SWK 600 - Unpacking Structural Racism Through A Critical Exploration of Slave Heritage Sites in Ghana

On the heels of the COVID-19 pandemic and the simultaneous unabated killings of Blacks and other persons of color, the year 2020 saw one of the largest and global movements protesting racism. Several institutions, organizations, and professional Associations (e.g., American Medical Association, American Psychological Association, etc.) reckoned with the role of structural racism in persistent disparities throughout several domains of life (e.g., health, education, incarceration, and socioeconomics). Consequently, there has been increased attention to structural racism’s impacts on health and well-being and structural competency in training, research, and practice to address them. This course is designed to help students develop competencies to working within contexts shaped by structural and environmental 2 factors critical to understanding the prevalent, causes and prevention of diseases and social dimensions of health and well-being. Students will explore the role of structural racism through racialized slavery in altering the collective memories of both persons of African and European descents to establish and uphold structures and conditions of inequalities (in education, health, and criminal justice) transnationally, especially Africa and the US. The course will introduce students to the role of racism, through the transatlantic slave trade, slavery, and colonialism, in disrupting the cultural and health practices of indigenous Africans and creating structural and environmental conditions and cultural processes that generate and distribute problems unevenly. The course starts with what pre-colonial Africa was really like, the nature and consequences of Sub-Saharan Africans’ encounters with Europeans, the origins of racial concepts in the world, and their implications for health and well-being. In this course, students will get direct exposure to structures and processes that will help them to experientially visualize the inner workings of structural racism in producing disparities. This will foster their critical ability to creatively imagine potential solutions to structural racism and the associated disparities. Finally, students participating in this course will engage in various lectures with Ghanaian guest speakers, readings, documentaries, films, and class discussions that will help understand racism in relation to collective cultural trauma and memories and their implications for disparities in health (including mental health), education, and mass incarceration.