For centuries people assumed that humans could be divided into groups based on physical traits like skin color, hair texture, and facial structure.
Promoters of white supremacy co-opted the authority of science to justify racial inequality. From the 1600s to the end of the 19th century, scientific racism, sometimes termed “biological racism,”; is the pseudoscientific belief that empirical evidence exists to support racial discrimination, racial inferiority, or racial superiority.
White supremacists used it to propose anthropological typologies supporting the classification of human populations into physically discrete human races, some of which are asserted to be superior or inferior to others.
Many scientists originated these claims, giving them a veneer of credibility, but even a cursory glance of this history reveals flawed data and analysis driven by bigoted and racist biases.
The scientific consensus during the second half of the 20th century no longer gives credence to scientific racism, and this is because there’s more genetic diversity within populations than between different “races.”
Rather than provide an itemized list of what racial injustice can look like, let’s describe historical examples of racial injustice:
Colonialism in Africa and Slavery in America.
Slavery in America.
Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, millions of African people were kidnapped from Africa, forced into slavery in the American colonies, and exploited to work as indentured servants and labor in the production of crops.
They deprived the African continent of its people, culture, resources, and humanity. Only to be brought to the so-called “New World” to face barbarity, which to date hasn’t been indicated in history and, for the most part, erased.
White hunter men fed black babies to alligators as bait, mothers were forced to breed with their sons hence where the term “motherfucker” originated, and slave owners did this to produce a “stronger breed” of slaves.
Black hair was used as a cushion for furniture seats. These are a few in a long list of vile, inhumane atrocities Africans had to go through during slavery. African Americans are still facing a plethora of injustices intertwined with modern-day slavery. E.g., Police brutality, The war on drugs, e.t.c.
Colonialism in Africa.
During a period lasting from 1881 to 1914 in what was known as the Scramble for Africa, several European nations took control over areas of the African continent.
European colonizers could attain control over much of Africa through diplomatic pressure, aggressive enticement, and military invasions. The main reason for colonization was for the Europeans to acquire raw materials for their industries in Europe, although they claimed they were on a mission to civilize the Africans.
African colonization disrupted the way of living of local communities and developed local societies. It introduced capitalism in Africa, which had never existed before.
After independence in the 1960s, the same leaders imposed on the locals, who were always viewed as collaborators with the Whiteman, took over leadership and acquired a lot of wealth for themselves.
Colonialism harmed the economies and social systems of the African states; most of them are still felt today, and the effects reverberated into the future for many years to come; degradation of natural resources, capitalism, corruption, and change of the social systems of living. e.t.c…
Society remains structured around outdated and inaccurate beliefs about race. Many still believe it’s an inherent trait dividing humans into distinct groups.
Institutions like the government, healthcare systems, media, schools, the criminal justice system, and others treat race as accurate. This societal embrace of race leads to adverse and unequal outcomes, or in other words, racial injustice.
Many Africans avert from this discussion and think of racism as a non-issue or an issue only Africans in the diaspora face. But as long as we live in a world that has institutionalized racism for centuries, a narrative of change through a revolution must occur.
“I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; If I could not have one, I would have the other.” Harriet Tubman.
