17th century racism | the sudbury devil explained

[justinb]

It’s insane that “black people are people” was a moderate position back then.

[johnmccrossan]

It's interesting to think that this kind of racism was motivated by genuine ignorance rather than hatred or prejudice at one point in time. It's a shame we don't have sources that more fully explore the "are all people people? Or are only some people people?" Question coming from a perspective when they genuinely didn't know

[hiltonian_]

There was a tradition of racist theorizing that took off as soon as Europeans started 1) exploiting the New World, and 2) importing slaves to it. There were varying schools of thought on Christianizing non-whites and the supposed reasons for racial differences. They all justified the economic advantage of free labor.

[gagaplex]

You kinda gotta take what little good there was at the time. Bravo, for what it's worth.

[corbans]

But what about Polish people? Are they reeaally people tho?

[jlp]

Have you read A Mercy by Morrison? She was also concerned of racial attidues in the 17th century

[Sammie]

Not gonna lie, I was overjoyed when I saw this clip in my feed and crestfallen when I clicked it and it was the Japanese VA and not Damien and Sungwon going ham

[theboujieproletariat]

Black people were not a novelty for English people in the 17th century. Black people lived in the UK for over 2000 years before then. The first anti racist movement of the UK was in the 1500s, as a response to direct propaganda from certain companies that tried to portray black people as savage or animal (in order to neutralise the public to seeing them enslaved). London would have had many many black people in the 16th century. These books were written by the upper class, who were portraying a certain narrative, usually because of the interest of companies they or their families would have owned. These upper class writers dont reflect the average Brit of the time. The working class have always known that people are people.