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Has "Racism" always existed? [1]

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Date: 2022-08-23

Let’s start with slavery. Conservatives like to stress the fact that America didn’t invent slavery. While it is true that slavery has existed throughout human history, all over the world. In most cases, people became slaves due to being on the losing side of a war, as punishment, through debt. What made a slave was extrinsic. Even if enslaved for all your life, there was at least the notion that you *could have been* something else... under other circumstances. America didn’t invent slavery, but the kind of slavery practiced in the New World was unique in contrast to other instances of slavery in history.

Let’s start with slavery. Conservatives like to stress the fact that America didn’t invent slavery. While it is true that slavery has existed throughout human history, all over the world. In most cases, people became slaves due to being on the losing side of a war, as punishment, through debt. What made a slave was extrinsic. Even if enslaved for all your life, there was at least the notion that you *could have been* something else... under other circumstances. America didn’t invent slavery, but the kind of slavery practiced in the New World was unique in contrast to other instances of slavery in history.

Let’s start with slavery. Conservatives like to stress the fact that America didn’t invent slavery. While it is true that slavery has existed throughout human history, all over the world. In most cases, people became slaves due to being on the losing side of a war, as punishment, through debt. What made a slave was extrinsic. Even if enslaved for all your life, there was at least the notion that you *could have been* something else... under other circumstances. America didn’t invent slavery, but the kind of slavery practiced in the New World was unique in contrast to other instances of slavery in history.

The pseudoscience of “Racism” teaches that all of humanity can be divided into discrete categories of people and that black people are the category intrinsically suited to slavery. Hence, all children of black people are slaves, even if the father is white. This is the fundamental concept behind chattel slavery. Racism was a new way of implementing ethnic prejudice (ethnic prejudice, like slavery, has always existed in human history) Racism provided a justification for using generation after generation of people as low-cost labor. Racism built fortunes. The New World would have been worthless without billions of man-hours of stolen labor from enslaved people, some of whom were my ancestors.

The pseudoscience of “Racism” teaches that all of humanity can be divided into discrete categories of people and that black people are the category intrinsically suited to slavery. Hence, all children of black people are slaves, even if the father is white. This is the fundamental concept behind chattel slavery. Racism was a new way of implementing ethnic prejudice (ethnic prejudice, like slavery, has always existed in human history) Racism provided a justification for using generation after generation of people as low-cost labor. Racism built fortunes. The New World would have been worthless without billions of man-hours of stolen labor from enslaved people, some of whom were my ancestors.

The pseudoscience of “Racism” teaches that all of humanity can be divided into discrete categories of people and that black people are the category intrinsically suited to slavery. Hence, all children of black people are slaves, even if the father is white. This is the fundamental concept behind chattel slavery. Racism was a new way of implementing ethnic prejudice (ethnic prejudice, like slavery, has always existed in human history) Racism provided a justification for using generation after generation of people as low-cost labor. Racism built fortunes. The New World would have been worthless without billions of man-hours of stolen labor from enslaved people, some of whom were my ancestors.

This is why saying "racism goes both ways" is nonsense. This is why saying that racism has always existed between groups of people in human history is incorrect. While "Ethnic prejudice/bigotry" can go in any direction, the theory of racism was specifically about the inferiority of black people in an ordering of all people that places white people at the top. There was no such thing as "race" as we know it today before the theory of racism. This is not to say that people didn't have prejudice or stereotypes about groups. Racism is particular theory of "science" and religion. Attempts to treat racism as a synonym for "ethnic prejudice" erase this history and make ongoing impacts of racism less visible— and thus harder to fight.

This is why saying "racism goes both ways" is nonsense. This is why saying that racism has always existed between groups of people in human history is incorrect. While "Ethnic prejudice/bigotry" can go in any direction, the theory of racism was specifically about the inferiority of black people in an ordering of all people that places white people at the top. There was no such thing as "race" as we know it today before the theory of racism. This is not to say that people didn't have prejudice or stereotypes about groups. Racism is particular theory of "science" and religion. Attempts to treat racism as a synonym for "ethnic prejudice" erase this history and make ongoing impacts of racism less visible— and thus harder to fight.

This is why saying "racism goes both ways" is nonsense. This is why saying that racism has always existed between groups of people in human history is incorrect. While "Ethnic prejudice/bigotry" can go in any direction, the theory of racism was specifically about the inferiority of black people in an ordering of all people that places white people at the top. There was no such thing as "race" as we know it today before the theory of racism. This is not to say that people didn't have prejudice or stereotypes about groups. Racism is particular theory of "science" and religion. Attempts to treat racism as a synonym for "ethnic prejudice" erase this history and make ongoing impacts of racism less visible— and thus harder to fight.

To make chattel slavery possible required a whole host of new myths and theories. Slavers needed to believe that all black people are unable to govern ourselves, that we only may live productively under constant application of violent punishment to prevent our inherent criminal and disorganized nature from ruining society. This idea persists to this day in theories about black people being inherently criminal, less intelligent, oversexed and lazy.

To make chattel slavery possible required a whole host of new myths and theories. Slavers needed to believe that all black people are unable to govern ourselves, that we only may live productively under constant application of violent punishment to prevent our inherent criminal and disorganized nature from ruining society. This idea persists to this day in theories about black people being inherently criminal, less intelligent, oversexed and lazy.

To make chattel slavery possible required a whole host of new myths and theories. Slavers needed to believe that all black people are unable to govern ourselves, that we only may live productively under constant application of violent punishment to prevent our inherent criminal and disorganized nature from ruining society. This idea persists to this day in theories about black people being inherently criminal, less intelligent, oversexed and lazy.

It's not hard to find statistics that describe differences between the lives of people based on race. From lifespan, to income, education, to contact with the criminal justice system, black people fall behind. If you believe this is due to some intrinsic quality of black people or some intrinsic quality of culture created and propagated by black people calling these differences unjust is absurd. Efforts to address these inequalities are, then, giving black people more than we deserve.

Statements like “everyone is a little racist” can be very comforting to some. It’s fascinating to me how stridently some people will defend these statements. Why not just say “everyone has prejudices” or “everyone has some bigoted views” or “everyone has internalized some ethnic prejudices” or even, (cutting to the heart of the real reason I suspect people say this) “black people have prejudices about white people ” All of these later phrases are true, and convey the same ideas intended by “everyone is a little racist” the only difference? Only by saying “everyone is a little racist” do we also get to generalize the idea of racism. Racism is simply another form of ethnic prejudice. Just as we might say slavery in the US is just another form of slavery and there has always been slavery.

It would be like saying “everyone is a little anti- Semitic” to mean “everyone has some prejudices about religion.” But anti- semitism is a particular kind of religious, ethnic and sometimes racial bigotry. It has a specific history.

The same thing is true of racism!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/8/23/2118311/-Has-Racism-always-existed

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