Breaking the chains of psychological slavery - Essay Example

The author of the paper has presented his agreement or disagreement with the views presented by Akbar in the first three chapters of the book. The Psychological Legacy of Slavery In the first one of series of essays presented in Akbar’s book, Dr. Akbar defines the misery of blacks over the period of those 300 years, in which the black raced experienced brutality and humiliation in the hands of whites. According to the author, the blacks were forced into slavery which left behind deep psychological trauma in the mindset of black people and socially isolated them.

Akbar states that, despite of the fact that world has acknowledged the brutality of slavery experienced all around the world, they still do not know or do not want to know the root cause of problems faced by black people, i.e. the slavery. The problems identified by Akbar pertaining to black peoples’ attitude, were directed towards their behavior at workplace, leading teams, feeling inferiority complexes and how the community divides them from white people. Akbar argues that the negative impact of slavery on black peoples’ attitude towards life can also be noticed in the way they form families and perceive discrimination on the basis of race and color.

In my personal opinion, I would like to disagree with Akbar when he suggests that the effects of slave past can be noticed in the attitude towards profession. These days, blacks are dominating major positions in a number of key businesses in the world. On the other hand, blacks are provided with equal opportunities to excel in their profession and achieve their assigned targets. Another factor that has been identified with relation to Black’s attitude towards community division, I would like to agree with Akbar here.

This is because still there are evidences where whites are discriminated on the basis of color and race. The recent example is of major sporting events like football leagues and hockey matches. But, due to prevalence of law and anti-racial regulations implemented by the government and by employers at workplace, Black people are now encouraged to report that to law enforcing organizations. Liberation from Mental Slavery The second chapter of the book discusses how to break the mental chains of the slavery and its adverse impact on the mind set-up of individuals.

Based on Akbar’s idea of faith, the author argues that some of the time, people believe what is not actually practical. Similarly, blacks were sometimes were provided with false and rumored news about the whites and vice versa. I agree with the point raised by Dr. Akbar about faith. Faith is something that is meaningless and limitless. Faith reflects the level of trust an individual have for another individual. Based on faith, people make decisions that are critical to the situations in their lives.

In this manner, to ensure successfully achieving objectives or to make something happen in your favor, one must have faith. Similarly, if individuals’ belief that they are going to get freedom, they first must have faith on their belief, so as to ensure that full commitment and honesty is reflected in our efforts towards achieving freedom. Coming back to the denial of slave mentality of blacks, Akbar states that to make freedom possible, the blacks must have to believe that they are going to achieve freedom.

This freedom gave their confidence level a boost which proved to be a vital weapon in their efforts to achieve freedom. Giving the example of Harriet Tubman’s efforts to free slaves, Tubman expresses her faith that she is going to free slave, which other wise would not have been possible in the absence of faith and