whooping our children has always been assumed to be part of black culture.

We do it because we love them so we can assure they learn to act right.

But what if whoopings actually teach our children something completely different?

This is two-minute black history. What you didn't learn in school.

Many of us remember our parents giving us something to cry about.

Whoopings help children behave and is part of black culture, right?

But what if what we think we know about whoopings is actually a lie?

Whooping doesn't actually start with us. It was white Europeans who punished their children

with severe beatings and lashings, the more severe the better.

So how did we discipline children in our culture? Before enslavement, our children were never

beaten. According to the American Psychological Association, historians have found no evidence

that physical discipline of children existed in pre-colonial West African societies

prior to the Atlantic slave trade. Children in many West African cultures were considered

to be connected with the afterlife and whooping children was thought to scare off the soul.

So why did we start within our children? For centuries, black children were in danger.

One wrong step and a white person could attack and slave or kill them at will.

Whooping children into obedience was a form of protection. We still carry much of that

generational trauma today. The act of whooping our children is rooted in white supremacy.

It's not part of the way black people historically cared for our children.

Our culture was built on love, not violent. And as we continue to free ourselves from white

supremacy, we might also want to leave whooping behind. In order to move towards the future,

you've got to look to the past. This has been Two Minute Black History,

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