White Supremacy and Anti-Black Racism
Blog Post #1 The History of Oppression of the Black Race
The concept of "race" started to emerge at the end of the 17th century, at the commencement of European colonization, as a folk philosophy of human distinctions identified with various populations — Europeans, Amerindians, and Africans — came together for the first time in the New World. As the interactions with people of darker skin pigmentation increased Europeans began making judgments about them.
The formal reason for enslaving Africans was that they were pagans, but slave merchants and slave owners also viewed the verse in the Book of Genesis as their excuse. Ham, they said, perpetrated a sin against his father Noah, who denounced his presumed black descendants as "servants unto servants." (“• Racial Equity Tools” n.d.)
“When Portuguese navigators acquired slaves of their own as a result of their voyages along the Guinea Coast in the mid- to the late fifteenth century and offered them for sale in the port cities of Christian Iberia, the identification of black skins with servile status was complete. Hence even before the discovery of America, some Iberian Christians were more likely to conceive of blacks as destined by God to be “hewers of wood and carriers of water” than to view them as exemplars of the Christian virtues.” - GEORGE M. FREDRICKSON
The Atlantic slave trade, which took place from the late 15th to the mid-19th century and spanned three continents, forcefully introduced more than 10 million Africans to the Americas. Atlantic slave trade had played a significant role in establishing racism and segregation, structuring racial stratification patterns, institutionalizing white supremacy, and black subordination/dependency frameworks, and internationalizing these phenomena (Edmonson 1976)
In conclusion, it seems that the social construction of race and racism was created simultaneously. I find it interesting that the origins of racism tend to be a concealed story. In fact, during my research, it was rather difficult to find content that used a global comparative lens versus modern racism in the United States.
WORKS CITED
“• Racial Equity Tools.” n.d. Www.Racialequitytools.Org. Accessed July 3, 2020. https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Western%20States%20%20Construction%20of%20Race.pdf.
FREDRICKSON, GEORGE M., and Albert M. Camarillo. "The Rise of Modern Racism(s): White Supremacy and Antisemitism in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." In Racism: A Short History, 49-96. PRINCETON; OXFORD: Princeton University Press, 2002. Accessed July 3, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctvc779fw.7.
EDMONDSON, LOCKSLEY. "TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVERY AND THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF RACE." Caribbean Quarterly22, no. 2/3 (1976): 5-25. Accessed June 17, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/40653150.
Photo Used: “The Races of Man” From Herbert W. Morris. Present Conflict of Science with the Christian Religion; or, Modern Skepticism Met on Its Own Ground. Philadelphia: P. W. Ziegler & Co. 1876.
The concept of "race" started to emerge at the end of the 17th century, at the commencement of European colonization, as a folk philosophy of human distinctions identified with various populations — Europeans, Amerindians, and Africans — came together for the first time in the New World. As the interactions with people of darker skin pigmentation increased Europeans began making judgments about them.
The formal reason for enslaving Africans was that they were pagans, but slave merchants and slave owners also viewed the verse in the Book of Genesis as their excuse. Ham, they said, perpetrated a sin against his father Noah, who denounced his presumed black descendants as "servants unto servants." (“• Racial Equity Tools” n.d.)
“When Portuguese navigators acquired slaves of their own as a result of their voyages along the Guinea Coast in the mid- to the late fifteenth century and offered them for sale in the port cities of Christian Iberia, the identification of black skins with servile status was complete. Hence even before the discovery of America, some Iberian Christians were more likely to conceive of blacks as destined by God to be “hewers of wood and carriers of water” than to view them as exemplars of the Christian virtues.” - GEORGE M. FREDRICKSON
The Atlantic slave trade, which took place from the late 15th to the mid-19th century and spanned three continents, forcefully introduced more than 10 million Africans to the Americas. Atlantic slave trade had played a significant role in establishing racism and segregation, structuring racial stratification patterns, institutionalizing white supremacy, and black subordination/dependency frameworks, and internationalizing these phenomena (Edmonson 1976)
In conclusion, it seems that the social construction of race and racism was created simultaneously. I find it interesting that the origins of racism tend to be a concealed story. In fact, during my research, it was rather difficult to find content that used a global comparative lens versus modern racism in the United States.
WORKS CITED
“• Racial Equity Tools.” n.d. Www.Racialequitytools.Org. Accessed July 3, 2020. https://www.racialequitytools.org/resourcefiles/Western%20States%20%20Construction%20of%20Race.pdf.
FREDRICKSON, GEORGE M., and Albert M. Camarillo. "The Rise of Modern Racism(s): White Supremacy and Antisemitism in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries." In Racism: A Short History, 49-96. PRINCETON; OXFORD: Princeton University Press, 2002. Accessed July 3, 2020. doi:10.2307/j.ctvc779fw.7.
EDMONDSON, LOCKSLEY. "TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVERY AND THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF RACE." Caribbean Quarterly22, no. 2/3 (1976): 5-25. Accessed June 17, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/40653150.
Photo Used: “The Races of Man” From Herbert W. Morris. Present Conflict of Science with the Christian Religion; or, Modern Skepticism Met on Its Own Ground. Philadelphia: P. W. Ziegler & Co. 1876.
