Slavery: The Cause Of Racism

In the words of the First Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Eric Williams, “Slavery was not born of racism; rather, racism was the consequence of slavery.” Slavery began in the 16th century when Europeans had the so-called “Slave Traffic” involving African Americans, prisoners of war, and people unable to pay back debt to others. During this time there was no such thing known as “racism” but it slowly began to show as the Europeans began judging the differences of the African Americans. Everyone believed that if you did not have the same characteristics or act the same way as a certain group then you didn’t deserve the same rights as they had. People need to open up their eyes and see that slavery is abolished and along with slavery being gone, so should racism.

To begin, many people have different opinions on whether slavery was the cause of racism or not. To really know if this is true or not, you have to know whether slavery or racism began first. According to International Socialist Review, it is commonly assumed that racism is as old as human society itself, suggesting that racism is a part of human nature. This is a false statement that many people could disagree with. Within the article, it states, “Historically it is pretty well proven now that the ancient Greeks and Romans knew nothing about race. They had another standard-civilized and barbarian- and you could have white skin and be a barbarian and you could be black and civilized.” This brings me to my main