Published in Jan 2017

5 realities for African/Black people(children and adults) that must be understood through their education

5 realities for African/Black people(children and adults) that must be understood through their education.
1. Who they are.
2. Who the enemy is.
3. What the enemy is doing to them.
4. What to struggle for.
5. What form the struggle must take.

If the African child understands the meanings and realities of Structural, Institutional and systemic Anglo Saxon Nationalism and they begin to order their world around these truths, then a new way of being can be forged for African people.  Early racial socialization must be an essential component of early African education. It is through this education that a new way of life can be realized for African people. The early colonizers knew that not only did they need the resources of Africa, but the mind as well. The colonists knew that if they could control the “African mind” they could control the “African behind.”  

What is the major question of the twenty first century for African people? If W.E.B. Dubois felt that the major issue for Black people in the twentieth century was the “problem of the color line” then this writer posits, that the problem of the twenty first century is the “control of the African mind.” Social and behavioral scientists have long understood that all behavior has an origin and that all humans are products of their exposures, environments and experiences and that shapes their values and how humans view and interact in the world. African education must contain the important and necessary structures to insure that African children understand and can interpret the realities that they all must face, in a world that has never had their best interests at its core.


By Janice E. Hale-Benson