A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF RACISM IN AFRICA

Abstract

Racism is a social construct that has been used to oppress the Black race for a long time. Africans in the diaspora and in the African continent have continued to experience racism in various ways, one of them being through slavery. Racism was non-existent in the African continent, until its contact with both the Europeans and Arabs, especially the former. In the pre-colonial period, Africans experienced racism through their forced trans-location from their motherland to the Americas and the Caribbean in the infamous Trans-Atlantic trade. Africans also experienced racism in form of colonization and continue to have the same experience in its post-colonial period. In relation to its main objective, this article has employed the Critical Race Theory (CRT). This theory holds that racism is the ordinary way our world conducts itself in dealing with the Africans. This in turn has led to the normalisation of racism in our world that at times we cannot detect it.  Racism has been used to perceive Africans as being inferior, to enslave them, and enrich the White race materially at the expense of Africans. Racism has exhibited itself in the African continent in the pre-colonial Africa, colonial Africa and post-colonial Africa. The importance of Critical Race Theory is that it explains the race foundation and relations. Hence, this makes it suitable to analyse the history of racism in Africa.