The Psychology of Self-hatred and Self-defeat

Book excerpt: "The issue of self-hatred has very deep historical roots going way back into colonial history of the Fifteenth-century and beyond. In this text Amos Wilson details its origins as it evolved from biblical times with curse of Ham in the Old Testament up through the Middle Ages, enslavement, Jim Crow sadism and up to the present time. This experience has had long lasting impact on the creating, shaping and defining of the African American personality in particular, and the African personality worldwide. This text sets about exploring this development in its many aspects and attempts a reclamation of the African (often spelled Afrikan) mind. Herein Wilson attempts with surgical precision a remediation of this psycho-historical malady"--