The White Guy says, "I want to share with you the best interaction I've had with a reader in the almost 10 years we've been publishing DiversityInc. The response was to my answer about why white people don't understand 'the struggle.'"

(See also: Why Whites Don't Understand the 'Struggle' and Does Discrimination Cause Cancer?)

In prior careers I served low-income minority communities as a public health nurse, public health researcher, community health administrator and small-business owner. My current career involves responding to hate incidents and crimes and providing prejudice training, mediation and facilitation of difficult intercultural dialogues.

My friends from former careers often share information about current anthropological studies being conducted on the survival mechanisms of African American peoples. These studies include understanding the history of behaviors, diets, livelihood and migration of African Americans to and throughout America. History records that Africans have experienced four major migrations as a result of pressures and opportunities thus far. The fourth migration is happening right now. Major factors include equal access to services from large systems (public safety, health, affordable housing, culture and arts, sustainable jobs, education, political representation on the local level).

One of the healthcare factors [is] the first force migration and its link to hypertension. The ships were for cargo and not cruising. Access to resources needed to sustain life was meager. The following was noted in my research. There was intentional:

• Deprivation of fluids
• Deprivation of food including native foods
• Suppression of memory regarding the cultivation and preparation of native foods
• Provision of high-calorie animal food scraps and anemic vegetables
• Increased access to salt as a seasoning rather than beneficial herbs

Another factor was the buildup of stress associated with:

• The initial kidnapping and ultimate enslavement in an unknown land surrounded by people from an unfamiliar and intolerant culture
• Destruction of family units
• Denial of indigenous spiritual practices
• Constant exposure to physical and psychological abuse (now known as [post-traumatic stress disorder])
• A long period of denial of an education and equal rights
• A long period of fear of male and female members of the dominant European culture
• Eugenics

Self-medical care is a continuing factor for African Americans because many lacked the resources to purchase insurance in order to receive treatments. As a result, the African migrants adopted the practices associated with:

·         Mistrust of the medical system based on significant evidence of the continuation of Eugenic research and cultural incompetence

·         Self-care and self-medication mostly associated with minimizing chronic pain and psychological suffering. This practice often leads to unfortunate individual and family addictions

I believe that the goals of affirmative action were doomed to failure from the start because [they] only focused on two systems of denied equality, access to education and work. Affirmative actions should have been about the removal of all systemic barriers to all resources that make anyone treated as less equal to others. We have some significant catching up to do in this country and elsewhere in the world.

Yesterday I heard a young social-justice advocate explain that the root meaning of the word colonialism is "to digest." Think on that. Even the Romans had better sense. Europeans have literally digested cultures they colonized in North America, Canada and South America almost to the point of extinction. The Romans practiced integration because they recognized certain values associated with keeping cultures alive and well. Cultures that have been digested by the European colonizers and their offspring have caused others to pay a heavy price for acting on principles of manifest destiny that [were] fueled by greed (capitalism). Who will always be the winner in capitalism: those who already have capital (money or connections)?

In spite of all this I just completed a PowerPoint presentation for Santa Clara and San Francisco County policymakers on the current out-migration of African Americans to the South from California. The presentation focused on the complex mix of pressures and opportunities that African Americans are facing in our region. I discovered during my research that there is a significant element of control within the African-American community that is grounded in survival. Maya Angelou is right: "We will survive, in spite of it all."

Thanks for asking this important question. It should continue to be part of the difficult dialogues we must have with one another. The results could lead to creating the greatest civilization in human history. I think that is a worthy cause.

—Delorme McKee-Stovall

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