saying that Europeans "invented" racism is like saying that the first European explorer that turned his musket on an indigenous person "invented" shooting natives.
Sure, you could say that, for what it's worth. But it's not worth much as it says nothing about
why-shoot-the-indigenous in particular, as opposed to why-shoot-anybody.
On some level, you could technically make that claim, but there's nothing particularly inventive about turning an existing weapon on a new target, just as there's nothing particularly inventive about encouraging tribal hostilities based on a new set of criteria,
Again, true. But the fact that it's a "new" versus "old" target is, again, not the point. The point is
causation ---
why is that new target selected? And in this case that selection has nothing to do with shooting; rather it's the
value judgment that race X, Y or Z is "inferior" to one's own. That's what racism means. It can then be expressed in myriad ways, including criteria for shooting. It may be simply internalized and not expressed at all. But I'm saying that
value judgment is invented --- meaning put there where it didn't exist previously --- to rationalize the transAtlantic slave trade. Because without that rationalization, said traders would have to admit that human trafficking is immoral. And that, in turn, would have meant losing money.
Racism is not shooting or subjugating or enslaving. It's a
value judgment.
particularly one that coincides with the general geographical distribution of world populations, and therefore already exists in all but name.
All this section says is that diverse races exist in diverse areas. We already know that.
You keep mentioning that it's not about shooting, so I'll start by clearing this up. When I likened the link between racism and tribalism to aiming a gun at a new target, I wasn't trying to imply that racism is about shooting people. I grew up with the traditional view of racism which is, as you said, the belief that one's own race is superior to another race, and also the belief that race is a reliable indicator of the end sum of an individual's traits.
Since, in those days, people of different races looked vastly different, came from geographical locations far away and separate from one another, spoke strange and foreign languages, and practiced customs and religions that were alien to each other, the triggers for tribalism already existed. Race just lumped together existing ethnicities and put a name on it. The musket was tribalism, it was already aimed at all the qualities comprising race, and the concept of racism was nothing more than adjusting the aim SLIGHTLY and confirming existing in-group biases. In terms of what the race concept was used to justify, it was the straw that broke the camel's back, if ever that metaphor applied to anything.
Thus, in my opinion, the point is indeed causality, but it is not WHY the new target was selected, as intent does not define causality. The point, rather, is how pivotal the race concept was in enabling the slave trade compared to the other factors potentially at fault. Personally, I'm of the belief that the history of mankind leading up to that point suggests that enslaving people of other ethnicities was well within the wheelhouse of civilizations, European and otherwise, who had never so much as been exposed to the concept of race as a pseudoscience, let alone been "brainwashed" by it. I fail to see how any ol' explanation wouldn't have worked out just fine. They're not really human, they're savages, they don't worship the right god. How about, our monarch is ordained by God himself to rule, and therefore any that would serve a foreign nation are enemies of heaven itself? When you consider that the Atlantic slave trade predated modern democracy by about 200 years, you really only had to convince the monarchies of the nations involved that enslaving people from foreign lands was A-OK. Convincing people who believe themselves to be ruler by God's divine will that peasants from across the sea can reasonably be treated as property to enhance the wealth of the kingdom doesn't exactly require brainwashing.
It's like, what plays a larger role in illuminating your home? Is it electrons pushing through the resistance of a tungsten filament in a lightbulb and giving off electromagnetic energy? Or is the real key to being able to see at night Bill down at the factory who works the conveyor belt and separates all the lightbulbs into packages? Yes, Bill's a part of the process, but you would hardly call him the light bringer.
Lastly, "diverse races exist in diverse areas" kinda bleeds the entire emphasis out of what I said and is far more ambiguous in its meaning. The point is that, back then, they DIDN'T exist in the SAME places. And I wasn't saying it because I thought that explaining that different people live in different places is a fact of which anyone was unaware, I was pointing it out to emphasize that, during the time frame in question, your average human being, due to lack of experience interacting with people of far removed ethnicities, was working with a level of novelty that you or I likely couldn't even fathom. My point was that, even without race, people that long ago would naturally attribute far more other'ness to foreigners than anyone today, regardless of the existence of the race narrative.
