Social Anthropologist
Today, historians and social scientists in the Western world have reached the conclusion that the concept of "race" is a modern idea; it did not exist before the 17th century and came into fruition gradually during the 18th century. Despite wide physical variation among populations of the Ancient World, centering on the Mediterranean and Middle East, none of the peoples there divided their populations into distinct and exclusive groups called races.
In the U.S., race ideology, as...
Historian
Racism exists when one ethnic group or historical collectivity dominates, excludes, or seeks to eliminate another on the basis of differences that it believes are hereditary and unalterable. An ideological basis for explicit racism came to a unique fruition in the West during modern times.
During the Renaissance and Reformation, the official rationale for enslaving Africans was that they were heathens: non-Christian. But when Virginia decreed in 1667 that converted slaves could b...
Historian
Historically, people may have defined those who were different from themselves as what some have termed the Other, but it wasn't rooted in physical difference, and wasn't the same as our notions of race today. Modern racism came into existence to justify slavery as an institution in North America.
American slavery is distinctive because it is the first system based on race, or innate difference. In many parts of the world, those captured in battle were often enslaved. Anyone coul...
