The Case for Historical Racism

I don’t think I can recommend enough the incredible series Racism: A History that recently screened on SKY’s History channel. It’s a very sobering experience, forcing one to confront the very real and present legacy not only of the colonial past, but of the scientific and religious “justification” for the ranking of people by characteristics such as skin colour, “mixed blood” percentages and religious beliefs.

The 3 episode series tried hardest to push a message that racism, and genocide and intolerance based along racist lines, is not just limited to 1960s USA, not just about Jews in Europe, but encompasses the enslaved black colonies in Africa, and that the evidence of atrocities exists not just in black and white images of Martin Luthor King Jr or Malcolm X or in the camps at Auschwitz, but also in the museums of Belgium, in the relocation camps in small islands off the coast of Tasmania and in popular postcards of the southern states of America.

And it is important to be aware of those atrocities that have been played down, to not forget those instances that show the worst of human nature (and yes, I do consider these bad – racism is not my bag; and, while I am at it, let me admit to supporting Darwin’s evolution too). It’s important that we all know that genocide is not something limited to Nazi Germans; that science and religious texts can be used to justify almost anything should people have the desire; and that sometimes the best of intentions can have the most disastrous results.

One story in particular shocked me to the core: the description of a man found guilty of a crime, taken out of the courtyard where he was hung by a chain over a fire, had his fingers chopped off if he tried to climb up the chain, and then had his limbs and genitals chopped off as he was slowly lowered and raised into the flames until he died. Perhaps this is not that surprising to know this was an episode from the southern American states in the 1960s, but that explanation is not a justification. And the images, both of this incident and the handless African rubber workers who hadn’t met their rubber quota in the Belgian Congo… wow. Harrowing.

One of the more interesting (and depressing) observations of the removal of slavery (which was not necessarily linked to racism; it’s just that racism justified slavery of “lower” species of not-quite-humans in a love-thy-neighbour Christian era) in the last few hundred years is that slavery offered the slave a type of protection: the slave had a monetary value, and was thus valuable, and was thus worth protection by their owner. Once slavery was abolished, the new freemen (and freewomen) had to pay rent, and taxes and food; they had to find work; and they had to do all this starting from nothing, with no money, education or prospects in a world where the former masters resented them. The abolitionists really never covered that side of things; once slavery was gone, their job was done. But the legacy of that lives on.

It lives on in the difference in wealth between the former colonisers, the former colonised, and the slaves; it lives on in the removal of the more unpleasant incidents from the histories of Europe, the Americas and Australasia (apart from where there are vocal people who will not let it be forgotten); and it lives on in the more dehumanising aspects of globalisation, where the rich in the “West” benefit from the work and resources of those in appalling squalor in the developing world, and to their detriment.

It’s very interesting to see the underlying racism bubble to the surface now on reports from FOX News. Not that the network itself necessarily espouses (or admits) to the views of its watchers, but the vox populi segments show people who are anti-socialist, anti-Muslim, and possibly anti-black. They have steered away from anti-Semitic comments – that is perhaps one step too far. But it’s the hatred without reason, the woman who claims Obama is a Nazi to his gay Jew emissary, the appealing to fear and cliché rather than addressing real concerns with thoughtful argument that really get me worried.

“Racism” is a construct we use to differentiate “us” from “them”. It can be based along physical differences, even if genetically, those differences are virtually meaningless. It can be based on religious affiliation, even if such affiliation can cross ethnic lines. Who is to say then that the “Democrats” and “Republicans” in the USA are not racist divisions, with one side thinking itself superior to the other, denigrating the other, discriminating against the other, committing acts of hatred against the other?

Sure, political affiliation is (in theory) a lot less easy to change than religious or ethnic preferences (Cat Stevens and Michael Jackson did it), but people create prejudices like this for a reason, and sometimes that reason is noble. But once created, once that prejudice is unleashed, it is hard to convince others that it is just an opinion and not really a fact. It simmers away, it exists, it is out there. And it could come back into vogue again. Never forget.

Verdict: After my soap box preaching, let me just recommend Racism: A History. Definitely worth seeing, as it’s both enlightening and depressing. It doesn’t tend to leave one uplifted at the end, but it does make some things clearer and hopefully, and best of all, makes one question what we know. And there is no better sort of documentary than one that makes one think. 2.5 episodes out of 3.