The African Diaspora
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We invite readers to consider the following article, originally published at aaihs.org and posted to the Black Left Unity Network discussion list by Yusuf Nurriddin. Then please return here to offer us your comments—the Editors. In
Europe today, non-Black people often ask—why are there so many
Black people in Europe? But a far better question is ‘why are
there so few Black people in Europe?’ The African diaspora in
Europe began when Europeans first invaded and colonized Africa.
Racist/sexist stereotypes and caricatures were first developed and
disseminated across Europe before the United States and other nations
across the Americas were even created. And racist ideologies and
nomenclatures were substantially elaborated in Europe, by elite white
men from Swedish botanist and zoologist, Carl Linneaus, French
naturalist George Buffon and German physiologist and anthropologist,
Johann Friedrich Blumenbach; and from English philosopher and biologist
Herbert Spencer, English statistician and eugenicist Francis Galton to
Italian criminologist and physician Cesare Lombroso. European nations
kidnapped and transported millions of Africans into vicious enslavement
across the Americas. Tiny numbers of Africans were brought to Europe to
sing, dance and perform or to study Christianity. Some were put as
spectacles in zoos. Many women became concubines and prostitutes. And
master-enslavers brought their favorite human property to serve them.
With the exception of a short period in Spain and Portugal in the
1400s, and England in the 1700s, the numbers of Black people allowed
into Europe was deliberately kept small until the 20th century.
Then thousands of black people (overwhelmingly men) were recruited to
fight in European wars. Later on, we were actively recruited and
encouraged by governments and businesses to relocate to England,
France, Netherlands and Portugal, to work in jobs that white men and
women no longer wanted.
Read more (Link to article at aaihs.org) |
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