You almost try to make the whipper feel wrong. The debate on spanking escalated in the late 1970s as a number of states outlawed corporal punishment in public schools. Some states still allow, and even encourage, corporal punishment in schools, including Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Alabama and Kentucky. A number of private and parochial schools also continue to spank. Conversely, the American Psychological Association, which has opposed corporal punishment in schools since 1974, recently decided not to condemn spanking in every circumstance.
Some academics believe that the history of spanking among blacks can be directly tied to slavery.
The maintenance of order by physical coercion is rare in Africa. I grew up at a time when people wore clothespins on their noses to make them smaller. We would go to the movies to see Hopalong Cassidy and come back and compress our lips to make them smaller. Blacks and others who endorse spankings might be suppressing or rationalizing their pain, some psychologists suggest.