Scientific Racism And Scientific Sexism

1. The reading notes that there was a definite tendency toward “Negrophilia” in parts of northern and western Europe in the late Middle Ages, and the common presumption that dark pigmentation inspired instant revulsion of the part of light skinned Europeans is, if not completely false, at least highly misleading (Fredrickson 26). The cult of Prester John and Ethiopia was one of several signs that blacks could be represented in a positive and dignified manner in the late Middle Ages. The reading also explains how it was “wrong” to enslave other Christians, so they went for Africans and had the idea that their souls might be saved through contact with believers. I thought the most interesting thing from this article was how in the past they were tempted to see blackness as a curse signifying that Africans were designated by God himself to be a race of slaves. I think it’s terrible that in the past people had that idea towards Africans. I learned a lot about racism in the past, and was also shocked that it was during this time that they were racist towards Jews. I also learned how they used a “curse” view on slavery to explain how/why slavery happened.

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A lot was written about the racist implications of the chain of being. Scientific racism and scientific sexism both taught that proper social relation between the races and the sexes existed in nature. Scientific racism depended on a chain of being or hierarchy or species in nature that was unilinear and absolute. On the other hand, scientific sexism depended on radical biological divergence (PAGE NUMBER). Males were taken as a universal racial subject when studying skulls, which was eventually used to create a new radical chain of