How did racism appear?
Before men began to explore the world, all humans - limited to the borders of Europe - were the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Under the influence of the Old Testament, there was as yet no conception of the human races. It was by setting out to discover the world that the century of naturalists – the Enlightenment – and colonization invented the breed.
Following this movement towards the outside world, men made a classification between superior and inferior beings, obviously according to their European point of view. This hierarchy classified humans essentially according to their color, having in mind the invention of the steam engine, skyscrapers and the conquest of the world, which made them superior beings.
Naturalists and scientific ideas
In the 19th and part of the 20th century, everyone was racist – or almost. This was the education that Europeans received; it was normal to consider black people as inferior beings. Subsequently, science will have accentuated these differences between the “races”.
These differences were almost invented because everything was exaggerated. The scientists relied on what the colonists reported during the period of slavery, when the natives were equivalent to beasts made for work.
These biological explanations will have served to explain the alleged superiority of whites over the alleged inferiority of blacks; there was now a new science:physical anthropology . This science consisted in particular in measuring the jaw more advanced in relation to the forehead, and the scientists applied still other measurement techniques. By thus showing the physical difference, they animalized the Blacks by bringing out in them the instinctive, the digestive and the sexual drive.
“Human zoos”
The initiators of the colonial exhibitions took advantage of the fact that the Europeans did not have the possibility of traveling to expose the natives in the form of a spectacle, since they were unknown to the public before. Human zoos were popular entertainments, where visitors marveled at exotic specimens, presented as fairground beasts, or even as industrial objects.
With human zoos, scientists took advantage of being able to examine and study the natives close to home, and establish this famous classification between the races invented with “real blacks in flesh and blood” to measure in public.
It was towards the end of the 19th century that human zoos were most successful; these are mass shows, filled with Europeans who are curious and enthusiastic about visiting the world without leaving their country. These human zoos have strongly propagated racism, supported by the presence of scientists.
If these exhibitions were so approved, it was because there was also a question of eroticism. Wanting to discover other worlds, Europeans also came to see often very naked bodies.
Traditional dances were manipulated to create the show and satisfy the public who always demanded something new. The exaggeration of the way of life made it fake, like when the natives suddenly became cannibals.
Colonization and slavery
Two very strong links that we think of when we talk about racism are colonization and slavery. Human zoos were a consequence of colonization. This had used the fact that blacks were considered inferior, and that it was normal to seize their land, just like the naturalists who saw no inconvenience in exposing men and women in an enclosure.
The fact that the natives were considered inferior justified colonization, then slavery. Naturalists used the theory of evolution:Social Darwinism showed social inequalities and wars of conquest as the natural selection of humans.
What were the consequences of racism?
In the 1930s, the Nazis used this “race difference” to create the Holocaust. They kept in Darwin's theory what could have justified their actions and they changed or ignored what could have contradicted them by sorting out, because Darwin was not racist and did not base his theory to claim to prove a hierarchy between the races, and put the white at the top.