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With proliferation of racism this and that posts in this subforum, I was driving to work yesterday, and it stroke me, that racism was not truly always around. Not in the way it is perceived today. Of course, there were prejudices against other peoples, tales and stories, but apparently no one even cared to think of "races" and turn it into "racism".
Clearly, Ancient worlds was free of such concept completely. People simply were what they were, and different "colors" advanced to the highest ranks based on their qualities. Somehow, it was all good until 16th or so century, then went into shambles.
I looked around, and of course, opinions vary from "it was forever" to almost very precise dating when it started.
I am pragmatic, so I'll stay with this opinion:
Slavery However, historical references indicate that class society before capitalism was able, on the whole, to do without this particular form of oppression. Bad as the society of classical Greece and Rome were it is historically reasonably well documented that the ancient Greeks and Romans knew nothing about race. Slaves were both black and white and in fact the majority of slaves were white.The first clear evidence of racism occurred at the end of the 16th century with the start of the slave trade from Africa to Britain and to America. CLR James in his Modern Politics[1] writes that “the conception of dividing people by race begins with its slave trade. Thus this [the slave trade] was so shocking, so opposed to all the conceptions of society which religious and philosophers had . . .the only justifications by which humanity could face it was to divide people into races and decide that Africans were an inferior race" So racism was formed by the rich and powerful as an attempt to justify the most appalling and inhuman treatment of black people in the time of the greatest accumulation of material wealth the world had seen until then. By the end of the 17th century, racism had become an established, systematic and conscious justification for the most degrading forms of slavery. Empire The justification of slavery by an ideology of racism started to fade under attack by slave-trade abolitionists, and with the decline of the trade itself. Racism, however took on a new form as a justification for the ideology of Imperialism. This racism of Empire was dominant for over a century from the 1840's on. Concepts such as the ‘white man's burden’ became fashionable especially in England where British Colonialists liked to cast themselves as father and mother with a clear duty to take responsibility for the material and spiritual well-being of their 'colonial' children. Racism became the ideological justification of capitalism's expansion into conquering countries, plundering their wealth and exploiting the natives. -800BC-today: A very brief history of racism
Last edited by Oldhag1; 05-18-2014 at 07:18 PM..
Reason: Removed red font - please don't use again
There is no way to prove it ~ probably ever ~ but racism likely originated back to when Homo Sapiens AND Neanderthals occupied the earth at the same time. Because in spite of some similarities, they were still separate species. Thus,'turf wars'.
Slaves of different races and classes have been occupied by all sides of the globe at sometime or other, with some of the earliest accounts going back thousands of years in the Middle East. Racism includes more than just skin color (Hitler is a good example of that).
There is no way to prove it ~ probably ever ~ but racism likely originated back to when Homo Sapiens AND Neanderthals occupied the earth at the same time. Because in spite of some similarities, they were still separate species. Thus,'turf wars'.
Slaves of different races and classes have been occupied by all sides of the globe at sometime or other, with some of the earliest accounts going back thousands of years in the Middle East. Racism includes more than just skin color (Hitler is a good example of that).
Racism stems from mankind's tribal heritage (feuding tribes), and every country in the world is racist -- name one that is not. This has always been true. Racism is about as natural as eating, it's a bird of a feather thing.
Bigotry goes beyond mere racism and comes in many forms, think: short people, fat people, redheads et al.
Moreover, many people would not recognize that when they talk negatively about the top 1% of people in terms of their income or wealth, they are expressing bigotry (wealth bigots, income bigots). Even worse, one group of people we all know who consistently do this are politicians. Can you imagine that?
We're kidding ourselves if we think that mankind is eventually going to look at everyone else in the same way that we look at ourselves and our loved ones. It's not natural. My money is on Mother nature.
There is no way to prove it ~ probably ever ~ but racism likely originated back to when Homo Sapiens AND Neanderthals occupied the earth at the same time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wudge
Racism stems from mankind's tribal heritage (feuding tribes), and every country in the world is racist -- name one that is not. This has always been true. Racism is about as natural as eating, it's a bird of a feather thing.
It is generally a good idea to begin a discussion by actually reading the supporting material rather than simple assumptions, supposition.
Here are the simple facts as we know them.
We can find nothing in the ancient records of the Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians that separates one group of humans based upon their physical appearance but we can point to the rise of psuedo science of racial classification in the 17th, and 18th century an era that coincides with the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the growth of European imperialism.
All these -isms, whether racism, sexism, genderism, privilegedism, are draftees in the cause to overthrow individual freedom and the economic system that derives from it. After communism fell in 1993, the former communists moved into the environmental movement and now environmentalism has been shanghaied as well.
Convoluted ideological constructs and pseudo scientific disciplines and languages have been fabricated to further this effort. All of it has only one purpose: to overthrow individual freedom and replace it with, well it's not clear what is wanted to replace it with. Subservience to arbitrary authority, Animal Farm equality, and intellectual conformity are the leading candidates.
There were few slaves in the Continental United States, they couldn't take the climate or diseases here. Its why the slave trade was in the Caribbean.
Flash Forward to about 1660. Jamestown emerges and Tobacco plantations begin to crop up all over Virginia and what later would become the Carolinas.
Dutch slave traders began having more and more ship problems, and the only thing they had to trade was slaves. Slaves were not cheap, expensive to keep alive, feed, etc. When Tobacco became a cash crop, and started earning more money, more slaves started coming in.
The slave owners realized something. The slaves, and the common poor share croppers had more in common to one another, then either did to the plantation owners.
So they started racism as a means to control the local white population to side with them, as based on their race.
Slavery was on its way to oblivion, and then someone invented the Cotton Gin. Blew up even bigger then it ever was before.
We can find nothing in the ancient records of the Greeks, Romans, or Egyptians that separates one group of humans based upon their physical appearance but we can point to the rise of psuedo science of racial classification in the 17th, and 18th century an era that coincides with the development of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the growth of European imperialism.
I'll hold with my post on mankind's tribal heritage.
Moreover, It's well known that Jewish history maintains they had once been enslaved by the Egyptians -- the basis of the famous Jewish "Exodus" from Egypt that is alleged to have taken place way back in B.C. history.
We also know from reliable records that Sparta and Athens were Greek city-states whose history is replete with battles (tribal level battles).
I have no idea why you wish to rely on a pseudo (sham) science as support for your position. In my mind that seems to be a self-defeating approach.
I'll hold with my post on mankind's tribal heritage.
Moreover, It's well known that Jewish history maintains they had once been enslaved by the Egyptians -- the basis of the famous Jewish "Exodus" from Egypt that is alleged to have taken place way back in B.C. history.
We also know from reliable records that Sparta and Athens were Greek city-states whose history is replete with battles (tribal level battles).
I have no idea why you wish to rely on a pseudo (sham) science as support for your position. In my mind that comes across as a self-defeating approach.
Of which the Egyptians, far better at record keeping at the time, show no record of the Jewish people being enslaved in Egypt. Like many stories of the ancient world, passed down by mouth, the story grows a little larger down the line.
Hence, columns of fire, parting or the red (reed actually) sea, and many other events of Exodus were overblown, stretched to a story beyond belief, and its a fairy tale.
No, the Jewish were not enslaved in Egypt. Slavery has been around since the beginning of recorded history. It has nothing to do with racism or where it started in our country.
All these -isms, whether racism, sexism, genderism, privilegedism, are draftees in the cause to overthrow individual freedom and the economic system that derives from it. After communism fell in 1993, the former communists moved into the environmental movement and now environmentalism has been shanghaied as well.
Convoluted ideological constructs and pseudo scientific disciplines and languages have been fabricated to further this effort. All of it has only one purpose: to overthrow individual freedom and replace it with, well it's not clear what is wanted to replace it with. Subservience to arbitrary authority, Animal Farm equality, and intellectual conformity are the leading candidates.
Egalitarianism gone mad; few posts here have defined the problem so well, and inso few words.
I'll hold with my post on mankind's tribal heritage.
Tribalism is far different that racism.
Quote:
Moreover, It's well known that Jewish history maintains they had once been enslaved by the Egyptians -- the basis of the famous Jewish "Exodus" from Egypt that is alleged to have taken place way back in B.C. history.
But here again, Jews were not enslaved (if in fact they ever were by the Egyptians) it wasn't the result of any racial classification.
Quote:
We also know from reliable records that Sparta and Athens were Greek city-states whose history is replete with battles (tribal level battles).
Once again, you conflate tribal, national conflicts as being based upon race, which there were not as your very examples exemplifies. What was the racial distinction between Spartans and Athenians, there was none whatsoever.
Quote:
I have no idea why you wish to rely on a pseudo (sham) science as support for your position. In my mind that seems to be a self-defeating approach.
Well if history is pseudo science as opposed to unsupported conjecture and supposition, then I plead guilty.
The word racism itself can only trace its origins to the early 20th century to describe a particular form of ideology. By conflating racism with tribalism, xenophobia, nationalism, ethnocentrism, chauvinism none of which are synonyms you deride the word racism of any relevant, not something unusual in some circles. But words have specific meanings and racism isn't about not liking one's neighbor just because they are different, but rather a social-economic principle that emerged in the late 18th and 19th century.
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