Pre-European Racism

[Marelo]

I've run into people who think Europeans invented racism. As in, flat out nobody else in the world's history was racist until the European brand came about.

Is that valid? I think not, but I can't even find a single source contradicting that view. The absence of any sort of evidence to the contrary leads me to question whether it's true.

So, with an aim of deciding one way or the other, I come here, to Discussion. The topic is, of course, whether Europeans "invented" racism.

The closest I've found to evidence against this view is this, which says, initially, that many cultures preferred lighter skin tones prior to European contact, but then goes on to explicitly state that racism came only from Europe.

[Bells]

total BS.

Europe maybe can be said to be one of the first big exporters of modern slavery, and that's connected to racism quite clearly... but racism is quite vivid on pretty much everything left from the map. MIddle East, Asia, Africa... you can find racism there WAY before Europe jumped in that wagon

[TheSparrow]

Japan has always been, beyond racist, to being rather xenophobic, and is still filled with institutionalized racism to this day. From laws that keep foreigners from doing certain things, to popular manga that is openly racist towards the chinese and koreans.

[Aanaren]

All you really need to do is grab a copy of the nearest King James Bible and flip through the Old Testament. Religious book aside, it's still a history (if not fully accurate) of the early Jewish people. Plenty of examples of slavery and racisim against and by them.

[Eltargrim]

I believe part of the issue is that the aftereffects of European racism are still plainly visible to Western culture, and let's face it, most of us are pretty ignorant of any other. As such, Europeans can be connected to racism against africans, native australians, native americans, native canadians, mexicans, those native to south america, and probably a dozen other ethnic groups I don't care to mention.

Basically, Europe didn't invent racism, but they sure as hell made it popular.

[Martyr]

Are slavery and racism the same things though?

I think not.

Racism is hate, a potential precursor to genocide.
Slavery is a pratical application of putting conquered minions to work (though entirely amoral).

More than anything, racism as I know it (the black issue) is a result of the end of slavery and the dawning of radical freedoms that have not existed much in this world pre-European society (and still not much today in many places, including Europe).

I would say that racial tension in many cases in the past was more about land-grabbing than racism itself, kind of like the state of Greece before the Romans conquered all those Greeks. They weren't racist against each other. They were just at war. I don't think the feelings would be much different except for comedy and morale rallying reasons if different races were involved in conflicts where freedom to discriminate and compare lifestyles on an even level was difficult.
I think the hatred and anger was generic.

Also, though I have not studied Japan, I would put any money on them not being racist but, instead, having something of a superiority complex going on. They live on an island, after all.

Now, in the United States, people get to witness difefrent cultures on a daily basis. We can go and see traditional Chinese, Indian, Russian, Cuban, Muxican, Puerto-Rican, African, Caribbean, Southern, Northern, Scandinavian stuff going on everywhere. Our freedom to live together and witness our differences is what brings on racism. Only when we see the irritating aspects that other cultures cumulatively possess does it trigger in our mind to mindlessly hate any person of that culture. Without such knowledge and experience, racism is impossible.

I don't know when it came to be that many different cultures began living in harmony. Europe is a pretty good guess, since it is a conglomeration of many different cultures and peoples who may traverse many different countries routinely. But I think that that was the time when widescale/worldwide racism, as opposed to temporary and situational hatred, began.

[01d55]

Originally Posted by Runswithnopants

I've run into people who think Europeans invented racism. As in, flat out nobody else in the world's history was racist until the European brand came about.

Is that valid? I think not, but I can't even find a single source contradicting that view. The absence of any sort of evidence to the contrary leads me to question whether it's true.

So, with an aim of deciding one way or the other, I come here, to Discussion. The topic is, of course, whether Europeans "invented" racism.

In academia the humanities have a bad habit of appropriating simple, common words as technical jargon, and one of the words thus appropriated is racism. What you call racism is referred to as ethnocentrism, and racism is defined as an ethnocentric ideology justifying a pre-existing power relationship between ethnicities (i.e. whites uber alles). Left activists have picked up on this definition, but tend toward a simpler formulation: racism (or sexism) = prejudice + power.

So if you're looking for evidence of racism before Europe, looking up ethnocentrism will likely turn up the scholarly work on the subject.

[Fifthfiend]

In academia the humanities have a bad habit of appropriating simple, common words as technical jargon, and one of the words thus appropriated is racism.

This is what was behind that thing a bit back where the University of Delaware (?) decided to tell all its students that only white people are racist. It makes sense once you worked out that they just happened to be making up their own definition of "racist" that nobody had ever fucking heard before.

Personally I don't know why it's so hard to say that yes, black people and Mexicans and whatever other group can be racist too, it just doesn't mean fuck-all because they don't have any of the social or political power it would take to turn their racist preferences into reality. (Protip for everyone who just started typing something about affirmative action - responding to racism by making things less racist is not, in fact, racist.)

[BitVyper]

Part of the reason you won't hear about racism way back when is because we only started feeling guilty about it in the last two hundred or so years. It's also often a bit different from modern racism due to the white supremacy movement having somewhat different influences upon it.

It can also be tough to find due to the people of the times not viewing it as anything noteworthy. Everyone "knew" it, so they didn't really need to write it down. But hell, there are still downright genocidal tribal wars going on in the world.

Japan has always been, beyond racist, to being rather xenophobic

Not always. Prior to the Tokugawa shogunate, I don't think they were much worse than anyone else. Also you had guys like Nobunaga running around who were all about the foreigners. The Tokugawa are the ones who said "fuck everyone, we're closing the nation." Compare how Japan adapted to outsiders in the 1500s to how it did in the 1800s. In the 1800s, it turned their entire value system over to the point where there were mobs of people in the streets more or less going "what the hell!?" And, of course, there was the matter of the Bakumatsu.

Personally I don't know why it's so hard to say that yes, black people and Mexicans and whatever other group can be racist too, it just doesn't mean fuck-all because they don't have any of the social or political power it would take to turn their racist preferences into reality.

That's not necessarily true. It may not be institutionalised, but they can still act on it, and in communities where X race is more common, that can get to be a big issue. I, for instance, am looking at moving even further north to the Territories. In talking to people, I've discovered that some of the communities up there can get really ugly really fast for white people. One guy I spoke with said that pretty much if he had to go anywhere, he ran the risk of being mobbed. Another told me that his ambulance had been destroyed, so there were several weeks where he more or less couldn't respond to emergencies.

[Si Civa]

Originally Posted by Martyr

Also, though I have not studied Japan, I would put any money on them not being racist but, instead, having something of a superiority complex going on. They live on an island, after all.

I would asume that when you are superior then others are inferior and I suppose that thinking other being inferior you are racist.
And when somebody thinks that they are superior to you, you don't agree at all and well, there's tension, racism from the other side too.

But the thing is that when different cultures meet there's two things that appear, or atleast I would suppose so. Trading and fear.
Fear of military power, idealogies and religious beliefs* and so on. You have to protect your nation about these things and what is better thing to do than saying that they are to hate? Or what is better way to make good soliders to invade countries than making them hate their enemies?
And when cultures are so different you judge other cultures. This leads usually to ignore totally good sides of other culture and you feel that they are inferior to your own culture and like I said, if you think that others are inferior, you are pretty much racist to me.
*The religion in East Asia however hasn't generally been that important than it's for Jews, Christians and Muslims.