The “Black Consciousness” phrase originates from W.E.B. DuBois’s “double consciousness” of Black Americans. DuBois explained that “double consciousness” compels Black people to see themselves not only from their particular point of view but also from how others would see them. Conflict naturally results from this, both internally for Black people and outwardly within and outside of Black groups.
Steve Biko stated that Black consciousness is the “realization by the Black man of the need to rally together with his brother around the cause of their oppression” (Black Consciousness & Mental Health | YWCA. https://www.ywcaworks.org/blogs/ywca/wed-04172019-1118/black-consciousness-mental-health). Being Black reflects mentality as well as color.
The Black Consciousness Movement
In the 1970s, South Africa’s Black Consciousness movement sparked a social, cultural, and political awakening. Major anti-apartheid groups in South Africa, like the Pan-Africanist Congress and the African National Congress, had all but been suppressed by government repression by the middle of the 1960s (https://www.ywcaworks.org/blogs/ywca/wed-04172019-1118/black-consciousness-mental-health). Steve Biko founded an entirely Black group in 1969 when he and other Black students became dissatisfied with white leadership in multiracial student organizations. Black consciousness emerged from the South African Students’ Organization (SASO).
In addition to teaching that Black South Africans might effect significant social change if they were “conscientious” or made aware of their value and the necessity of activism, this thought reinvented “Black” as an inclusive, positive identity. The movement gave young people confidence, helped shape Black theological and cultural movements, and sparked the creation of new political and community groups like the Black People’s Convention and the Black Community Programs organization. Adherents of Black Consciousness also established organizations while living abroad and attempted to participate in the military conflict.
Steve Biko was a prolific writer and one of the movement’s main initiators. He was also articulate and captivating. The South African government attempted to stifle Black Consciousness and its leaders after realizing the danger the movement posed to apartheid. Biko was exiled to his Eastern Cape district, where he maintained his political clout and built community development initiatives. The brutality of South African security forces and the lengths the state will go to uphold white supremacy were made evident by his execution at the hands of security officers in September 1977. Following Biko’s passing, the government outlawed groups associated with Black Consciousness. Although the movement declined after Biko’s passing, activists established the Azanian People’s Organization (AZAPO) in 1978 to uphold the principles of Black Consciousness. Others have looked to Black Consciousness to help shape a new Black future for South Africa, but Biko has hovered over the movement’s history ever since as a strong figure and hero.
Taking Care of Our Mental Health
For the majority of Black people, obtaining the required healthcare services is still difficult. Research shows that racism and bias against individuals of color are prevalent in the healthcare system and other fields. Living with the daily stress of racism can have a detrimental effect on one’s mental and physical health, especially when people of color frequently lack access to proper diagnosis and high-quality treatment. To participate in the healing process, we can accept our similarities and differences (https://melomediazambia.com/category/melo-news/editors-choice/). It is crucial to consider how privilege shapes one’s life path and remember that everyone has the power to change things.
Black Resilience and Healing Model
Emotional and spiritual love for the Black community drives the liberation movement and consciousness. Healing entails some degree of emotional development and has been defined as a personal path toward wholeness (Chioneso et al., 2020).
Black activism’s impact on mental health identifies culturally grounded protective mechanisms to improve Black activists’ readiness for activism and resilience. It guides healing initiatives to address Black activists’ mental health and wellness while paying attention to activism’s dangers and psychosocial costs. African cultural knowledge, wisdom, and healing are significant themes in African-centered psychology literature. These sources reveal the importance of the ideas of love and community. “Justice is what love looks like in public,” according to Cornel West (Mendieta, 2017, p. 169). The model is a call to action to prepare better, safeguard, and supply psycho-cultural resources in order to increase Black activists’ ability to make the most significant possible contribution to the destruction of anti-Black racism and its terrible impacts on Black people’s individual and communal lives.
The risk, protective, and healing processes associated with Black conscious activism may affect the mental health outcomes of Black activists. Black activism is most beneficial to activists’ wellbeing. It increases Black activist organizations’ efficacy in pursuing liberation when defined by love and a communal perspective. In Black activism, love is fulfilled through loving and caring relationships, love for Black people and African diasporic culture, love for God and knowing that God loves you, and love expressed through collective joy and grief.
An African-centered cultural perspective is infused with a collectivist-communal attitude, which is reflected in the concepts of love and community. Viewing this from an African-centered perspective, Black action can be situated within a larger liberation framework that reflects the complete understanding of our interconnected humanity and is based on love and a sense of community. Black people’s cultural understanding of the best possible wellbeing and mental health routes is shaped by African-centered ideas that have emerged from African spirituality and wisdom traditions (e.g., Gills & Rowe, 1998; Turner, 2019).
Ubuntu’s African-centered philosophy gives the model a moral and ethical foundation by emphasizing living from a spiritually infused, interrelated humanity. Ubuntu emphasizes spirituality as a relational and communal experience rather than an isolated one, arguing that a person’s humanity cannot be fully realized outside of communal connection (Mazama, 2002; Washington, 2010). From an African-centered viewpoint, Black activism advances the whole understanding of our interconnected humanity based on love and a sense of community.
Resilience and Protection Elements
In addition to preventing detrimental mental health effects, culturally centered resilience and protective variables can be significant in the individual and community experience of Black activism. Anti-Black racism is a multifaceted, systematic form of hardship that has historically exposed Black people’s extraordinary resilience. Numerous factors that represent cultural and community strengths are highlighted in the expanding corpus of research on Black resilience (Brown & Tylka, 2011; Dollarhide et al., 2018; Henderson et al., 2016; McCrea et al., 2019). The identification of culturally centered resilience and protective factors grouped into four interconnected domains rooted in love and community—relationships, spirituality, identity, and active expression—was guided by a review of theory and research on protective factors among Black people. Numerous cultural assets and strengths have been found to lower the risk of adverse mental health outcomes, buffer and modulate stress, and improve resilience and positive mental health within these broad categories.
In addition to fighting injustice, Black conscious activism can foster a sense of community (Bhuyan, 2018). Psychological empowerment and a sense of community are positively correlated (Lardier, 2018), indicating that activism might have a good psychological impact via community strengthening. Research indicates that social support provides Black people who experience racism, particularly racial micro aggressions, with a psychological and physical buffer (Salami et al., 2020). It has also been discovered that Black persons who experience racism benefit from church-based social support in terms of feeling less anxious (Graham & Roemer, 2012). Social support is positively connected with optimism, whereas experiences of racism can reduce optimism for Black men and women (Mattis et al., 2003). In the setting of racial prejudice among African Americans, Mattis et al. (2003) discovered that a loving and supporting relationship with God predicted optimism. Because of these advantages, relationships are a powerful protective resource for Black activists that can help foster resilience. It has been proposed that spirituality and cultural connection, which are both strengthened by group rituals and community support, are especially crucial for resilience in the face of racism-related stress and trauma (Livingston et al., 2017; Salami et al., 2020).
Culturally Focused Methods of Healing and Wellbeing
Culturally based healing and wellness methods might influence Black activism’s impact on mental health outcomes. Promoting optimal health and wellbeing and preventing detrimental mental health consequences can be achieved by paying attention to individual and community healing and wellbeing. However, because activism may be so engrossing, activists risk neglecting their health and welfare (e.g., Santos & Van Daalen, 2018; Vaccaro & Mena, 2011; Watson-Singleton et al., 2021). Numerous settings, such as community-based treatments, psychotherapy and counseling, psychoeducation, and self-care, can support healing and wellness practices.
Since racism causes emotional suffering and jeopardizes healthy functioning even in the absence of psychopathology, community-based therapies can focus on healing entire communities. Group-based therapies could be beneficial in an African-centered communal cultural orientation. One advantage of this class of therapies is their non-pathologizing and destigmatizing focus on prevention instead of sickness labeling. One example of a community program that supports healing from racism is the emotional liberation circles created by the Association of Black Psychologists and the Community Healing Network (Grills et al., 2016). Chioneso et al. (2020), states that communal healing is crucial for fostering wellness informed by justice. It is believed that these culturally based healing techniques might lessen the stress caused by racism and the detrimental effects it has on Black activists’ mental health.
Black individuals are using psychotherapy services more frequently as a result of an increased understanding of the psychological effects of racism brought about by activism and increased focus on Black mental health (American Psychological Association, 2015; Turner, 2019). It is crucial to use culturally sensitive and responsive treatment when offering therapy and counseling services to Black individuals.
In order to promote the health and wellbeing of Black people, wellness practices like mindfulness and meditation are increasingly being taught in culturally sensitive ways (Harrell, 2018). Black activists can benefit significantly from culturally centered wellness and healing techniques that address specific issues related to Black mental health and are based on African-centered values. In order to reduce the psychological dangers associated with activism, these treatments can provide Black activist groups with preventive methods. The experience and efficacy of activism to combat anti-Black racism and advance individual, relational, and collective liberation can be improved by supporting activists’ empowerment and mental health improvement, which can have restorative and healing effects (Mosely et al., 2020).
In the end, Black people’s liberation and the eradication of anti-Black racism depend on making the most of Black activism’s effect and experience. Although the foundation of Black conscious activism is love and community, it is crucial to support activists in taking care of themselves in order to avoid detrimental psychological effects like stress, burnout, or despair. Many of our Black activists are unrepentant in their efforts to combat racial inequality in society (Hargons et al., 2017). While working to better the lives of the Black community, we also need to encourage healing and resilience. Black people’s love for one another and liberation do not yield to white supremacist attempts to discredit and cripple Black activists in order to end Black activity. Taking care of the health and wellbeing of our activists shows appreciation for the risks they take on our behalf. The preservation of Black mental health and the tenacity of individuals dedicated to Black life, love, and liberation depends on this endeavor.
Benefits of Sound Healing
Sound healing is a soothing method of connecting with the body’s energy centers. Because it gives us sounds that help define particular moments, feelings, and events, music plays a unique function in the human experience. Everybody’s life has a theme song.
The National Institutes of Health states that even everyday noises might cause a reaction since they can interact with and affect various physiological regions. Both innate and specific immunity in humans are susceptible to noise, and the immune system may be affected differently by varying noise exposure times and levels. For instance, although long-term or high-intensity noise lowers immunological function, short-term or low-intensity noise can boost it.
Music can resonate with various energy centers in your body, depending on frequency and vibrations. Sound devices, from tuning forks and singing bowls to vibrations and frequencies, can be used for sound healing, facilitating the body’s energy transformations.
Sound healing is beneficial for lowering stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as for fostering calm and improving mental clarity, much like other types of treatment. There are benefits of sound healing in various musical genres and sounds. Enhancing people’s emotional, spiritual, and physical health is the primary objective of the therapy; sound healing can be achieved with any music.
We are surrounded by sound and music, which can be combined with various forms of therapy (Positive Behavior Support Techniques for Addressing Challenging Behaviors in Dementia Patients – Big Times Daily. https://bigtimesdaily.com/positive-behavior-support-techniques-for-addressing-challenging-behaviors-in-dementia-patients/). Some embedded frequencies and sounds are so subtle that you are unaware of them. It is soothing, like listening to rain. Since listening to music or noises is an excellent way to start living a more peaceful lifestyle, most individuals do it. The fact that it is music that everybody can listen to makes it simpler.
It is easy to take in the vibrations and sounds, regardless of whether you listen to pop, jazz, or rap. Whatever your preferred genre, you can meditate while listening to it and the music you enjoy. Sound healing is a form of artistic treatment sometimes confused with religion or seen as spiritual.
Many Black people are unaware that sound healing occurs for those of us who are already religious. Chanting, music, and instruments are all used, and they all contribute to sound healing for rituals involving sacred spaces, such as prayer, and providing a place for those who have been physically killed by violence. You can connect with those individuals by bringing love and positivity into the community.
Doc T Elliott’s Concluding Thoughts
Our breath is our lifeline between consciousness and unconsciousness. Many circles view sound therapy, yoga, breathwork, and meditation as “White” (Fowlkes). However, as music and sound have always been used as medicine by Africans and are still utilized today by Africans in the diaspora, it is crucial to understand through more in-depth research the origins of sound healing therapy among Africans in the pre-Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Kush and Nubia.
Sound healing is available to assist you in rebalancing yourself internally and externally. The therapeutic session is an inside-out one. Your entire body is healing, not just your mind. For you to be the best version of yourself, the energy from the vibrations of sound therapy is also actually shifting everything that is out of harmony in your body into its proper position.
Reminding our people that African-conscious sound healing therapy does not diminish their religion but rather enhances it and raises their consciousness and health is crucial as we Black healers strive to elevate the practice in Black communities. Reading Cabo Campbell’s novel Sky Full of Elephants is, in my opinion, a fantastic illustration of how Black people today must include energy practices, frequency, and vibrations to raise our consciousness.