On Dec 28, 2007, at 11:15 AM, Charles Brown wrote:
>>>> "Joseph Catron" >>>
> On Dec 27, 2007 6:28 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>> Full fledged modern racism did not develop until the
>> Declaration of Independence (All men are created dequal) generate
>> impossible contradictions, resolved by racist ideology.
>
> A provocative claim, and one I haven't considered before. Is it
> original to you?
>
> ^^^^
> CB: I've long had a similar idea, Carrol.
>
> In Europe, during "feudalism" inequality , a hierarchy of people was
> the accepted idea ( "received ideology"). With the rise of
> capitalism, the bourgeoisie introduced notions of equality among
> "men", as Carrol excerpts from the D of I.
>
> When the Europeans/capitalists undertook conquering the world and
> encountered other peoples, it was necessary to develop an ideology to
> justify the unequal treatment, enslavement and colonizing, of these
> non-European peoples; in order to negate in part the ideology of
> equality that they had just developed for themselves. Racist ideology
> met the need to negate partially their recently developed ideology of
> equality among Europeans. This is why Carrol makes reference to the D
> of I ideology of "equality" in explaining the development of the
> racist ideology of inequality.
>
> So, as Carrol says, slavery and colonialism caused racism or racist
> ideology, not the other way around.