ARCHIVES OF THE FORGOTTEN

An online column capturing the story of ancestry and the lives of individuals through the eyes of an anthropologist.

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“I can't breathe.” - George Floyd, James Brown, Eric Garner, Rodney Brown

Throughout the last few weeks, much of the world has been speaking about a problem that is one of the worst atrocities that has been committed within the history of the human species. This cycle of separation of our species has been sewn within our societies since the moment we defined “us” and “them.”

Yet, amongst this defining of one group to the next, we often forget that our entire species originated in East Africa and migrated upwards towards Asia 50,000 years ago. Given that the earth is 4.5 billion years old, it seems that our arbitrary view of borders and separation was conceived seconds after the human race originated in Africa.

I’m painting this picture of the birthplace of our civilization because I want there to be a clear message that needs to be heard: we have all originated from the same place. This is the same place that, in our short span of life on this planet, has seen many different socio political events happen. In the 1870s, Africa was a continent that was 80% ruled by African rulers (Hochschild 42). However, in Europe and in North America, colonies believed that they could expand their land even further than what they have already conquered.

This drive for imperial expansion increased their beliefs of Anglo-Saxon superiority — one that was already fueled by the colonization of the New World and its Indigenous peoples. Rudyard Kipling, a British poet, similarly called for the United States, a former colony itself, to take up the imperialist torch. In his famous and controversial poem from 1899, “The White Man’s Burden,” Kipling exhorted Americans to take pride in conquering the Philippines for the benefit of the colonized. There was a belief of the “white man’s burden” that the European and North American whites had a divine right to conquer neighboring civilizations due to the sole fact that they themselves were not white.

While the cultural ideology of the time aided towards the scramble for Africa, it was not the only thing that fueled this decision. At the time, European countries were gaining wealth from the resources found in the New World. They were in competition with one another to gain power amongst themselves (the British Empire, the Dutch Empire, the French etc.). As European industrial production increased and spread, raw materials became harder to come by — and a sure way to control raw materials and markets would be to create colonial monopolies. Lenin viewed imperialism as the last stage of industrial exploitation. Africa, with its large resources of gold, silver and diamonds became a target for European empires to dominate and to extract from. This drive for more production and capital gain was in part caused by political and socio-economic problems happening in Europe at the time. The turmoil in Europe drove forth the idea of settler-colonies in Africa, what is now known as Algeria, Tunisia, South Africa, Namibia, Angola, Mozambique, and central African areas like Zimbabwe and Zambia. This scramble was so intense that there were fears that it could lead to inter-imperialist conflicts and even wars. To prevent this, German chancellor Otto von Bismarck convened a diplomatic summit of European powers in the late nineteenth century. This was the famous Berlin West African conference (more generally known as the Berlin Conference), held from November 1884 to February 1885. Thus dividing the continent of Africa and dividing the different tribes and societies within it.

That is how the Europeans viewed the colonization of Africa. It seems to be a pattern where the narrative of this account is only written by those who colonized. It has been seen in other evidence that many societies have practised enslavement of others as a way to increase their powers and prestige, yet the practise of slavery was not one that was yet practised in England until voyageurs brought back West and West Coast Africans to London and Bristol (Heuman, 2010). The English were not strangers to the practise of enslavement, thus they recognized that for a man or woman to be enslaved was that they had no rights similar to that of a beast (Heuman, 2010). This unjustly classifications of African people thus were sown before the first slaves arrived in the New World. European ideology at the time stemmed from a religious background. The creation of humanity in their view came from Adam and Eve who were coincidently white., However, the black skin of Africans they came into contact with contradicted this belief which made Europeans correlate black skin with evil (Heuman, 2010). These negative views of African societies and its people stopped Europeans to view the sophistication and intricacy of African tribal political systems and African religions due to a false religious narrative.

Dutch slaves traders dominated the Atlantic slave trade in the second half of the 17th century and viewed the the up and coming sugar cane plantations of the Carribiean and Brazil for the enslaved populations to be sent to. Between 1760 to1820, the rate of migration grew from 4 Africans to every one European in the beginning of 1820 to 5.6 Africans per every one European (Heuman, 2010).

By this point one must recognize the dependence of Africans from the European plantations — without the use of enslaved African people, the economies of the colonizing empires would not nearly be as efficient. This major forced migrations of millions of African people can not be seen as only an economic event. It was one of most heinous crimes against humanity that not only drove an unrealistic form of capitalism, but erased centuries of African culture,heritage, and most importantly, lives.

In 1865, slavery was abolished in the United States, but that wasn’t the end of these violent crimes. Since then, there has been a continuation of decades of oppression in many different forms: systematic racism. According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), in the United States African American children represent 32% of children who are arrested, 42% of children who are detained, and 52% of children whose cases are judicially waived to criminal court. It is these trends that have been rooted in the discrimination of Black people ever since Africans set foot in the New and Old Worlds.

If there is something that we need to recognize through the understanding of history, it is that these behaviours,inherent hate,overall discrimination is a learned behaviour. When it comes to racism, the choices we make and the attitudes we choose to take with us in this current reformation will determine how the future of our world holds

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"A person is a person through other persons; you can't be human in isolation; you are human only in relationships." ~ Desmond Tutu

We are currently living in a historic time in humanities time here on earth. Humanity has gone through this before: the black plague in 1347, Spanish influenza in 1918 and countless cases of smallpox and SARS around the world. Yet again our backs are against the wall due to an invisible force that grew exponentially before we could even prepare for it. However, humanity with its back to the wall is fighting back without even fighting at all. Social isolation has been a practice to prevent spreading of disease ever since humanity has existed. An evolutionary approach to stigmatization suggests that “avoidance of the disease” contributes to some instances of social exclusion (Park, 2012). Park and his study on social avoidance shows that humans have a biological and evolutionary response to maintain a distance when prior knowledge of physical or non-physical abnormalities are known about others. So if we go by that knowledge, humanity has fared on the right track to stabilizing this pandemic. Yet it brings the question to mind, if humans are a social species then how will social isolation have an effect on the sense of community we have?

Roelof Hortulanus, , Anja Machielse and Ludwien Meeuwesen took the topic of social isolation into question in 2006 with their book Social isolation in Modern Society. It was their psychological analysis of the concept of social isolation that they view that certain life events can increase or decrease an individual's social network. These events can either be positive or negative such as marriage or death, yet the main thing that can differentiate the two is how an individual perceives it. Obviously these two examples are on different sides of the spectrum which is why context is important to truly understand the environment in which an individual perceives the event. If we take this insight and focus it towards an unforeseen disease outbreak can have drastic levels of stress reactions depending on the individual. What is universal from all these reactions is the fact that humans tend to find coping strategies to deal with a stressful situation. The way an individual copes as Hortulanus and colleagues suggest reverts back to an individual’s social network. A person that is actively participating within the community will have a much larger support system compared to one who is not as active. With that it would make sense that negative life events would be easier to mitigate by having a pool of social support, but what happens when one is completely confined to one's home?

Technology has done an amazing job in the past centuries to connect the world more than it has ever been in the past. However, humanity as a species have also used physical forms of sociality along with the technological forms of sociality. But can humanity completely move to one form of sociality with completely abandoning the other? Mckeown et. al, 2008 explains that the meaning of community has drastically gotten more complex as time has gone by. They explain that each community as communities within itself, for the sake of a term we can say “sub-communities”.These sub-communities are where one begins to identify with their social network (your family, friends, coworkers, etc.). Mckeown et. al. explains that “Successful health promotion and disease prevention efforts must be designed with a thorough knowledge of the community in which they are to be used.” When our concept of community and sociality come into question, we must guide communication towards how we can pass adversity as collective instead of distancing oneself from society. With social distancing there can be a fine line which an individual stays connected within their communities or when one completely isolates. As one begins to feel more and more isolated, they indicate a significant decrease in their health (Hortulanus, Machielse and Meeuwesen, 2006). Uncertainty can cause a sense of stress for many of us, yet we have to remember that we are part of the greater human race. A sense of community can prevent us from slipping down a slippery slope of isolation and loneliness.

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Pain and isolation: A cultural and historical perspective

True self-discovery begins where your comfort zone ends. -Adam Braun

Why all the suffering? Why do we all feel pain? Why do humans sit on their pain and let it eat away at the psychological network of consciousness while animals default to a simple fight or flight response? Obviously there are exceptions in the animal kingdom but the question that made me write this still remains, how do humans respond to pain?

We have all felt pain in the past, whether a bump on the arm or a scratch on the leg. But this pain is only temporary and the human body does an amazing way of dealing with the biological underpinnings of that pain. That's not the pain I will dive into today, I am talking about the pain that our species are so well known for and that is the pain that causes no physical effect.

Let me paint a story, I was in highschool and it was an average school night. Around midnight my family gets a call informing us that a family member passed due to losing a battle with cancer. I can still remember the moment my mother told me, sitting at the top of the staircase with a blank stare on my face. I just sat there, I guess in biological terms I froze due to the situation at hand. I felt something that was still relatively new to me at the time, I had my first glance at what heartbreak felt like. The day after felt like a blur, I had no emotion and had no intention to show it. The feeling of heartbreak stuck with me along with the various senses and feelings it brought along. Another fact I learned along the way was that this pain can come in different forms.

As Williams (2019) explains, pain is the “final mediator” of the array of selection pressures humans experience. Pain in a biological sense is good, it alerts the individual that they are not in a safe environment and signals an obvious threat. By alerting us of this threat, the body is thus trying to maintain its health and integrity. Without pain as William notes, can threaten the livelihood of the individual in question. According to gate control theory, pain is modulated in each synapses in the outer parts of the body from the brain. This modulation between the brain and the outer limbs of the body causes for memories and prior knowledge to be mixed with the pain signals given. Yet this field of study has been under debate for quite some time. In terms of academic research, there is much literature within the realm of pain sensation and pain discriminative processes (such as fight or flight) (Williams 2019).

Just as alone I felt that night, I continue to feel this solitude when dealing with current problems of today. But are we truly alone? Not necessarily. Klienman and Wilkinson (2016) points out that no matter how deeply ingrained is the idea of suffering is within an individual, there can be collective experiences that in turn are due to larger societal forces that break up communities and neighbourhoods. How can something so personal like suffering become a social dilemma? Suffering can happen both on a personal and societal level. One example of societal pain and isolation can be seen within our own borders, people returning from military service can experience uncertainty and stress when returning from seeing atrocities during times of war (Zelenak, 2015). These times that soldiers return from their tours are where they feel the most vulnerable, without proper associations to return them to modern life they are pushed to the edge of society where they suffer exclusion and isolation.

As humans are social animals, isolation can be detrimental. This can be seen through caregivers dealing with patients with schizophrenia. According to Hayes et. al. 2015, studies have shown that caregivers experience their own mental health problems as well as social exclusion from society. The true question is, what can one do when experiencing pain and isolation? As explained with the examples of both veterans and caregivers, without proper social networks to communicate and express concerns suffrage can increase. This is where we can decrease the rates of pain, in an era of social isolation and little communication we can subside the effects of isolation and suffering.

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Shame cultures and how they affect individuals and societies

“Shame is the lie someone told you about yourself.”- Anaïs Nin

We have all experienced the feeling of shame in our lives, from having it thrown at us or creating the unpleasant emotion within ourselves. Shame can control how individuals act and how societies operate. Shame can push individuals to conform to society’s norms. For example, if a boy shows the slightest bit of sensitivity, society will subconsciously push that boy to hide and bottle up his emotions because boys don't cry. During World War II, American anthropologist Ruth Benedict wrote “The Chrysanthemum and the Sword,” a study about Japanese culture to help Americans understand how Japanese society functions. Benedict explains the differences of culture through comparisons between “guilt cultures” and “shame cultures.” Shame cultures put great importance on beliefs of pride and honour. For example, someone who takes pride and honour seriously would also take how others perceive him seriously.

I'm not here to break cultures into guilt and shame categories. I am here to expand upon personal beliefs and how they relate to this particular topic. Shame can play a role in day-to-day lives so easily. Not only does it affect individuals differently, but it affects our social norms and how individuals fit into society. This guilt/shame comparison isn't easily divided; it's a spectrum where cultures are extremely similar but also extremely different. I personally believe that Latin culture carries certain beliefs that could fall within the “shame culture” category. As a Colombian male, I have observed that Latin culture carries an importance in not being casted out. I refer to ostracism or social exclusion. An example of social ostracism in Latin culture is the phenomenon of machismo. According to Glass et al. 2010 “Latino Fathers: The Relationship Among Machismo, Acculturation, Ethnic Identity, and Paternal Involvement” machismo's early definitions were associated with stereotypes of aggression, hiding emotions, and anti-femininity. Machismo carries similar traits of what Pollack defined as “the boy code” in 1998. This set of social norms included:

men not showing weakness

displaying an attraction to violence

showing dominance towards others

not display feelings of empathy or dependence. 

So let’s say a male steps out of these social norms — what happens? It depends, really. Zager, K 1981 states that once a male expresses any feminine behaviour, they run the risk of punishment of society. Through negative learning, they are pushed back into pre-existing norms. Shame can be used as a very powerful tool to keep individuals in line. So why is being pushed out so bad? 

An article written in 2016 by Harriet Over explains both the importance of belonging and the detrimental effects of exclusion. Throughout the article, Over expands on the fact that humans are cooperative and dependent on our social groups. In 1982, researchers from the University of Colorado’s School of Medicine began to see medical students go from “eager-beavers” to frustrated and depressed throughout their residency (Dossey, L. 2005). A mail survey from 1991 among medical students observed that 53 per cent of the correspondents experienced some form of humiliation and billitlement by more senior residents (Daughtry et al., 1998). As Over 2016 states, “Successful group functioning requires that we are motivated to interact, and engage with those around us.” In that sense, shame is not a good tool to teach and motivate others because it actually does the exact opposite. Even though it has negative effects on individuals’ self-esteem, shame is a commodity amongst the media. Humans, as I mentioned before, are dependent on their group for a sense of belonging. When people feel shame, it's a separation between the society and the individual. How does this shame feel on the side of society? Myra Mendible explains in her book “American shame : stigma and the body politic” that being a part of the majority that accuses others can feel as solidarity amongst the group itself. Our society as Mendible describes, focuses on the rise and fall of others to seek comfort for our own struggles with shame.

Shame can creep up in one's mind and be used as something to control one’s individuality. Like other emotions, however, it can be changed with a switch in perspective of reality. Dawne Moon in “Overcoming Shame, Practicing Love: LGBT Evangelicals’ Strategies for Social Justice” explains how individuals struggling to accept their sexual orientation are perceived amongst their religious groups and how they deal with shame. Moon gives an example of an individual switching her mindset of shame to pride and self acceptance when the individual felt like she did not fit in traditional norms. Switching our perception of our environment is easier said than done; it might seem impossible to change our cultural stereotypes and how society views our norms. But the culture is dynamic and fluid, and what society sees as taboo will change in time to come.

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Understanding the psychological burden through cultural barriers

“You’re not an anxious person, you’re just someone who experiences anxiety.” - My therapist 

The act of therapy existed in human cultures long before it was institutionalized. Personally, I can see how therapy carries a stigma. It makes it seem like a person has no control over their own emotions and have to outsource for help. Yet people don’t seem to take into account that, outside of therapy, we often put trust in someone else like a family member or a significant other. Sometimes, we even deal with the emotional and psychological burden of everyday life by abusing the “good” parts of life. 

I want to expand on the psychological burden, mainly from a cultural point of view. Cultural differences can bring a heavy burden to those in minority groups. The minority—whether it be through race, gender, religion, or something else—have to endure discrimination daily. This stress doesn’t only affect the individual, but it gets passed down through generations, sometimes even becoming genetic. 

An example of this can be seen through the staggering differences in birth to death ratios of African Americans in the U.S. in 2005. How is it that something so unifying as the traditions you carry in your blood and the ancestry you are part of determines the rate in which you live or die? How is it that the only thing separating a man from living longer is whether he is Hispanic or Caucasian? 

Obviously stress can stem from different sources besides facing discrimination up close and personal. Not long ago, we were separated because of how we looked or what language we spoke. That separation didn’t only stop there—the services or resources that were available were specifically made for those who could afford it or belonged to the majority. These gaps in resources were made to make it harder for those already fighting for survival. By doing this, it creates a population that can't outsource their psychological problems. But humans adapt and we find different ways to manage the anxieties we experience in our lives.

A very clear example can be seen within Indigenous populations in Canada. Years of assimilation and indoctrination broke the unique culture that they once had and now generations after have to deal with the stresses and burdens that have arisen from this cultural genocide. Two questions that come to mind are: Where do we go from here? If we carry the burden of what our ancestors went through, how can we move forward? My only answer is that we should proudly carry those stresses to show that the battle isn’t over. We, as humans, can adapt.

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The reason for this blog

At this day and age, posting your ideas and thoughts on the internet has always been a way to connect. I see it as a means of passing knowledge.

I believe cultural knowledge is somewhat lacking in our day to day lives. From what I have found, being culturally aware brings forth empathy in others. Through these posts, I want to reflect on certain difficulties or struggles one goes through on a day-to-day basis. Not only will I reflect on these, but I will also reflect on the cultural knowledge that I have or those I speak with and how cultural background shapes how we deal with our struggles.

What I don’t mean to do is show prejudice nor disrespect any culture. I post my view or opinion to spark intellectual thought, not hate.

Throughout these posts, you’ll see a bit of who I am as a person. I hope some might learn something new that three years of anthropological theory has drilled into my head.

And above all, I raise awareness.

Not only do I want to raise thoughts and questions, but I want to plant seeds of change and advocacy. I believe that everyone has a right to express and show their cultural backgrounds without fear of discrimination and hate of any kind. Anthropology has taught me to appreciate both the complexity and the simplicity of human culture and I hope these posts will inspire a bit of anthropological thought and discussion.