Racism

Signs in the United States in 1957 saying "Race Mixing is Communism"

Racism is both a social construct and a form of bigotry based on race that during mercantile capitalism was development as a justification for slave labor of those being colonized. As such, it is deeply intertwined with capitalism, its institutions, and its ideologies such as Liberalism ,Conservatism and fascism. Racism is not limited to an individual attitude or perception but rather understood in its relation to labor, its culture (white supremacy), and it systematic character (media, education, global trade, etc.).

Racialization

A common misconception is the notion that racism always existed by referring to tribalism which ignores the key component of race as a concept. In order to have a race, on must be racialized by other party typically for the purpose of justifying the oppressive and exploitation down to the party being racialized.

A look at history demonstrates peoples having tensions, conflicts, and exploiting fellow people but not racializing being used to do so. For example, the " barbarians" Greeks referred to where had various backgrounds, cultures, and color. These peoples sought labor and or was apart of the slave labor force. As Kostas Vlassopoulos noted " In the ancient world, the processes of violent slave-making could potentially turn anybody into a slave, irrespective of ethnicity, wealth, status and gender". "We begin to see racialization appear in Europe with groups such as the Irish and Roma. As mercantile capitalism began to emerge, this racialization develop into racism to justify colonialism, slavery, genocide, and the oppression of indigenous people using educational and religious institutions.

Slavery and under development and colonialism

Pre-colonial slavery in Africa and the Arab slave trade had a different and impact on the populations made slaves that that of European chattel slavery. People where reduced to slaves in times of war, as punishment for crimes, and to pay of debts thereby being primarily a form of servitude where on was still considered a human despite the different legal status and limitations. It was the European introduction of race that created the chattel slavery to which persons where completely strip of their humanity to a be property extending to children with race being the justification for doing so rather than a repayment or punishment.

Walter Rodney explains that, "The slave trade on the Indian Ocean has been called the " East African Slave Trade" and the "Arab Slave Trade" for so long that it hides the extent to which it was also  a European Slave Trade."

See also

• Race
• Nazism
• Genocide
• Apartheid