Bearing black

Bell, D. ORCID: 0000-0001-9133-4927, 2013. Bearing black. Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 5 (1), pp. 122-125. ISSN 2159-8142

[img]
Preview
Text
14100_Bell.pdf - Published version

Download (132kB) | Preview

Abstract

In this essay I critically examine the idea of race in light of the killing of Trayvon Martin, an African-American unarmed teenager, in Florida in February 2012. I utilize ideas from liberation psychology, including psychic colonization, and depth psychology, including cultural complex, to explore the racialized black as a colonized, traumatized other. I also use my autoethnographic experience (as a Jamaican who now lives in the United States) to discuss how identities built on race are a source of suffering both when we make others black and when we are made black. Bearing black robs us of the possibility of our humanity. Throughout, I ask several questions about sustaining race as a sociological idea if we truly intend to dismantle racism. I invite us to reconsider race in light of an instance where Rastafarians, a small group of Afro-Jamaicans who express profound race consciousness, determine their own image, not only as black, and as a form of resisting white supremacy.

Item Type: Journal article
Description: Special Issue on Violence against Individuals and Communities: Reflecting on the Trayvon Martin Case.
Publication Title: Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology
Creators: Bell, D.
Publisher: Ball State University, Muncie, IN
Date: 2013
Volume: 5
Number: 1
ISSN: 2159-8142
Divisions: Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by: Linda Sullivan
Date Added: 18 Jun 2019 15:02
Last Modified: 18 Jun 2019 15:04
Related URLs:
URI: https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/36846

Actions (login required)

Edit View Edit View

Views

Views per month over past year

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year