027 How & Why Racism Came To Be
Hello Everybody!
Here's your weekly Amazing Things & Ideas Newsletter.
- Find one original idea from my side followed by the List.
How & Why Racism Came To Be
This is a theory of how discrimination against African Americans came to be what it is today.
It began with the Europeans. They had to bring in African slaves to work in the sugar plantation fields. Why did they bring in African slaves? (this is a very important question)
- Europeans could have brought slaves from anywhere, from Europe or America itself, or parts of Central Asia like China, Vietnam or India. Why did they choose Africa? There are three reasons.
Europeans brought many diseases like smallpox, malaria and the bubonic plague with them which caused the death of a huge number of Americans. So the Red Indians were ruled out of the slave game.
Asia is farther from America than is Africa. So it was obviously cheaper and more efficient to import slaves from Africa. Also Africa already had a well-developed slave trade.
Most important perhaps, American sugar plantations being in the tropical region were plagued by tropical diseases like malaria and yellow fever. These diseases originated in Africa. So, most Africans had an immune response against them. Europeans didn't and they would die from these diseases. Therefore if you were a plantation owner, it was much more productive to buy African slaves rather than European ones who would probably die in six months from yellow fever.
Paradoxically, biological superiority of Africans, made Africans socially inferior. Because they were more fit to live in tropical climates, they were more fit to be slaves and this is what started discrimination against African Americans.
Due to these set of completely accidental factors, racism against Africans originated in America.
People needed to justify their wrongdoings unto the slaves back then. Biologists made claims that Africans are less intelligent than Whites. And they also spread diseases and live in unhygienic conditions, they deduced.
Biologists were right. Because their data was flawed. Of course it seemed Africans were less intelligent than Whites. Slaves who had no education opportunities and had to work in the fields all day could not have a high IQ and get jobs. This made them score less in the intellectual game. And obviously they lived in unhygienic conditions, slave owners didn't care about how clean they were. In this way there was now "scientific evidence" for racism to continue against African Americans. This was their justification to enslave Blacks.
Even after slavery was abolished discrimination continued. Africans would not get jobs because the employers were aware of the biological evidence suggesting Africans were less intelligent and less hard-working. This turned into an evil circle. because now since no one would hire Africans for jobs, there was more data that Africans were less intelligent and hard-working because they don't get jobs. But no one knew the Black job applicant who was more qualified than the contemporary being rejected only to fill in with a lesser qualified White candidate.
To continue reading and understand why racism is what it is today, click here to read on the web.
The Amazing Things & Ideas List
A book on how to make the other person say yes:
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
One of the great classics in psychology, this book explains the main compliance tricks used by professionals to make us say yes when we don't even want to. And it helps to make you understand what influences human behavior which can sometimes be quite misleading.
I really think this book made me smarter and recommend it for everyone.
You can check it out here (affiliate link).Ted Talk on beliefs worth watching:
Why you think you're right—even if you're wrong by Julia Galef
"What do you most yearn for? Do you yearn to defend your own beliefs or do you yearn to see the world as clearly as you possibly can?"
You can watch the talk here.On why we believe what we do:
“People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true.” — Steven PinkerOn the difficulty of practicing what you preach:
"If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men's cottages princes' palaces." — Shakespeare
All articles on my Blog this week:
Thank you for reading. I hope you found that helpful. Have a great week ahead!
Onward,
Arjun
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