Part of a series on |
Discrimination |
---|
This article may need to be rewritten to comply with Wikipedia's quality standards.(May 2024) |
Anti-African sentiment, Afroscepticism, or Afrophobia is prejudice, hostility, discrimination, or racism towards people and cultures of Africa and of the African diaspora. [1]
Prejudice against Africans and people of African descent has a long history, dating back to ancient times, although it was especially prominent during the Atlantic slave trade and the colonial period. Following the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, Africans were often portrayed as uncivilised and primitive, with colonial conquest branded civilising missions. Due to the use of oral tradition, and subsequent lack of written histories in most African cultures, African people were portrayed as having no history at all, despite having a long, complex, and varied history. [2] In the United States, Afrophobia influenced Jim Crow laws and segregated housing, schools, and public facilities. [3] In South Africa, it took the form of apartheid. [4]
In recent years, there has been a rise in Afrophobic hate speech and violence in Europe and the United States. This has been attributed to a number of factors, including the growth of the African diaspora in these regions, the increase in refugees and migrants from Africa, and the rise of far-right and populist political parties. [5] [6]
In October 2017, the United Nations' Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) told the Human Rights Council that the human rights situation of Africans and people of African descent remained an urgent concern, citing racist violence, police brutality and killings, and systemic racism. [7] Earlier that year, WGEPAD had recommended the term Afrophobia be used to describe "the unique and specific form of racial discrimination affecting people of African descent and African Diaspora". [8]
Anti-African sentiment is prejudice or discrimination towards any of the various traditions and peoples of Africa for their perceived Africanness. [9] [1] It is distinct from, but may overlap with, anti-Black racism or Negrophobia, which is contempt specifically for Black people of African descent , excluding other Africans such as white Africans or North Africans. [10] The term Afrophobia may be used to describe both anti-Black racism and anti-African sentiment more broadly. [11] [12] [9]
The opposite of Afrophobia is Afrophilia, which is a love for all things pertaining to Africa. [1]
Anti-African sentiment and Afroscepticism are comparable terms to anti-Europeanism and Euroscepticism. Afroscepticism is positioned as an opposition to Africanity (the idea of a shared African culture), Africanisation, or Afrocentrism , often seen as facets of Pan-Africanism. [16] [17] [18] Afroscepticism may include embracing Afropessimism, and rejecting traditional African practices or "African Indigenous Knowledge Systems". [19] [20] [21] The Afropessimist view sees Africa in terms of "the negative traits described by AIDS, war, poverty and disease", and thus as unable to be helped. [22]
Anti-Black racism was a term first used by Canadian scholar Dr. Akua Benjamin in a 1992 report on Ontario race relations. It is defined as follows:
Anti-Black racism is a specific manifestation of racism rooted in European colonialism, slavery and oppression of Black people since the sixteenth century. It is a structure of iniquities in power, resources and opportunities that systematically disadvantages people of African descent. [23]
The term racism is not attested before the 20th century, [24] but negrophobia (first recorded between 1810–1820; often capitalised), and later colourphobia (first recorded in 1834), [25] [26] likely originated within the abolitionist movement, where it was used as an analogy to rabies (then called hydrophobia) to describe the "mad dog" mindset behind the pro-slavery cause and its apparently contagious nature. [27] [28] [29] [30] In 1819, the term was used in U.S. Congressional debates to refer to a "violent aversion or hatred of Negroes". [31]
The term negrophobia may also have been inspired by the word nigrophilism, itself first appearing in 1802 in Baudry des Lozières's Les égarements du nigrophilisme. [32] Noting the shift of -phobia terms to cover prejudice and hatred rather than mere fear or aversion, J. L. A. Garcia refers to negrophobia as "the granddaddy of these ‘-phobia’ terms", preceding both xenophobia and homophobia. [29]
Both at the time, and since, critics of the terms negrophobia and colourphobia have argued that, although their use of -phobia is rhetorical, if taken literally they could be used to excuse or justify the behaviour of racists as mental illness or disease. John Dick, publisher of The North Star, voiced such concerns as early as 1848 while legal scholar Jody David Armour has voiced similar concerns in the 21st century. [29] [13] Nevertheless, negrophobia had a clinical and satirical edge that made it popular with abolitionists. [29] [30] In 1856, abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe published Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, a novel which explored the fear of Blackness within negrophobia via the titular character Dred, a Black revolutionary Maroon. [33]It has been observed that writing and terminology about racism, including about Afrophobia, has been somewhat centered on the US.[ citation needed ] In 2016, "Afrophobia" has been used as a term for racism against darker-skinned persons in China. In such usage, that is an inexact term because the racism is directed against darker-skinned persons from anywhere, without regard to any connection to Africa. Conversely, Chinese views for lighter-than-average skin are more positive, as is reflected in advertising. [34]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (May 2024) |
The academic discipline of history arrived with the discovery and colonisation of Africa and involved the study of Africa and its history by European academics and historians. [35] Prior to colonisation in the 19th century, most African societies used oral tradition to record their history, including in cases where they had developed or had access to a writing script, resulting in there being little written history, and the domination of European powers across the continent meant African history was written entirely from a European perspective under the pretence of Western superiority supported by scientific racism. [36] This predilection stemmed from the perceived technological superiority of European nations and the decentralization of the African continent with no nation being a clear power in the region, as well as a perception of Africans as racially inferior. [37] Another factor was the lack of an established body of collective African history created in the continent, there being instead a multitude of different dialects, cultural groups and fluctuating nations as well as a diverse set of mediums that document history other than written word. This led to a perception by Europeans that Africa and its people had no recorded history and had little desire to create it. [38]
This article's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia.(February 2020) |
To overcome any perceived "Afrophobia", writer Langston Hughes suggested that European Americans must achieve peace of mind and accommodate the uninhibited emotionality of African Americans.[ citation needed ] Author James Baldwin similarly recommended that White Americans could quash any "Afrophobia" on their part by getting in touch with their repressed feelings, empathizing to overcome their "emotionally stunted" lives, and thereby overcome any dislike or fear of African Americans. [48]
Originally established in 1998 by "approximately 150" organisations from across the European Union, the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) aimed to combat "racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism — the accepted categories of the anti-racist struggle at that time". However, Afrophobia wasn't specifically named as a focus of the network until 2011, at the behest of Black civil rights activists. [11]
In 2016, Tess Asplund made a viral protest against Neo-Nazism as part of her activism against Afrophobia. [49]
Some Afrophobic sentiments are based on the belief that Africans are unsophisticated. Such perceptions include the belief that Africans lack a history of civilization, and visual imagery of such stereotypes perpetuate the notion that Africans still live in mud huts and carry spears, along with other notions that indicate their primitiveness. [50] [51]
Afrophobia in academia may also occur through by oversight with regards to lacking deconstruction in mediums such as African art forms, omitting historical African polities in world cartography, or promoting a eurocentric viewpoint by ignoring historic African contributions to world civilization. [52]
Racism is discrimination and prejudice against people based on their race or ethnicity. Racism can be present in social actions, practices, or political systems that support the expression of prejudice or aversion in discriminatory practices. The ideology underlying racist practices often assumes that humans can be subdivided into distinct groups that are different in their social behavior and innate capacities and that can be ranked as inferior or superior. Racist ideology can become manifest in many aspects of social life. Associated social actions may include nativism, xenophobia, otherness, segregation, hierarchical ranking, supremacism, and related social phenomena. Racism refers to violation of racial equality based on equal opportunities or based on equality of outcomes for different races or ethnicities, also called substantive equality.
Xenophobia is the fear or dislike of anything that is perceived as being foreign or strange. It is an expression that is based on the perception that a conflict exists between an in-group and an out-group and it may manifest itself in suspicion of one group's activities by members of the other group, a desire to eliminate the presence of the group that is the target of suspicion, and fear of losing a national, ethnic, or racial identity.
An ethnic stereotype or racial stereotype involves part of a system of beliefs about typical characteristics of members of a given ethnic group, their status, societal and cultural norms. A national stereotype does the same for a given nationality. The stereotyping may be used for humor in jokes, and/or may be associated with racism.
Islamophobia is the irrational fear of, hostility towards, or hatred against the religion of Islam or Muslims in general. Islamophobia is primarily a form of religious or cultural bigotry; and people who harbour such sentiments often stereotype Muslims as a geopolitical threat or a source of terrorism. Muslims, with diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, are often inaccurately portrayed by Islamophobes as a single homogenous racial group.
Stereotypes of African Americans are misleading beliefs about the culture of people with partial or total ancestry from any black racial groups of Africa whose ancestors resided in the United States since before 1865. These stereotypes are largely connected to the racism and the discrimination faced by African Americans. These beliefs date back to the slavery of black people during the colonial era and they have evolved within American society over time.
Anti-Black racism, also called anti-Black sentiment, anti-Blackness, colourphobia or Negrophobia, is characterised by prejudice, collective hatred, and discrimination or extreme aversion towards people who are racialised as Black people, especially those people from sub-Saharan Africa and its diasporas, as well as a loathing of Black culture worldwide. Such sentiment includes, but is not limited to: the attribution of negative characteristics to Black people; the fear, strong dislike or dehumanization of Black men; and the objectification of Black women.
Stereotypes of South Asians consist of various generalized beliefs about individuals from South Asia which derive from the region's history and interaction with other cultures and peoples. These stereotypes are often rooted in orientalism, xenophobia and racism and date back to the history of European colonialism and imperialism in South Asia during the 18th and 19th centuries along with the immigration of South Asians to the English-speaking world in the 20th century. According to academics Omar Rahman, David Pollock and John Berry, such stereotypes, which have been primarily propagated through popular culture, have played a major role in hindering the process of acculturation for South Asian immigrants in Western nations.
This is a list of topics related to racism:
In the United States, economic competition and racial prejudice have both contributed to long-lasting racial tensions between African Americans and Hispanic and Latino Americans. There have also been inter-racial tensions between African Americans and Asian Americans.
Racism is a concern for many in the Western lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) communities, with members of racial, ethnic, and national minorities reporting having faced discrimination from other LGBT people.
Racism in the United Kingdom has a long history and includes structural discrimination and hostile attitudes against various ethnic minorities. The extent and the targets have varied over time. It has resulted in cases of discrimination, riots and racially motivated murders.
Racism in Thailand is a prevalent problem but is only infrequently publicly discussed. The United Nations (UN) does not define "racism"; however, it does define "racial discrimination": According to the 1965 UN International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, "...the term "racial discrimination" shall mean any distinction, exclusion, restriction, or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin that has the purpose or effect of nullifying or impairing the recognition, enjoyment or exercise, on an equal footing, of human rights and fundamental freedoms in the political, economic, social, cultural or any other field of public life." Thailand has made two submissions to the Convention, with ongoing issues including government policy towards ethnic groups, especially the Thai Malays, and the country's lack of racial discrimination legislation.
Anti-racism encompasses a range of ideas and political actions which are meant to counter racial prejudice, systemic racism, and the oppression of specific racial groups. Anti-racism is usually structured around conscious efforts and deliberate actions which are intended to create equal opportunities for all people on both an individual and a systemic level. As a philosophy, it can be engaged in by the acknowledgment of personal privileges, confronting acts as well as systems of racial discrimination and/or working to change personal racial biases. Major contemporary anti-racism efforts include the Black Lives Matter movement and workplace anti-racism.
Black Europeans of African ancestry, or Afro-Europeans, refers to people in Europe who trace full or partial ancestry to Sub-Saharan Africa.
Stereotypes about Africa, Africans, and African culture are common, especially in the Western World. European imperialism was often justified on paternalistic grounds, portraying Africa as less civilized, and Africans as less capable of civilizing themselves. As of the 2010s, these stereotypes persisted in European media.
Anti-Somali sentiment or Somalophobia refers to fear, hostility, or other negative attitudes towards Somalis or Somali culture.
Xenophobia in the United States is the fear or hatred of any cultural group in the United States that is perceived as being foreign or strange or un-American. It expresses a conflict between an ingroup and an outgroup and may manifest in suspicion by the one of the other's activities, and beliefs and goals. It includes a desire to eliminate their presence, and fear of losing national, ethnic, or racial identity and is often closely linked to racism and discrimination.
Xenoracism is a form of prejudice that resembles racism but is exhibited by members of a racial group towards other members of it, or it is exhibited towards members of an otherwise mostly indistinguishable racial group which may have no phenotypical differences but is perceived as being alien, foreign, other, or culturally inferior.
"Racism against Asians" refers to racist policies, discrimination against, and mistreatment of people of Asian descent by institutions and/or non-Asian people - typically in the Western world or in other countries outside Asia.
Anti-Americanism has been a recurring theme among several influential African American political organizations and activists due to racism against African Americans domestically, and against other non-white people internationally. African-American anti-Americanism can be contrasted with African-American patriotism, although the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive antonyms.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)