HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF EUROPEAN RACISM

(This is the 2nd part to Mythological Origins of European Racism)

In the spirit of satisfying my curiosity, I recently got the book The Destruction of Black Civilisation*. Though I’ve just begun reading, it’s already giving me another angle to approach this topic from: HISTORY.

* The Destruction of Black Civilisation: Great Issues of a Race from 4500 BC to 2000 AD, Chancellor Williams, ISBN 9780883780305. See featured image.

This reminded me of a basic but important fact: where do myths come from? Apart from a need to understand the world, they come from HISTORY!!! The actual experiences of the myth teller, his/ her people or a people they’ve been in contact with! Though they’re often embellished and corrupted over time, there still remains a core kernel of truth (Prothro & Melikian’s term, 1955).

So in terms of European racism, what’s their history? According to Williams, a long and extensive one stretching all the way back to the creation of Kemetic dynasties. In fact, he basically says the dynasties were created as bastions of Kemetic nationalism to fend off the invading ‘white’ Asians! Throughout the course of the dynasties, as the ‘blacks’ got more internally fractured and divided, the ‘whites’ were more able to take over and drive them further and further south. Hence the existence of ‘white’ & ‘grey’ pharaohs.

But no gods. Sorry Gerard Butler.

However, the native ‘black’ Kemetians always kept trying to take back their old homelands. Largely to no avail, hence why Egyptians look so ‘white’ and ‘grey’  now – especially the north.

From other background reading, it becomes clear that ‘whites’ were for a LONG time enslaved to ‘black’ Arabs and absorbed into their populations & centres of power. A similar thing happened across all of north Africa. This happened both before & after the creation of Islam. That’s why many Arabs today look like this

instead of this.

In a (very small) nutshell, the roots of modern racism were a defence mechanism for ‘whites’ to ensure their survival and ensure ‘blacks’ never have supremacy over them again. It also gives them psychological comfort against the likely inferiority complex they have resulting from many aspects of ‘blacks’: their civilisations, their knowledge, even their penis size. Hence this weird fixation ‘white’ men especially have with ‘black’ men’s dicks – and yes it is weird!!! Whether ours are bigger or not, they shouldn’t care! We don’t (mostly)!

This didn’t translate into a wholesale anti-‘black’ agenda, though, until the middle of the Maafa in the late 1600s. But there were stirrings of it earlier: the expulsion of Moriscos from Spain in 1609 & expulsion of Moors from England in 1596, for example.

Ironically, most ‘whites’ have inherited hundreds or thousands of years of hatred & vengeance BUT don’t seem to remember how/ why it started! 😂 Honestly I see a strong parallel with Afro-diasporans, especially those in the Americas. The main differences obviously are that we remember where ours came from and we’re still living through the effects of their vengeance. On top of that, they’ve developed a feel-good history of themselves and us, which is defended against all criticism,

All questioning,

All evidence,

All harm to themselves.

Hence their forgetting their enslavement in Africa, Arabia and even the whole of America’s colonial era*. Hence their infantile need to be everywhere in the past – pre-Columbian Americas, ancient Judea, all of ancient Greece & Rome, pre-dynastic Egypt, the entirety of Africa, Vedic & pre-Vedic India, pre-colonial Australia & Oceania, some even claim the very beginning of humanity itself!

* Yes this does make many of them blind to the oppression they heap on each other. 

This lie will be held to like it owes them something.

TAWNY!!! Tell me you were not just plagiarizing Nanna’s line!

Or rather they owe it: their place in the world, their self-esteem, arguably even their lives.

But… but… you just said it harms them too… That is FUBAR!