In a world that is becoming smaller and societies that are becoming multicultural, it may be time for Western culture to examine critically its view of other cultures. For how much of Western culture is made up of prejudice about other cultures? How much of Western identity is constructed upon the negative identity of others?
Decolonization in a political sense has occurred. What remains to be addressed, however, is cultural decolonization. The legacy of several hundred years of Western expansion and domination, manifested in racism, continues to be recycled in Western cultures in the form of stereotyped images of non Western cultures.
Social Construct
It has often been observed that "race" is not a reality but a social construct. In his study of the "Jewish question'', Jean-Paul Sartre wrote, "Don't ask what the Jews are, but what we have made the Jews”. This applies equally to images of Africa and blacks. The term "White on Black” refers to the whole spectrum of relations in which Western interests were dominant — the trans-Atlantic slave trade, master-slave relations on plantations in the Americas, colonialism, the post-colonial era. and majority minority relations in the Western world. In each of these situations Europeans constructed images of Africa and blacks on the basis of selective perception, expedience, second hand information mingled with reconstructed biblical notions and medieval folklore, along with popular and "scientific” ideas that were current at the time.
Stereotypes of Africa and of blacks are still in circulation but old images have faded away or acquired new meaning and new images have arisen. In the second half of the 20th century, "race” is no longer invoked as the primary key to differences; it has been succeeded by systems of differences founded not on biology but on culture.
"Race" discrimination has increasingly yielded to discrimination along cultural lines, bringing with it different sets of images. Hence "racism" in the literal sense is no longer a satisfactory term to understand the changing realities. Culture as a new basis for differentiation is much more diffuse in its ideological claims than race theory, but in some ways equally effective in establishing boundaries and demarcations. While science marched forward, popular thinking in Europe still followed Christian modes of thought. Genesis (9:18-27) relates that "Noah drank wine and fell into slumber while naked”. Ham, his youngest son, saw him but did not cover his shame, whereas his brothers Japheth and Shem covered their father with cloth. Awakened, Noah praised Shem and blessed Japheth. but cursed Ham.
Curse of Ham
In the early Church the curse of Ham or Canaan was regarded as an explanation of slavery, but not simply of blacks because slavery at the time was "colour-less". The association of the curse of Ham with blackness arose only much later in medieval Talmudic texts. In the 16th century it became a Christian theme and by the 17th century it was widely accepted as an explanation of black skin colour. From here it was just a step to the interpretation of the curse of Ham as an explanation of and justification for the slavery of black Africans.
The view of Africa as a continent condemned to eternal servitude was well suited to a theological assessment of slavery. According to the theological explanation, the Continents were peopled by descendants of Japheth (Europe), Shem (Asia) and Ham (Africa), ranked in a master-servant relationship. Until well into the 19th century, even after the development of the theory of race, this remained the most popular explanation of slavery.
Minorities often a find place in society in certain specialized occupations. No matter how unreal and how dependent on circumstances its position in the labour market is. it is often extremely difficult for a minority to overcome the stereotyping that goes with that position.
The occupational roles allocated to blacks in Western society are an example a minority specialization which has been in existence so long that it seems to reflect the "natural" order: entertainment and sport.
The first role blacks were permitted to perform in White society, after that of slave or servant, was that of entertainer. Indeed entertainment was itself one of the functions of slaves. Entertainers do not threaten the status quo but embellish it. Emotive expression by blacks is accepted and conforms to the rhythm myth, the stereotype of musicality. Thus over the past century, blacks have become the musicians, dancers and buffoons of Atlantic culture.
Sporting challenge
Another terrain on which blacks have been permitted to manifest themselves is in sport. Several sports had travelled along with Africans to the New World and. according to a study by the tennis champion Arthur Ashe who died recently, by the mid-19th century several sports were integrated. The achievements of black athletes challenged "white supremacy" and breached the myth of "racial" inferiority. The integration of sport is part of overall black integration. But it is also a limited kind of success. Their success seems to confirm one of the stereotypes of the black as bestial brute, the all brawn-and-no-brains kind of athlete. At first the story was that blacks were inferior to whites in every respect, physically as well, and therefore unfit to compete with whites led to other stories about blacks having "abnormal muscular qualities, different from those of white men”.
Recently a Tory councillor in Derby was quoted as claiming that "black people do not use swimming pools because they cannot float":
"Retired teacher Colin Brown, 59, said: 'Black people are very heavily boned and they sink. It’s a physiological fact that was taught when I was studying physical education. You never see any black Africans in Olympic swimming finals, do you?’” (Sun, 9 September).
Racism never comes alone. It forms part of a hierarchical mental set which also targets other groups. The features attributed to groups define by “race" are not peculiar to racism, but are also attributed to entirely different categories defined according to social status, gender, age, nationality and so forth.
What racism and other forms of prejudice and discrimination all have in common is social inequality. The common denominator is power — the power that arises from a hierarchical situation and the power required to maintain that situation and, also the anxiety that comes with power and privilege.
Michael Ghebre
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