Life experience through the lens of a person of an indigenous race differed and continues to be different from their white counterparts. Society’s opinion in a Westernized community rarely ever serves all its constituents. The people’s voice is the always pointed as the reason behind the standards set by the societal institutions in the West. As a man of African roots living in an America, a society created of old Western mores, the steps I take are the same as my peers; however, society is not a reflection of my existence as my white counterparts. Western culture has roots of systematic design intent on minimizing respect accorded to certain persons to effectively silence them as outliers. While humanity is constant on the path towards a global society, those with the power and desire to dominate are afforded the responsibility and ability to revise history. Despite an ambitious society’s intent to silence the minds of those not afforded the luxury of societal tolerance or acceptance, accounts made from the people on the confines of their society define the hardships and joys life brought to them. The case that Western civilization is less than ideal for outsiders today trying to achieve the societal freedom their ancestors had before being engulfed in the West’s push for empire is held up with the help of accounts, articles, biographies, opinions on health, and more.

     Before you begin to to analyze the critiques of societies as well as the effects those experiences had on those now famous individuals whom had been shunned, disrupted, and abused by their countries, you must first focus on their physical and mental existence before the emotional state. Richard Eckersley, a writer who covers topics on psychology and health including the brain’s health impact on the whole person, covers the topic of Western civilizations ideal’s effect on the health of a regular citizen (Eckersley). In the twenty-first century, tight-knit communities are becoming more scare, a result of the community identity in our shrinking world not reflecting perfectly the identity of the majority anymore. As humans, we are as instinctual as we are sentient, and the push towards a more personally guarded relationship with others is bad for our health as social animals, which Eckersley points out. Eckersley also writes on the values we idealize in Western culture and the effects those have in our desires and satisfaction. Success is defined as how much is achieved, and throughout recent human history those in power from the West whom are set up for domination in the name of acquiring wealth and are still hellbent on an unfair system. Values like greed, envy, and callous attitude are emphasized in Western culture to promote the drive to succeed, and in turn their effects affect the health of those who conform to those characteristics. The list of effects can range from depression, lack of self-worth, and self-hatred, which are then reciprocated towards those who do not fit the Western mold. Understanding the damage dealt to the oppressed people’s generational existence which in turn elevated said people, is the only response that indigenous or colored subjects had to the oppressive empires they found themselves supporting, through diminished labor rights and social status.

     Carolin Rupp provides evidence to the ideas of a less intimate social atmosphere with excerpts from her report on social science research, that uses sociology in their assertions about modern society, which maintain some similarities with Eckersley’s claims. In the introduction to the report, she defines “, America’s declining social capital and the notion that social cohesion is falling apart in modern societies” as a topic of growing interest recently (Rupp). Although Rupp tags the tags the last twenty years as the period where interest has risen, but those living under rule that made it lawfully and socially acceptable to exploit them, have always had an interest or more so a stake in trying to understand why these things were accepted. Societal cohesion in a society of Western culture is aimed at progress, and in many cases this progress has been at the expense of countless colored men and women. To maintain the progress that the West had made in either colonization or imperialism, Western societies always must maintain societal cohesion through various forms of social capital, which with time had become increasingly less apparent. Over time, the public’s opinion has become more important the more informed they have become with the increased exposure of oppression, shortening the long list of mechanisms the West has to keep their destructive and oppressive social atmospheres alive in desire of empire.

     Ole Jacob Madsen, a psychology professor at the University of Oslo, has written various pieces which describe the psychology behind the actions taken by the West. In this piece, he describes the critiques as well as the pyschologisation in modern-day Western culture. In the article Madsen writes, he says “, Therapeutic solutions are solely cosmetic solutions to a portended cultural crisis (Madsen 194).” Acknowledging that Western society only seeks to soothe cultural ridges between the parties they systematically divided when their cultural hegemony is under stress is crucial to analyzing racial prejudice. Therapeutic solutions meant to dampen the feelings of the subjected are not enacted out of good-will for those subjects, but rather for those in charge of society to remain on top. The ability and willingness to mend social tensions are always used in route of maintaining and strengthening the economy in white hands. Madsen also mentions that America’s number one export is their Western ideals, although it imported its set of ideals in the worst period of time in terms of the West’s desire to conquer land and subject natives for economic strength and easier lives for Europeans.

Besides the emotional change a person feels from altruism, it leaves them with nothing, unless reciprocated by those individuals that make up a community. This is the tale of any colored man living in a society that retains any Western ideals, because with time Western ideals have become intertwined with unproven claim to superior humanity. This tale is the same at every core of the various societal spheres created by the West that subjects the colored. In order to create a more robust depiction of the shortcomings of Western society, a net of interconnected reflections of the oppression society inflicted needs to be intertwined. The first-hand accounts that will be used to create these connections will need to be spread out from different time periods to show that these happenings are not by chance and subsided, but rather than these ideals remain barely underneath the surface. 

Three separate autobiographies all from men of color are the fabrics form this net. Frederick Douglass was a remains a prominent figure and first-hand historian of American culture during the end of the slavery around the mid nineteenth century. A man of slave origin, his memories are the closest interpretation can be to being factual. Dr. Frank Godfrey (my uncle)is a civil right activist, veteran, Harvard St. Augustine College and Texas Southern University graduate, former college professor, and renaissance man who from his pale light skin was not accepted and discriminated against by both whites and blacks gives a rare reflection on both sides of the cruelty of racism in  mid twentieth century . Trevor Noah a mixed-race man, now host of an American political and domestic satirical comedy television block show called the Daily Show, comes from a background in South Africa of legal apartheid rule where his existence was considered taboo and illegal warranting jail time to his family. All these distinguished men faced a society that considered them less than those in control, but against these challenges they rose about to achieve great things despite a society that treated them as if they were devoid of value. Besides coming from men of color reflecting on a Western muse or lack thereof, the one binding quality of these individuals was their ability to reciprocate the weight of Western culture’s treatment of their people into a force that elevated them.

     Frederick Douglass’s autobiography details his encounters from his early life as a slave when his closest companion was his hunger, to his adult life of being an educated freeman at 27, the age at which he wrote the autobiography. After being abandoned by his grandmother around age 7, he experienced the ultimate horrors of slavery at “The Great House”, sparking his desire more than ever to find better life (Douglass Chapter 1). Once realizing the power of literacy, Frederick would trade food for reading lessons with his white peers who did not understand the power of knowledge. Finding his way to New York away from slave hunters and kidnappers, Frederick began championing the abolition movement. His greatest critiques of American culture came about in his speeches promoting the abolition of slavery. Not simply basing his arguments on the facts detailing the slave trade, but rather addressing the credibility of whites as slave-owners as well as addressing the emotional impact slavery has had on society, the slaves, and the whites who saw blacks as animals.

     Dr. Godfrey’s autobiography under the name ‘Cracker Boy’ details his walks through life. While not accepted by blacks for being too light, he was not accepted by whites for being black. Starting for Charleston, South Carolina, Dr. Godfrey was imprinted with ideas of colorism since a young age. The notion that he was different from most blacks was also encouraged by whites to further divide blacks, and even in family structures this discrimination would run as his elder family members preferring his light skin to his brother’s. An example given was his mother taking him for a stroll while white women rejected the notion that a brown-skinned woman could have a fair skinned child, unwilling to let my Grandmother see them accept the fact they were becoming rampant outraged that an ‘Annie’ could have a ‘cracker boy’ (Godfrey Chapter 2). On the other side of the coin, he was discriminated against by whites when they found out about his heritage, as they would then relate him to the stereotypes placed on blacks, despite seeing him as equal prior to their revelation. The ambiguity of being rejected by both whites and blacks highlights the true societal tension between whites and blacks, as any remnant or trace of a characteristic of the opposite race deemed my uncle as unacceptable. That anti-ambiguity also shows how deep the Western ideals of black inhumanity and white superiority ran in America’s veins, that keeping a hateful system of oppression that reciprocated ill feelings was still acceptable on the world scale because it bolstered and upheld a country that achieved a great amount in economic terms.

     Trevor Noah is a half indigenous south African and half white south African, his ambiguity allows for him to reflect on the contrasts of prejudice without being discredited as a not a member of both worlds . Born under the apartheid government, his identity was kept a secret and was homebound because it was considered unlawful under apartheid rule for interracial marriage and the creation of mixed race children. Trevor Noah’s autobiography is less of an autobiography than the previous two examples as they gave chronology and their reflections. Noah’s book gives his experiences no doubt, but they seem to come after his accounts of actions of governance in South Africa. An example of this is when he describes the ending of apartheid and the desegregation of private schools. He writes his account of the schools after giving the background on how he managed to attend one of these schools, by describing that he needed assistance from his mother’s company in the form of bursaries and scholarships (Noah Chapter 4). Greatly different than other Western civilizations that oppressed people of color, similar mechanics to keep the colored down are congruent among different societies.

     With different time periods connecting the idea of oppressing peoples to retain and bolster the strength of the ruling faction, the case for that being a model of Western society can be made with the support of those accounts, run on keeping society at odds against the subjected. Oppressing those unable to combat the tenants which involve oppression is not an ideal anyone living on the margins would like. This is not a flaw of the subjugated, but rather a construct originally designed around the middle of the second millenniathat has been conducted and carried on from generation to generation, shore to shore. In an equal society, this system is not carried out, but in Western society it is to advance the position of the ruling.

    Edward Sampson wrote a book called The Celebration of the Other: A Dialogic Account of Human Nature. Sampson is a college professor who has received a Ph.D. in psychology and has written many books on psychology and specifically social psychology. Although no specific excerpts are taken from this book, Sampson defines human nature as the celebration of the self, while celebrating the other. Although this may be simple, it is understood that we have become disconnected from our true nature as human, as things like prejudice easily drive us away from connecting with each other. In a world that constantly pushes new exciting things that give the buyer false validation that leads to hollowness and lack of respect for possessions and yourself, it is more of the status quo to become selfish and self-centered in modern Western societies. Over celebrating the self, or becoming to infatuated with what your people have acquired and seek to acquire leaves little to no room for the celebration of the other. In this case when speaking on human nature on a societal level, the other represents the group of peoples on the margins of society, oppressed and barely making it by because of it. Deciding to keep the other down, and dismiss him and everything bad, does more harm to the self than to the other although the damage done to the oppressed has been undeniably harsh. By casting whites against blacks with the notion of blacks being unable to identify with basic humanity and civility on any grounds made it impossible for whites to understand and learn great things from colored peoples. With an inability to evolve or move forward in your feelings toward the other, Western societies that subjected colored people were unable to further their desires of more subjugation in aim of gaining more because basic revivals of human nature would and continue to shine light on the works of a Western ideology that promotes this dark social warfare.

     Proving the point that the dismay many oppressed people have faced has been of systematic design to profit those countries where the oppression has taken place is important when facing life in a country that was once a settler colony. As a human living in the 21st century, our voices for change are much louder due to the media and social media, and because of this we are more responsible for creating tolerance than previous generations. After recognizing racial prejudice as a means for attaining desire goals, you must recognize different kinds of prejudice and denounce them as an immoral.

  