> Why do colonialism and the slave trade require racism? There's have been lots of imperial and slave-taking societies that had no racist ideology. The Ottomans, the Romans, the Mongols, the Aztecs (I think), etc. It is a historical accident that the European powers at the time of colonialism were taking slaves (almost) exclusively from an area of the world where people looked noticeably different from Europeans. If West Africa had been occupied by people with white skin, would things have been different, or would the slave-traders just have come up with some other ideology to justify it?
They might have considered them non-white, as with the Irish (who I understand were also shipped to the Caribbean as chattel slaves).
-- Andy