Racism-how and why did it start?

[Soubriquet]

I’m sure it can’t be written on here simply but I was curious really.

Im watching antebellum and it’s got my curious. Why do some people judge another purely because of their skin colour?

It's just called people. We all tend to judge those that we see as different to ourselves. Throughout humanity it has always been the same - we like to have a tribe - the corollary is that we tend to dislike those that don't seem to fit with our tribe.

See people with negative image of others because of skin colour, because of class, because of hair colour, because they like Taylor Swift, because they don't like Taylor Swift, because they don't empty the washing up bowl until the bubbles have gone. Etc. etc.

Well if you’ve been watching that you’ve probably picked up that that variety of racism comes from slavery?

Absolutely yeah. I just wish I knew what bright person saw a whole race of indigenous and black peoples and went, perfect. They can be our slaves. It’s sickening really

I don’t think the evidence supports that, and I don’t think you can leave politics out of racism.

Humans are tribal, but historically different groups can get along well enough as long as resources aren’t too scarce. Europeans don’t appear to have especially negative attitudes to Africans in the mediaeval period (and there was plenty of trade and interaction), it appeared with Empire building and slavery because it was convenient.

Well Europeans saw Africa with its vast natural resources and thought we’ll have that. And fought over it.

And then slavery (which has always existed it is true but NOT on the industrialised scale of the Atlantic slave trade) was a bonus because of what became the slave triangle. The European ships took European goods to Africa and exchanged them for slaves,, took the slaves and the remaining goods to America and the Caribbean, sold both, and came back to Europe with sugar which was much wanted. The slaves worked the sugar plantations which provided the sugar / cotton.

So it was economics first, racism (as a handy justification) second, and then that gets compounded and embedded in society once black person and slave become synonymous, which carries on to this day because black people in the West were continually excluded from resources and power.

People have been enslaved for millennia. The Ancient Egyptians used slaves to build the pyramids. Slavery was a part of the economic structure of African societies for many centuries, although the extent varied. Slavery took place for myriad reasons - economic slavery, prostitution slavery, military slavery and slavery of criminals to name but a few. Indigenous slavery came well before export slavery. The assumption that slavery, and consequently racism, is all about skin colour is lazy.

@theduchessofspork wrote:

And then slavery (which has always existed it is true but NOT on the industrialised scale of the Atlantic slave trade)

Estimates suggest that between 10 and 20% of the population of the Roman Empire were slaves, 5-10 million people. It was suggested even by Roman authors that it was a good job that slaves in Rome itself didn't realise just how many slaves there were and organise themselves (bearing in mind Roman slaves often had a great deal of personal freedom) as there were more slaves than citizens.

I rather think the suggestion that the nasty horrible racist
British were the first people to come up with the idea of mass enslavement is not exactly correct.

Slavery was seen on a mass scale throughout much of the ancient world. You name the culture and you probably won't be disappointed - Babylonians, Egyptians, Hittites etc.

The origins of slavery at all times in history is that there were a group of people or peoples that another didn't like, didn't think worthy, had beaten in battle etc. and cheap labour was required.