How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America

Placing the origin point of Black family/community disruption at the transatlantic slave trade, Smith offers a trajectory of white supremacy’s transformations from the slave trade to contemporary society, showing how the disruption remains a vital element in the subjugation of Black people. Smith suggests the origins of Black family/community disruption when he speaks with Kane:

Part of what Hasan teaches his students is that we cannot understand slavery and colonialism as two separate historical phenomena. They are inextricably linked pieces of history. Slavery took a toll on West Africa’s population; millions of people were stripped from their homelands and sent across the ocean to serve in intergenerational bondage. The profound harm continued during colonialism, with much of the continent stripped of its natural resources (260).

While Kane’s distinction between the systems of plunder might seem to suggest that colonialism is less culpable in the phenomenon of separation, Kane’s students are acutely aware that the legacy of colonialism remains in the psyches of Senegalese people. By psychological mechanisms, colonialism continues to disrupt Black families and communities:

They told me that so many of the most talented young people from Senegal go on to universities around the world, and then don’t come back. They say it comes from the fact that they don’t have the same job opportunities back in Senegal, but also because people have internalized the idea that they are more valuable and more important if they live and work in Europe or America (266-267).