Black people are NOT the Shadow of white people. But they are trapped INSIDE many white people’s Shadow projections. It’s a terrible position to be in.

 

We all have Shadows, both personally and collectively. It’s where our psyches store the things we don’t like about ourselves, the things we don’t want other people to know about us. Yet these denied qualities are still part of us, and demand to be seen. So we tend to project the things we don’t like about ourselves out onto other people. Then we can hate those OTHER PEOPLE, without feeling a need to change anything personally.

 

Denial, projection and blame are the tools the ego uses to protect itself from whatever lies in its own Shadow.

 

Denial, projection, and blame are the ego’s basic defense against reality.

 

Think of a projector. You’d be that little machine whirring in the back, and the other person would be the big screen down in front. You’re creating the image, the image is actually being produced inside your head, but the other person is the only place where you can see the image. Projection.

 

We’re talking about the pot calling the kettle black, people living in glass houses who throw stones, hypocrisy in action. When we can’t face our own stuff, we see our own stuff on someone else’s face.

 

Black people are NOT the Shadow of white people. But they are trapped INSIDE many white people’s Shadow projections. It’s a terrible position to be in. 

 

Because when enough people deny the same things in themselves and then project those qualities out onto other groups of people, great evil occurs. Witch hunts, Inquisitions, slavery, genocide, Holocausts, exterminations of native populations, systemic racism… that recent mass shooting at a grocery store…

 

As history shows us again and again, the Collective Shadow can do colossal amounts of damage.

 

“The projection of Shadow material causes most of the misery, injustice and warfare in the world.”–Robert Bly