African American Elder Abuse Research Paper

African American Elder Abuse

African American elder abuse is limited on its information when it comes to data and research. I found it very interesting and wanted to find out more about African American elder abuse. Who would think a person would want to abuse an elderly person who is already lacking in abilities and have impairments. As a African American man I have found it very common for individuals of my same race, African Americans to exploit their elders when it comes to finances and neglect abuse of the elders. I wanted to see could I find any correlation of a relationship that connects the African American race and elder abuse in some type of way. African American abuse started back when America was segregated and the White Americans

This abuse includes physical, sexual, emotional or psychological, neglect, abandonment, financial or material exploitation, and self-neglect abuse. I will focus on this social condition of abuse that has triggered through social experience leading to the abuse of African American elders. African American elder abuse is the mistreatment towards black individuals of the age 60 and older. The victims are usually older frail and vulnerable seniors. The abusers of the victims are commonly close relatives, spouse, or caretaker. According to the book Elder Mistreatment, Abuse, Neglect, and Exploitation in an Aging America, the writer says, “Neglect and financial abuse is most common types of elder mistreatment in African American communities (Griffin, 1994).” In the black community, many black children and single parents are in poverty depending on their elderly parent’s income to survive. This is a social learning condition passed on down from generation to generation. The plantation owners (whites) have taken advantage of the hardworking slaves by paying them little money for hard labor and punishing them if they didn’t follow the rules given by the owner. The slaves were mistreated. The mistreatment was used to control the slaves and gain power. It has now turned to the black adults taking advantage of their elder parents, battering them and misusing their elder parents finance to capitalize on their own gain for

This abuse comes from external stress. External Stress may be financial problems, job stress, and additional family stressors can increase the risk for abuse. This may cause the elder to want to be socially isolated from family and friends. Social Isolation is when an elder does not want to be around people or bothered which may be due to mistreatment of by another or self neglect. Elder abuse is also caused by an individual 's personal problems with self such as alcoholism, drug addiction, lack of money, and/or an emotional disorder in which causes them to become an abuser unlike an individual who do not suffer from such