Anti-Black racism

Concepts

Terminology

Anti-Black racism, sometimes called negrophobia or colourphobia, is discriminatory sentiment towards people racialised as Black, often because the person believes that their race is superior to the Black race. The terms Afrophobia (or Afriphobia) and melanophobia have also been used.

Afrophobia

Afrophobia, or Afriphobia, is frequently used to describe racism (particularly systemic racism) against Black people of African descent, such as by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR). Others use Afrophobia to describe racism and xenophobia against people of African descent, especially racism and xenophobia against indigenous Africans, due to their perceived Africanness. This sentiment may also include prejudice against African traditions and culture. In South Africa, for example, Afrophobia is used to describe xenophobia against people of other African nationalities for being too racially Black, too culturally African, or both.

Anti-Black racism

Anti-Black racism was a term used by Canadian scholar Akua Benjamin in a 1992 report on Ontario race relations. It has been defined as follows:

The term quickly came to be used to refer to racism against other groups also considered Black, such as Indigenous Australians (who sometimes prefer the term Blak) and Melanesians.

Melanophobia

Melanophobia has been used to refer to both anti-Black racism and colourism (prejudice against people with darker skin), especially in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.

Negrophobia and colourphobia

The term racism is not attested before the 20th century, but negrophobia (first recorded between 1810–1820; often capitalised), and later colourphobia (first recorded in 1834), 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. In 1819, the term was used in U.S. Congressional debates to refer to a "violent aversion or hatred of Negroes".

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. 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.

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. Nevertheless, negrophobia had a clinical and satirical edge that made it popular with abolitionists. 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.

Changing terminology

After abolition, negrophobia continued to be used to refer to anti-Black racism, but terms based on race also appeared around the turn of the 20th century. Racism first appeared in print in 1903. In December 1921, the terms negrophobia and race hatred were used to describe an outbreak of anti-Black violence in the Dominican Republic by John Sydney de Bourg, a spokesman for the local chapter of the Universal Negro Improvement Association in San Pedro de Macorís. Negrophobia further reappeared in January 1927 in Lamine Senghor's La voix des nègres (The Voice of the Negroes), a monthly anti-colonialist newspaper. The term became more widespread outside of North America and the English-speaking world when French Caribbean psychologist and philosopher Frantz Fanon included it in his works Peaux noires masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks) and Les Damnés de la Terre (The Wretched of the Earth), again drawing on the rhetoric of racism as disease. As a psychiatrist, Fanon explored negrophobia as an individual and societal "neurosis", although he saw it as the psychological structure underpinning colonial racism.

By the middle of the 20th century, the term "Black" came to be preferred over "Negro", and so related terms became outdated. However, negrophobia is still sometimes used to distinguish anti-Black racism from racism more generally. In this sense, Negrophobia may mean an especially strong, violent or transmissible form of anti-Black racism. In France, Une Autre Histoire describes negrophobia as meaning "the most virulent form of racism targeting those who are perceived as 'blacks' by people considering themselves different from 'blacks (translation).

Psychology

Psychologists and sociologists have explored the individual and social psychology of anti-Black racism, often in reference to Fanon's work on negrophobia. Jock McCulloch explores Fanon's conception from a psychodynamic perspective, arguing that negrophobia requires psychological projection, and reveals "a certain psychic dependence of the European upon the black". He also points out that negrophobia, though it can be described as an emotional disorder, is theorised to come from the same "psychodynamic mechanism" as antisemitism, and stresses the importance, in Fanon's account, of negrophobia as inherently racist and a product of colonialism. Despite this, the description of negrophobia as an emotional disorder or involuntary reflex has been used as a legal defense to justify violent crimes against Black people, including murder, as a form of self-defense or involuntary reaction.

Internalised racism

Psychiatrist Frantz Fanon introduced the concept of internalised racism, or internalised negrophobia, pointing to the hatred of Black people and Black culture by Black people themselves. He asserts that anti-Black sentiment is a form of "trauma for white people of the Negro". Equivalent to internalised racism caused by the trauma of living in a culture defining Black people as inherently evil, Fanon emphasises the slight existing cultural intricacies caused by the vast diversity of Black people and cultures, as well as the nature of their colonisation by White Europeans. The symptoms of such internalised anti-Black sentiment include a rejection of their native or ethnic language in favour of European languages, a marked preference for European cultures over Black cultures, and a tendency to surround themselves with lighter-skinned people rather than darker-skinned ones.

Similarly, the pattern further includes attributing negative characteristics to Black people, culture, and things. Toni Morrison's novel The Bluest Eye (1970) stands as an illustrative work on the destroying effects of anti-Black sentiment among the Black community on themselves. The main character, Pecola Breedlove, through her non-reconciliation with her Black identity, her Black societal indifference, and her craving for symbolic blue eyes, presents all the signs of an internalised anti-Black sentiment. She develops an anti-Black neurosis due to her feeling of non-existence both within the White and her own community.

While the latter theoretical framework is academically debated, Fanon insists on the nature of anti-Black sentiment as a socio-diagnosis, thus characterising not individuals but rather entire societies and their patterns. Fanon thereby implies that anti-Black sentiment is a cross-disciplinary area of research, justifying that its analysis and understanding may not be confined to the psychological field.

Involuntary racism

In the book Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism, legal scholar Jody David Armour describes the term Involuntary Negrophobia as the legal precedent of defendants using a victim's Blackness as justification for violent crimes against them. Typically, such arguments rest on the idea that racist revulsion and violence directed at Black people is an involuntary reaction (such as with PTSD) and thus not an intentional criminal act, or that it constitutes a form of self-defence based on their perception of the victim as a threat because of their Blackness. This approach focusses on the personal culpability of the individual defendant, and their state of mind. Armour critiques this view as equating anti-Black sentiment with insanity and allowing a person's racial fear to legally justify and even excuse violent behaviour.

Education and business

In response to Black Lives Matter organising contemporary scholars have begun focusing on anti-Blackness in educational institutions and places of business. These efforts build on established critical race discourses in their respective fields and incorporate concepts from Afropessimism.

Anti-Black racism globally

Arab world

Africa

Mauritania

South Africa

Cape Coloureds

Mixed-race people in South Africa are referred to as Coloureds or Cape Coloureds. This term includes individuals with a mixed-race descent that can include African, Asian, and European ethnic heritage. The term "Coloured" is considered neutral in South African society and is commonly used to refer to individuals who self-identify as such. However, in some Western countries, such as the United Kingdom and the United States, the term "Coloured" has a negative connotation and can be seen as derogatory because it was historically used as a means of categorising Black individuals and reinforcing racial hierarchies. The word persists as a neutral descriptor in the names of some older organizations, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the United States.

The 1911 South African census played a significant role in shaping the country's racial identities. The enumeration process involved specific instructions for classifying individuals into different racial categories, and the category of "Coloured persons" was used to refer to all people of mixed race. This included various ethnicities, such as Khoikhoi, San, Cape Malays, Griquas, Korannas, Creoles, Negroes, and Cape Coloureds. What is particularly noteworthy about the classification of "Coloured persons" is that it included individuals of Black African descent, who were commonly known as Negroes. As a result, Coloureds or Cape Coloureds, as a group of mixed-race descent individuals, also have Black African ancestry and can be considered part of the broader African diaspora.

The racial category of Coloureds is a multifaceted and heterogeneous group that exhibits great diversity. Analogously, they can be compared to Black Americans, whose population is composed of approximately 75% West African and 25% Northern European ancestry. However, the Cape Coloureds possess an even greater level of complexity due to the presence of Bantu ancestry in their genetic makeup, which is closely linked to the predominantly West African heritage of Black Americans.

While Coloureds in South Africa do have Black African ancestry, it is important to recognize that they have a distinct identity and experiences that differ from those of Black South Africans. Despite this, there are instances where Coloureds may face discrimination and prejudice based on their mixed-race descent and Black African ancestry. Furthermore, some individuals who hold prejudiced attitudes towards Black people may also hold negative attitudes towards Coloureds, viewing them as inferior or less desirable due to their mixed-race heritage.

Asia

India

Israel

Japan

Saudi Arabia

Europe

In Europe, anti-Black sentiment finds its roots in the 17th century due to its extensive historical colonisation and slavery.

France

In 2005, an anti-negrophobia brigade (BAN) was created in France to protest against increasing numbers of targeted acts and occurrences of police violence against Black people. The latter protest movements notably underwent severe police violence in the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris during the 2011 and 2013 abolition of slavery commemorations.

United Kingdom

North America

Canada

Dominican Republic

United States

Oceania

Australia

African Australians

South America

Brazil

Racism against non-African Black people

Though anti-Black racism traditionally refers to people of Black African descent, there are other groups who are identified as Black and whose experiences of racism may share similarities to those of Black Africans. These groups include Indigenous Australians (Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders) and Melanesians.

Indigenous Australians

Melanesians

Australia

Indonesia

Notes

References

Works cited

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