Why is it important in June? | Today’s Psychology

Did you know that thousands of African Americans remained slaves for years after Abraham Lincoln’s celebrities? Emancipation declaration, Was it given on January 1, 1863? Some states under Confederate control did not experience slave freedom for some time. The final holdout state was Texas, the westernmost tip of the Confederate state. According to This work from Smithsonian:

Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when around 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The Army has announced that more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state are free by enforcement order. This day has become known as June By newly freed people in Texas.

If you read this work in 2025 June 1865, 160 years later, you know that June was almost over. Racism In the US.

Dehumanization and group loop vs. out group bias

As someone who identifies as both evolutionary behavioral scientists and humanists, I am particularly interested in cases where people tend to group “other people” (in their own minds) and treat people systematically and explicitly based on the identification of such groups. The sad fact is that there is a strong tendency to define people as “in their own group” or “in other groups” both in time and space.

In psychology, this trend is called a “group/outgroup” bias and appears to underlie much of the ethnocentrism and racism seen in today’s world. Based on decades of research on group/out group bias (see Billig & Tajfel, 1973), we know ugly facts about evolved psychology. The intergroup conflict that continued from this dark part of our evolved psychology was nothing short of deeper than the broader human experience.

The outcome of group/out group bias is the tendency to dehumanize members of groups that people see as having “out group” status (see Smith, 2008). This trend, especially common during wartime, has dangerous consequences for people who treat others, as if they are more important than their own lives or more important than the lives of those who perceive them as being within their group.

What is widely considered now is a horrifying element of the original US Constitution, so there is a three-fifths of a compromise. The courage of this policy was that each adult enslaved in early US history counts three-fifths of people in a policy-related process. It is difficult to come up with a clearer example of dehumanization.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I’d like to have a three-fifth compromise policy (as Darwin himself did – take a look at Desmond and Moore’s 2014 book on this topic, Darwin’s sacred cause). Perhaps the person most cited as helping to understand the interconnectedness of life as a whole has found US policy on slavery as simply abominable. And, as history says, he was right.

Recognizing Junet’s importance on One Fell Swoop reminds us of the history of racism in the United States. It’s something you will never forget.

Education and systematic racism

The problem that the problem of systemic racism is a deeply unfortunate outcome related to the tendency to dehumanize “others” is that many of the psychological processes underlying systemic racism lie deep within our evolutionary history. It can easily bring group/out group bias. However, eradicating this bias is much more difficult.

I’m fortunate to work at a state university that takes pride in diversity (New Paltz, State University of New York). We have students, faculty and administrators representing a wide range of backgrounds. We have an entire academic department dedicated to teaching the next generation of leaders about history, including the historically important black research department. Politicsculture, sociology, and psychology related to a particular cultural background. We refuse to wipe out historical atrocities under the rug. There are all sorts of student organizations on the curriculum, programming, and campus, celebrating human diversity and human universality in the same width. The curriculum has a variety of requirements for all students. This requirement is partly useful for the ability to ensure that all graduates of our institution have at least some education Regarding the history of various social groups, including many things that interfere with the history of intergroup conflict.

If we want a world where people can be given the same playing field regardless of the group, that is, if we need a truly fair and multifaceted education on topics of conflict and racism between groups.

Conclusion

June is a very important date and marks the majority of human experience in the United States. Thirty months after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, it was when he was full that slaves were finally fully freed across the nation. Think about that.

Early American history saw it appropriate to consider African American slaves as fewer than humans. This point even made it into the US Constitution.

It is no wonder that the history of black experiences in the United States is considered to be extremely important in modern education. Acknowledging and understanding the importance of June is part of that educational process.

As someone who grew up ethnic Jews, I regularly heard the phrase “never again” about the Holocaust (unfortunately, it was one of many efforts across history to persecute Jews for group membership). As a humanist, I believe this mantra extends beyond the Jewish experience. The African American experience in the US is clearly another case where the idea of ​​”never again” needs to be at the forefront of our minds. Understanding and accepting in June does exactly that.

So, the next time someone asks if you know what June is, hopefully this will give you the answer.

After all, we are all human and we all have tickets on the same ride.

It’s for June and our shared human future.