
Rochelle Wilner President	Frank Dimant Chief Executive Officer	Prof. Stephen Scheinberg National Chair

Blacks & Jews in Dialogue

The Roots of Anti-Black Racism

June 21, 2001

By Norman L. Epstein

While many believe that prejudice stems from ignorance, educated people have been some of the most notable racists and perpetrators of racial myths. Wagner’s vitriolic antisemitism and Darwin’s pernicious paradigms of superior and inferior races illustrate this. Even in our midst, Dr. Phillipe Rushton a professor at the University of Western Ontario, perpetuates racial myths of skull sizes under the guise of academic freedom. Perhaps Rushton could explain how Cro-Magnon Man of the Neanderthal Era had by far the largest skull size, yet a very primitive intelligence.

Modern geneticists have now debunked theories of racial differences by showing significant genetic similarities between members of different races. At the same time, there may be large genetic discrepancies among members of the same group.

At the May 25 Blacks and Jews in Dialogue meeting, Pat Case, Director, Human Rights & Equity at the University of Guelph, gave a dynamic presentation on the roots of anti-Black racism as a follow-up to the evolution of antisemitism. Antisemitism began as religious persecution and became racialized in the 1400s. Anti-Black racism started as slavery to enhance economic productivity, particularly in the New World, and subsequently its racial theories evolved.

The word slave derived from ‘Slavic’‹the choice slaves of 900 C.E. During the 1400s, the British were the first to acquire slaves from Africa as household servants. However, the Portuguese were the first to embark upon the slave trade around 1563. A prime area for slaves was on the West Coast of Africa in the vicinity of modern-day Ghana. African tribal wars produced captives who became bartering resources in the European slave market. Francisco Pizarro, the famous Spanish Conquistador landed in the West Indies and noticed the rich staples of sugar, spices, coffee and tobacco. After conquering the Incas, he concluded there was insufficient aboriginal manpower to meet economic demands.

Thus, the first African slaves were transplanted to the New World. Furthermore, the competition for the production of these goods was so great that Portugal, France, England and the Dutch kidnapped countless Africans to work the colonial system to make these valuable commodities. The first African slaves in North America were in Jamestown, Virginia. By 1640, Maryland became the first Colony to institutionalize slavery, forcing Blacks to wear ID badges. In 1664, the Barbado Code rationalized the “un-Christian” treatment of Black Slaves by suggesting that due to their “heathen descent” they were unsalvageable. Moreover, they were not allowed to learn to read or write which ensured their servitude. Any slave found trying to escape or breaking the ‘code’ could be flogged, or worse, executed.

In 1677, William Petty, a noted doctor and writer, began equating Black people as ‘savages’ and ‘monkeys’. Common notions of ‘indolent’ and ‘negligent’ were invented and pervaded the lexicon of racist thought. Edward Long suggested Blacks were a different species altogether. All kinds of preposterous theories were conceived to justify the subhuman treatment of Black Slaves.

The emancipation of Black Slaves during the American Civil War right up to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was a grief-stricken, hard fought battle.

It may have won freedom in the eyes of the law but not the freedom from the hardened racial hatred that still exists.

To contact the Blacks & Jews in Dialogue, League for Human Rights,
consult the B'nai Brith Staff Directory or
email us at bjd@bnaibrith.ca