|
.....Rogers could therefore not understand why white economists, ethnologists, and sociologists, as well as historians, would always adduce the law of “cause and effect” to help explain white societal ills that derived from, say, the Civil War; but whenever the mental effects of slavery were discussed to explain the plight of blacks, some of these same scholars would snarl: “Don’t mention something that happened 150 years ago; it has no bearing on what is happening today. Slavery is over” Yet how was it possible for four centuries of fear, rape, torture, self-abnegation, family separation, and dehumanization to have no effect on the way African Americans viewed themselves?
..........— Mike McBryde, actor, artist, writer. "Joel Augustus Rogers: A Leading Scholar, Thinker, and Motivator" from African-American Humanism: An Anthology, edited by Norm R. Allen, Jr. (Prometheus Books, 1991).
|