Anti-African sentiment

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This article is about negative sentiment towards African peoples and societies, and those of the African diaspora. For negative sentiment towards people because of their darker skin, see Anti-Black sentiment.

Anti-African sentiment, Afroscepticism, or Afrophobia is prejudice, hostility, discrimination, or racism towards people and cultures of Africa and of the African diaspora.[1]

Prejudice against Africans and people of African descent has a long history, dating back to ancient times, although more prominently during Atlantic slave trade and the colonial period. Following the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, Africans were often portrayed as uncivilised and primitive, with colonial conquest branded civilising missions, and, due to their reverence for the spoken word and emphasis on oral history, and subsequent lack of written histories, they were portrayed as having no history at all, despite having a long, complex, and varied history.[citation needed] In the United States, it was manifested in the form of Jim Crow laws and segregated housing, schools, and public facilities.[citation needed] In South Africa, it was manifested in the form of the apartheid system.[citation needed]

In recent years, there has been a rise in Afrophobic hate speech and violence in Europe and the United States.[citation needed] This has been attributed to a number of factors, including the growth of the African diaspora in these regions, the increase in refugees and migrants from Africa, and the rise of far-right and populist political parties.[citation needed]

In October 2017, the United Nations General Assembly held a high-level meeting on combating Afrophobia, with a view to adopting a resolution to address the issue.[citation needed]

Lexicology[edit]

Primarily a cultural phenomenon, Afrophobia pertains to the various traditions and peoples of Africa, irrespective of racial origin.[1] As such, Afrophobia is distinct from the historical racial phenomenon of negrophobia, which is specifically based on contempt for negro peoples.[2] The opposite of Afrophobia is Afrophilia, which is a love for all things pertaining to Africa.[1]

By location[edit]

It has been observed that writing and terminology about racism, including about Afrophobia, has been somewhat centered on the US.[citation needed] In 2016, "Afrophobia" has been used as a term for racism against darker-skinned persons in China. In such usage, that is an inexact term because the racism is directed against darker-skinned persons from anywhere, without regard to any connection to Africa. Conversely, Chinese views for lighter-than-average skin are more positive, as is reflected in advertising.[3]

Terminology[edit]

The terms "Afrophobia" and "Afroscepticism" are similar to Europhobia and Euroscepticism and can refer to three different ideas:[citation needed]

  1. Afrophobia, or Anti-African sentiment, is a perceived fear and hatred of the cultures and peoples of Africa, as well as the African diaspora, which is also a social struggle about who has the right to be cared for by the state and society and a fight for the collective balance of rights and economic resource allocation by the modern state.
  2. Hard Afroscepticism is a principled opposition to African integration and therefore can be seen in groups that think that their countries should not be part of it or whose policies towards the integration are tantamount to being opposed to the whole project of African integration, as it is currently conceived and/or projected to be.
  3. Soft Afroscepticism does not have a principled objection to African integration but has concerns on one or a number of policy areas, which lead to the expression of qualified and justified opposition to the integration, or there is a sense that national rights and interests are currently at odds with the integration's trajectory.

Academic racism and colonial historiography[edit]

Main articles: African historiography § Colonial historiography, and Scientific racism

The academic discipline of history arrived with the discovery and colonisation of Africa and involved the study of Africa and its history by European academics and historians.[4] Prior to colonisation in the 19th century, most African societies used oral tradition to record their history despite having developed a writing script, meaning there was little written history, and the domination of European powers across the continent meant African history was written from an entirely European perspective under the pretence of Western Superiority.[5] This predilection stemmed from the perceived technological superiority of European nations and the decentralization of the African continent with no nation being a clear power in the region, as well as a perception of Africans as racially inferior.[6] Another factor was the lack of an established body of collective African history created in the continent, there being instead a multitude of different dialects, cultural groups and fluctuating nations as well as a diverse set of mediums that document history other than written word. This led to a perception by Europeans that Africa and its people had no recorded history and had little desire to create it.[7]

The historical works of the time were predominantly written by scholars of the various European powers and were confined to individual nations, leading to disparities in style, quality, language and content between the many African nations.[4] These works mostly concerned the activities of the European powers and centered on events concerning economic and military endeavors of the powers in the region.[5] Examples of British works were Lilian Knowles' The Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire and Allan McPhees The Economic Revolution in British West Africa, which discuss the economic achievements of the British empire and the state of affairs in African nations controlled by Britain.[5]

Racism in Africa[edit]

Main article: Racism in Africa

Activism[edit]

To overcome any perceived "Afrophobia", writer Langston Hughes suggested that European Americans must achieve peace of mind and accommodate the uninhibited emotionality of African Americans.[citation needed] Author James Baldwin similarly recommended that White Americans could quash any "Afrophobia" on their part by getting in touch with their repressed feelings, empathizing to overcome their "emotionally stunted" lives, and thereby overcome any dislike or fear of African Americans.[8]

In 2016, Tess Asplund made a viral protest against Neo-Nazism as part of her activism against Afrophobia.[9]

In academia[edit]

Some Afrophobic sentiments are based on the belief that Africans are unsophisticated. Such perceptions include the belief that Africans lack a history of civilization, and visual imagery of such stereotypes perpetuate the notion that Africans still live in mud huts and carry spears, along with other notions that indicate their primitiveness.[10][11]

Afrophobia in academia may also occur through by oversight with regards to lacking deconstruction in mediums such as African art forms, omitting historical African polities in world cartography, or promoting a eurocentric viewpoint by ignoring historic African contributions to world civilization.[12]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c Kivuto Ndeti; Kenneth R. Gray; Gerard Bennaars (1992). The second scramble for Africa: a response & a critical analysis of the challenges facing contempory [sic] sub-Saharan Africa. Professors World Peace Academy. p. 127. ISBN 9966835733. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  2. ^ The Congregational Review, Volume 2. J.M. Whittemore. 1862. p. 629. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  3. ^ Roberto Castillo (August 12, 2016). "Claims of "China's Afrophobia" show we need new ways to think about race and racism". (posted originally at The Conversation, with the title Of washing powder, Afrophobia and racism in China, August 11, 2016)
  4. ^ a b Manning, Patrick (2013). "African and World Historiography". The Journal of African History. 54 (3): 319–330. doi:10.1017/S0021853713000753. ISSN 0021-8537. JSTOR 43305130. S2CID 33615987.
  5. ^ a b c Roberts, A.D. (1978). "The Earlier Historiography of Colonial Africa". History in Africa. 5: 153–167. doi:10.2307/3171484. ISSN 0361-5413. JSTOR 3171484. S2CID 162869454.
  6. ^ Fanon, Frantz (December 2007). The wretched of the earth. Philcox, Richard; Sartre, Jean-Paul; Bhabha, Homi K. New York. ISBN 9780802198853. OCLC 1085905753.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  7. ^ Cooper, Frederick (2000). "Africa's Pasts and Africa's Historians". Canadian Journal of African Studies. 34 (2): 298–336. doi:10.2307/486417. JSTOR 486417.
  8. ^ Washington, Robert E. (2001). The Ideologies of African American Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 272. ISBN 9780742509504.
  9. ^ Crouch, David (2016-05-04). "Woman who defied 300 neo-Nazis at Swedish rally speaks of anger". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  10. ^ Mays, Vickie M. (1985). "The Black American and psychotherapy: The dilemma". Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training. 22 (2S): 379–388. doi:10.1037/h0085518.
  11. ^ Marongwe, Ngonidzashe; Mawere, Munyaradzi (2016). "Violence, Identity and Politics of Belonging: The April 2015 Afrophobic Attacks in South Africa and the Emergence of Some Discourses". In Munyaradzi, Mawere; Ngonidzashe, Marongwe (eds.). Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa: Envisioning Transformation, Peace and Unity in the Twenty-First Century. Langaa RPCIG. pp. 89–116. ISBN 978-9956-763-54-2.
  12. ^ Skinner, Ryan Thomas (24 April 2018). "Walking, talking, remembering: an Afro-Swedish critique of being-in-the-world". African and Black Diaspora. 12 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1080/17528631.2018.1467747. S2CID 149746823.
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