Race versus the human

Western colonial control over the world has produced profound psychological consequences for the human. One of its mechanisms of power is the meaning given to race and its enforcement of racialization of the body and self. This study examines the antagonism between race and the human in the modern world from a decolonial point of view. It is driven by the question-how can people, produced as Black, experience ourselves as the humans we are? Following the work of Black decolonial scholars including W. E. B. Du Bois, Frantz Fanon, and Sylvia Wynter, this research interrogates relationships between the colonial world, race, and psychological experience. A methodology for analyzing dehumanization has been created for this purpose. The study reveals that psychological damage inflicted by race is severe and dehumanizing. The meaning of race and racialization practices prohibits the possibility of people produced as Black from experiencing themselves as human. The praxis of race-ing interrupts what is knowable about humanity and precludes human-to-human relationality by attempting to form relations through the closed identity of race. Possibilities for how the field of psychology can contribute to the decolonial project of rehumanizing the world are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

Colonialism · Dehumanization · Humanity · Identity (music · Meaning (existential · Praxis · Race (biology · Racialization · African cultural and philosophical studies · Community Health and Development · Theological Perspectives and Practices