Blog 1- How can African Americans improve race relations in the United States

As African Americans, most of our history has been lost through ancestors and shortened in European textbooks. Mainly when people talk about the history of African Americans in textbooks, that we are meant to learn from, they start at the slave trade, rather than discussing African origins and their migrations to other countries. Without the memory of one’s past, the result is normally ignorance. To understand yourself, you must understand your past. The day when Africans begin to intake the knowledge of our ancestors, they can then disperse that knowledge to other races. We need to start educating our schools and communities on the people who came before us, not just on European view points, but from an African perspective as well. Along with educating ourselves of our history, we must not hold the anger that generations before us hold. In Obama’s speech, “A More Perfect Union”, he addresses how this new generation can help create change by learning and reminding ourselves of the struggle that our people went through, however he goes on to say that “That anger […] prevents the African American community from forgoing the alliances it needs to bring about real change.” If African Americans can use the anger that we have from a broken past to enlighten others and spread the knowledge to the young, we can collectively push forward as a nation. To begin to improve race relations, African Americans need to educate themselves on our untold history, lend support to one another, and unite as a community.