial intent of the white power system to domesticate and subjugate blacks in a manner, and at a level that would ensure that they would no longer have to physically and overtly manage us, because we would self-perpetuate the reality on a psychosocial level. As African Americans acquiesced to the machinations of suggestion and imposition, we made ourselves more vulnerable to the introduction to a subtler, yet immensely dangerous form of racism — systematic institutionalized racism. Institutionalized racism has the power to orchestrate the perpetuation of a certain reality without being easily identified as the root problem. This systematic form of racism is one of the reasons that blacks struggle to effectively evaluate their current position. Many things that blacks considered to be a benefit are actually mechanisms of control that ensure we do not empower ourselves and rise to a position of power.

For example, the anti-black sentiment that is prominent among blacks is the subsequent product of institutionalized racism carried out through the process of edited dictation. For the sake of elucidation, blacks have received a constant message that reinforces the belief that we are inferior to whites, incapable of excelling, untrustworthy, in addition to multitudinous other negative messages that lead to self-hatred and disunity.

If a person wants to truly gain an understanding of the plight of the black diaspora, and why some thrive and flourish, while others struggle perpetually, it is necessary to develop a functioning perspicacity of the word “educate.” It is the understanding of this particular process that provides a lucid explanation of why one group of people remain in the spiritual, economical, politically debilitated, handicapped and anesthetized position we have been locked into for the entire time that we have lived on this continent.

When blacks are complacent in the manner in which they engage information that requires critical thought, we expose ourselves to the risk of becoming domesticated thinkers, who simply regurgitate edited and dictated information that is force-fed to us by those who are historically hostile toward us. Because we lack the capacity for critical thought, it is easy to feed us distorted information that forces us to place a high value on depreciable goods, leaving us to the compulsion of a paradigm that enforces consumerism on a level that is unparalleled by any other group.

What is so nefarious about finding ourselves with a mindset that supports consumerism is the fact that we are literally financing our own oppression and demise.

The Latin definition of education – educatus – set forth earlier in this section, reveals two primary elemental truths. First, it reveals that the most influential educational force in the life of a child is their parent, and secondly, it reveals that there must be a reasonable level of emotional involvement that is reflective of the concern and care for the one being educated. It magnifies the fact that a system that employs people who have no direct interest in holistically educating and empowering a specific group cannot possibly produce the end result of social mobility and economic autonomy.

When the constant narrative surrounding the education of black youth in America is the attendance of schools that are underfunded, improperly sourced and led by teachers that likely foster racist sentiments, the result will be an under-educated, misdirected and ill-equipped group of youth who lack the necessary skills and knowledge to effectively compete in an environment that is innately hostile toward them.

In the more contemporary definitions of education, the intimacy and direct engagement that has been historically associated with education has been replaced with a more systematic and institutionalized version that is focused on controlling the development of American youth, morally, psychologically and aesthetically, through highly edited information. At best, the U.S. public education system is designed to prepare students to get jobs, not create them.

Another challenge that African American youth are faced with is the fact that they are being replaced as the permanent underclass by the massive influx of immigrants from south of the border (Staff, 2011). What this means is that blacks are no longer needed to prop up the American economy, leaving the power structure to find another modality that will continue to facilitate the enrichment and power of the wealthy elite off of the backs of people of African descent. The primary way that this is being done is through the school-to-prison pipeline, which is the primary populating force for the private prison industrial complex. Those in the positions of ultimate power are completely aware of the fact that an ill-educated person, especially one who has not successfully completed school, is three and one-half times more likely to become incarcerated than a person who successfully completes their basic schooling (Dillon, 2009) (Sum, 2009).

The education system in America amounts to a system designed for the purpose of dictating specified information that supports a specific impression that the powers that be look to impose on the masses, and while all of the general public is negatively affected by this substandard system, the natural order of things ensures that the African American in negatively impacted at a much greater level than the rest.

When a system fosters docility and constricted thinking, it becomes virtually impossible for an individual to even conceptualize the possibility of overcoming their current negative reality. The idea of empowerment appears to be more and more unreachable as each year passes. When information is consistently tailored to underwrite the agenda of the power structure, it not only demoralizes those who have been rejected by the system, but it immobilizes them by failing to prepare them to effectively negotiate their way through the system.

So, how does this impact the cognitive process for blacks? For more than nearly 50 years, cognitive theory has been an integral part of psychology — the process of evaluating, understanding and predicting human behavior (Copland, 2011). What Aaron Beck was able to discover when working with his patients during the early stages of empirical testing and discovery concerning cognitive theory is that abnormality or breaks in what is considered to be normal behavior stems from the presence of faulty or distorted cognitions associated with others, the world around us and ourselves. These cognitive distortions can be the result of certain deficiencies, such as the lack of planning or preparation, but they could also be the result of misinformation and environmental influences (McLeod, 2008). When it comes to African Americans, it is a combination of all of the influential variables, including cognitive deficiencies, misinformation and negative environmental influences. When it comes to the public education system, there may not be another mechanism that possesses the nefarious intent and force that is capable of handicapping and misguiding blacks, with the exception of religion.

Does this mean that there is no hope? Absolutely not. What it calls for is blacks to become more engaged in the process of educating its youth. It requires for blacks to develop its own system of education, as well as a system designed to recondition the minds of those who have already been negatively impacted by the erroneous public education system in America.

Retired advertising executive, Tom Burrell, of Burrell Communications, suggests that we must be willing to take the very mechanisms of education and propaganda mediums that have been used against us and recalibrate them to deliver a message of edification and empowerment for blacks. We must use them to disseminate a specific message and impression that serves to reverse the notion of black inferiority. It is imperative, if we are to effectively treat the pathology of black self-hatred, to invest in systems that serve to magnify our efforts to present a more accurate and uplifting image of the black race, but most importantly, we must be willing to invest in the process of holistically educating our youth, inoculating them against the malignant cascade of fallible information that is being spewed through mainstream media channels and the public education system. The greatest tool for effectively battling the encroachment of negative stimuli that can negatively impact thought process and behavior is a stable and prepared mind.

The term, white surpremacy racism, is used throughout this work, and I believe it is necessary to provide a lucid definition of the term, in order to create the proper frame for understanding how this mechanism impacts African Americans.

Racism Definition:

 

A word is simply an empty combination of letters and characters, until those characters are assigned a specific meaning within a particular culture, environment, industry, context etc. So, when examining racism, it is important to understand racism in a context in which all people involved in a conversation or debate are discussing the same thing.

The truth is that there are numerous definitions of racism, but to deal with what is presented here, it must be understood within the context of how it impacts black people in specific, because this is a specific type of racism referred to most commonly as white supremacy racism, which involves more than an ideology or hatred of others. It is an institutional, systematic force that impacts humans in all nine areas of existence — economics, education, entertainment, labor, law, politics, religion, sex and war.

The most agreed upon definition among scholars, and those deeply entrenched in the struggle, is the definition presented by Neely Fuller Jr. Neely Fuller Jr. was once quoted as saying: If you do not understand White Supremacy (racism), what it is, and how it works, everything else that you understand will only confuse you.”

Here is the accepted definition and explanation of white supremacy as it should be understood in this discussion.

“A system of thought, speech, and action, operated by people who classify themselves as white, and who use deceit, violence, and/or the threat of violence, to subjugate, use, and/or abuse people classified as ‘non-white’, under conditions that promote the practice of falsehood, injustice, and incorrectness, in one or more areas of activity, for the ultimate purpose of maintaining, expanding, and/or refining the practice of white supremacy (racism).”

In other words, racism must be viewed as an institutionalized system of power that uses others to accomplish its schemes of acquiring power, wealth and sustaining itself. It is understood that this form of racism is continuously refining itself, so that it looks differently, but the end game is the same.

Groups like those Neo-Nazis, and other white organizations who have an innate disdain for people of color, are simply being used by white supremacy as a mechanism of control and terror, much in the manner in which the KKK was used during the original Jim Crow era. The New Jim Crow is more complex, and more deadly.

There is a lot of confusion surrounding the term, “White Supremacy,” with many viewing it objectively in that the system is viewed as being superior, but the term is a subjective one, meaning that white supremacy is the goal of the people controlling the system — it is not a reality.

 

 

 

Bibliography

Akbar, N. (1996). Breaking the Chains of Psychological Slavery. Tallahasee, FL: Mind Productions & Associates, Inc.

Copland, A. (2011). Cognitive Behavioral Theory. The Center for Cognitive and Behavioral Science.

Dillon, S. (2009, October 8). Study Finds High Rate of Imprisonment Among Dropouts. The New York Times, p. 1.

Embley, M. (2011). A Labyrinth of Idntity. Brigham .

McLean, M. R. (1998). When What We Know Outstrips What We Can Do. Santa Clara University.

McLeod, S. (2008). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Simply Psychology , 1.

Ntwadumela, K. K. (2016). Education or Edited Dictation. Racism is White Supremacy, 1.

Paul, L. C. (2015). The Dichotomy of the Black Diaspora. Bloomington, IN: Archway Publishing.

Reese, C. (2000). How to Control People. Tri-Center, 1.

Staff. (2011, April 14). Hispanics Surpass Blacks to Become Largest Minority in More than Half U.S. Metro Areas. Daily Mail, p. 1.

Sum, A. (2009). The Consequences of Dropping Out of High School. Center of Labor Market Studies Northeastern University.

Woodson, C. G. (1933). The Mis-education of the Negro. New York: Seven Treasures Publiscations.

Dr. Wallace has written 16 books that include: The Invisible Father: Reversing the Curse of a Fatherless Generation, When Your House is Not a Home, and his latest release, The Mis-education of Black Youth in America: The final Move on the Grand Chessboard and he is currently working on his latest project, The Black Community Empowerment Blueprint, a comprehensive step by step strategy that has the capacity to facilitate the complete elevation and empowerment of Blacks in America and abroad.

You can support the work of Dr. Wallace by donating to The Odyssey Project! Your donations will be directed to the numerous existing programs, the development of future programs, further research and studies associated with improving the Black Experience. Thank you in advance for your support.