Which Came First,

[thedebutante]

Slavery or Racism?

[!EEK]

easy, racism, we can't treat slaves as our equals. Thats why we firstly want to differentiate ourselves from the barbaric mass.

[thedebutante]

I don't think that the answer is that simple.

[Anonymouse]

"Racism" is a modern invention by the same left egalitarians who supposedly want to deny the existence of races. Slavery is as old as an institution than racism, and was practicied way before "European white people". The world of antiquity was steeped in slavery of different races enslaving others.

Only in the modern mind of the "modern leftist" do people associate slavery with racism. The same people who decry of racism and how "races don't exist", somehow admit to race when they accuse people of being "racist" or that slavery equals "racism". The logic befuddles me but I've heard so much of this bromide from middle school, to high school and even now to the fine bastions of academia such as UCLA that it's worth addressing.

[thedebutante]

Slavery definitely came before racism. Now valid arguments exist on both sides, and I guess the definitions of these terms may also be up for debate.

[!EEK]

Only in the modern mind of the "modern leftist" do people associate slavery with racism. The same people who decry of racism and how "races don't exist", somehow admit to race when they accuse people of being "racist" or that slavery equals "racism". The logic befuddles me but I've heard so much of this bromide from middle school, to high school and even now to the fine bastions of academia such as UCLA that it's worth addressing.

Thats not a real issue. Since racisme describes a superior attitude towards another "race"....we know different human races can't exist..so we speak of ethnicity.....


Deb...Why is slavery comming before racisme?

[Siggie]

I think that in order to treat people as propery you have to dehumanize or objectify them in your mind. You can't think of them as similar to you and carry out those types of behaviors, like the nazi's with the jews. So, I think they needed to be identified as different or inferior "animals". So, while the term racism did not exist then, they were essentially identified as being different based on color, race,etc Racism is just a new label.

I think this is what Eek was trying to say as well.

[thedebutante]

Thats not a real issue. Since racisme describes a superior attitude towards another "race"....we know different human races can't exist..so we speak of ethnicity.....


Deb...Why is slavery comming before racisme?

Here's a short response I wrote to some of the readings on this topic:

Although both sides of the “origins debate” may have valid arguments as to whether slavery or racism came first, most of the readings argued that slavery preceded racism. According to Eric Williams, economics, not racism, led to slavery. He states that “Slavery was not born of racism: rather racism was the consequence of slavery.” He explains that Indians, blacks, and poor whites were all bound to service at some point and that even white immigrants had to face the horrors of the Middle Passage. The Africans fell into this already established system not because of the color of their skin but because of “the cheapness of the labor.” Oscar and Mary Handlin both support this notion of the precedence of slavery by stating, “Slavery was not there from the start, that it was not simply imitated from elsewhere, and that it was not a response to any unique qualities in the Negro himself.” This article brings examples of how even white households sold family members into “involuntary servitude” and how some people volunteered to be indentured servants. In fact, people preferred white servants. However, they could not always get them so they had to settle for imported slaves. Winthrop D. Jordan also contributes by stating, “Once the Negro became fully the slave it is not hard to see why white men looked down upon him.” According to Edmund S. Morgan, “The rise of liberty and equality in this country was accompanied by the rise of slavery” in what he calls the American paradox. In this article, Jefferson tries to help occupy the idle man so that he would not become a slave “to anyone who would feed” him. This suggests that the title of slave is not bound to one specific racial group. In another article, Kathleen M. Brown says that racial attitudes remain a “product of struggles for power rather than a reaction to skin color.” None of these authors denies the concept of race itself.

In another article, Carl Deger mentions Tocqueville’s view that slavery was “the source of the American prejudice against the Negro.” However, Deger says that in other parts of the world, once a slave was free, there was no racism to follow as it did in America. He mentions that according to Roman law, anyone could be a victim of slavery. However, Deger emphasizes that there was something different about slavery in America. The problem lies in the fact that the Negro was first introduced as a servant. There was no law calling him a slave and this left his status up to be determined. Deger does not make any definitive conclusions as to why it was prejudice that led to slavery. He merely states, “It would seem…that instead of slavery being the root of the discrimination visited upon the Negro in America, slavery was itself molded by the early colonists’ discrimination against the outlander.” Deger argues that the Negro was first degraded, and then enslaved. I agree more with the argument that slavery came before racism. Slavery is a centuries old institution that has been around for centuries and has victimized many races.

--LK

It might help to look at slavery beyond what we learn about slavery in the US.

[Hayq]

racism means you are prejudice against a different race, however, you can make slaves of your own. So, basically, a slave is in a different class, not race. There was slavery in Africa before White people, there was Slavery in Rome and a lot of of other civilizations. Slavery came first.

[loseyourname]

Isolated groups of hunter-gatherers were enslaving each other well before they even realized that other races existed. They probably didn't enslave members of their own tribe, but even so. I don't think there's any real question here.