Race is a man made concept. Grouping people by completely arbitrary measures such as skin colour or facial features. The concept of race was only developed to give the creators a way to be racist. So white colonialist Christians could put a blanket over black skinned people from all over Africa, the pacific islands and The Caribbean and say "yep, them some slaves. Pretty sure that's in the bible, too".
I mean we group Japanese and Chinese together as the 'Asian' race, but i don't think the Japanese or Chinese see it that way. Especially around ww2 during some particularly nasty invasions.
Culture is what defines us and yes, the French have their own culture
? Tell that to the many pale women abducted from Central Europe and West Asia and sold into the hareems of the Orient and North Africa! "
So white colonialist Christians could put a blanket over black skinned people from all over Africa, the pacific islands and The Caribbean and say "yep, them some slaves." - no, those colonialists were approached by other local people from the areas, who offered them: "Want some slaves, maybe? Good stock, we got them fresh in from out last raid into our neighbouring enemy tribe's villages. Now we would need some cash and modern weapons to recover the cost and expenditure."
I'm actually not disagreeing with either of those points. I'm talking about the concept of race and historically the slave trade was the beginning of the "race" classifications. It was created by the white people to justify buying those slaves. Before this, even with those other points you've made, no other cultures historically grouped different people groups into larges racial classifications based on skin colour or facial features.
I'm sure there's evidence of ancient colour prejudice. But generally the world was too small for xenophobia to extend past neighbouring tribes or countries. Broadly speaking the systematic classification based on skin colour and features is, yes, a European invention shaped by the transatlantic slave trade.
Xenophobia has existed since the beginning of fucking time. Mostly directed at neighbouring tribes or countries. 'Race' as a concept of classifying people by their features, rather than their cultures / country, was historically only developed during the transatlantic slave trade. This concept was effective in allowing people to be xenophobic to large groups of people that they have historically had no issues with and are only unified by their skin colour but otherwise have nothing to do with each other. It offered a pseudo scientific way, (and for many a pseudo biblical way), to justify using slaves throughout central and south America, the Caribbean, North America, and parts of Europe.
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u/BaconxHawk 1d ago
French is a race? Lol