Eugene DeFriest Betit
COLLECTIVE AMNESIA:
AMERICAN APARTHEID
African Americans’ 400 Years in North America
1619-2019
Dr Eugene DeFriest Betit’s astounding historical book of America’s troubled past with reference to its fractious relationship with black Africa Americans over the past four hundred years is enlightening, informative and quite simply mesmerising. The research behind this book took Dr Betit five years to formulate, but it took him another four years having gathered all the historical facts to bring the book to its full fruition. However, he did write a further three books during those additional years again on a similar vein to Collective Amnesia, so perhaps we might let him off with the length of time it took to complete this masterpiece. For a white man to delve into and expose the issues that Black African Americans endured was at times hard for him to envisage let alone write about, nevertheless he did so, and the result is this remarkable chronicled publication impeccably written taking you on such an attested journey that for me was simply jaw-dropping.
One of America’s “original sins,” has been its convoluted issue around race relationships. For more than four hundred years America has struggled with racism, white supremacy and how to co- exist with the black African American community as well as other minority communities. The black African American contention some would say was born from the slave trade that was first seen in Virginia where Black African people were brought over from Africa and sold to rich white supremacists as cheap labour to work the plantations especially the cotton plantations. America today still faces endemic racism and the tensions between the white and black communities very often spill over onto America’s streets as acts of violence. A far cry some would say from President Thomas Jefferson’s pronouncement in the Declaration of Independence that,” all men are created equal.” Surely awareness and education play a major part in tackling racial inequalities something America’s founding forefathers envisaged. How did America find herself in this difficult place? Well let’s look at Dr Eugene DeFreist Betit’s book. Watch our video chat here:
Collective Amnesia takes you right back to the slave trade through the devastation of the Confederacy, followed by Emancipation and Reconstruction, The Freedmen’s Bureau, Race Laws and Segregation, the two world wars and The Great Migration, The Civil Rights movement up to the present-day tensions seen across America. All viewed from a black African American prospective by a white man: Dr Eugene DeFreist Betit
Here are some of the testimonials he has received:
“An important book for all Americans who want to know the whole of American history. Dr Betit chronicles the entire 400-year story of African slaves and their American descendants from colonial time to today. This book primarily focuses on the trials and tribulations of that long journey; a journey that must be learned by each new generation of both blacks and whites. Here in one book, today’s Americans can come to know that story.”
Dennis J. Quinn
Colonel, US Army (RET) and Former Instructor, National War College.
“Gene Betit’s deeply researched book describes various difficulties blacks experienced trying to achieve a place in white society when, even in modern times, acceptance has been grudging. However, the military has proven the black soldier equal to the white, and many of the civilian occupations are starting to open for them. The full integration of the nation, and thus our potential, can only be achieved when perceived ethnic, cultural, religious, and racial differences are subjugated, and that we realise that we are one people.”
Jim Locke
Lieutenant-Colonel, USA (RET)
“Collective Amnesia is both a testament of one people who refused to remain under trodden and a reminder of how quickly others forget. Gene Betit traces this duality throughout our history and concludes that the amnesia is simultaneously convenient and contrived. However, we forget at our peril, as this blindness continues to damn us as a nation. A must-read for those courageous enough to face facts and emerge from the matrix of ignorance.”
Dr Rodney Coates, PhD. Professor Miami University Global and Intercultural Studies Sociology, Gerontology and Social Justice Coordinator of Black World Studies.
Gene Betit sees himself as an author, historian, and military intelligence analyst, go to his website www.genebetit.com to learn more about the man behind this incredible book that has been so masterfully compiled to give you a glimpse into America’s past from a black African American’s prospective. When you go to his website you will see all the other books he has written.
You can get the book from his website www.genebetit.com, Barnes and Noble www.barnesandnoble.com, Books a Million www.booksamillion.com plus Xlibris 1-888-795-427 www.xlibris.com or [email protected] as well as the link below.
I would like to end this introduction with whom the book has been dedicated to.
Dedicated to African Americans,
Freedmen and slave
Who stood by the union in her time of trial
And to their descendants
Who kept the faith
Despite segregation and hate