afrophobia

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Afrophobia is an irrational fear of or hostility toward blacks of indigenous West African or Sub-Saharan African origin, their culture or ideas. It is often associated with fear of domination or "racial" or cultural "pollution". Unlike anti-Semitism, Afrophobia is primarily a racial and, to a somewhat lesser extent, cultural phenomenon, lacking a strong religious dimension. However, like anti-Semitism, it has occurred in many societies throughout the world, at varying levels of severity, ranging from personal antipathy and bigotry and societal and informal discrimination to enslavement; societal marginalization, systematic violence and oppression. A degree of Afrophobic self-loathing has on occasion extended to blacks themselves, leading many in the 19th and early 20th centuries to use skin bleaching techniques and adopt artificially straightened, lye-conditioned coiffures in repudiation of their natural hairstyles. The term "Afrophobia" is sometimes used with this ironic metonymy in mind, using the fear of the Afro as a metaphor for the fear of one's African heritage.

Word origins

The origins of the term Afrophobia can be found in colorphobia, negrophobia and to a lesser extent pigmentocracy. Colorphobia has its roots in the antebellum period. Speaker and author Frederick Douglass used the term to describe abolitionists who felt uncomfortable in his presence, William Wells Brown declared colorphobia to be worse in Philadelphia than in New York and Frank J. Webb's 1857 novel "The Garies and their Friends" was the first to address the topic of colorphobia and race relations of urban areas in the northern United States. Negrophobia evolved to colorphobia after people of African ancestry began to define themselves as "Negro" rather than "colored". Subsequently, the conscious awareness of Africa as historical homeland gave rise to the use of the term Afrophobia. Usually pigmentocracy is meant to refer to social relations where the hierarchical delineations are based on skin pigmentation. Most often it refers to Latin American countries, most notably Brazil, but it also has been mentioned in regard to South Africa as well.

Afrophobia in Europe

Afrophobia, in its modern sense, began as European states expanded into Africa. Europeans solidified their economic and political dominance with new racial theories. Craniometry and phrenology "proved" the superiority of whites, and justified the brutal, exploitative treatment of negroid natives. Even in the late 18th century, it was debated whether blacks were even human.

Afrophobia in the United States

As in Europe, Afrophobia was heavily associated with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and itself defined the parameters of the institution of slavery; it became a part of the domestic cultural and political landscape that endures to the present day. For the effect of Afrophobia on American history, see Negrophobia.

Afrophobia in South America

Afrophobia in Africa

Africa's colonial past preserved many effects of European Afrophobia. In countries such as Ian Smith's Rhodesia and pre-1990 South Africa, whites held power using aggressive minoritarian tactics. The South African institution of apartheid institutionalized a brutal system of color-based discrimination and disenfranchisement that systematically stripped indigenous blacks of their land and their civil and human rights. Under apartheid, blacks were required to carry passbooks containing their photographs and identifying information at all times, could not move freely about the country and were subject to arbitrary arrest and confinement. Generally relegated to the most menial of livelihoods, they were barred from owning businesses, denied access to equal education and healthcare, and suffered brutality and discrimination on a daily basis. Apartheid also involved a caste system of sorts, which divided black South Africans dividing them into "blacks" and "coloureds" on the basis of skin color, and which created a separate class for East Indians, as well.

Afrophobia in the Arab world

Afrophobia in Asia

Afrophobia among Blacks

References

Immigrants in Chains: Afrophobia in American Legal History, 76 Oregon Law Review (1997)by Dennis Greene Professor of Law University of Dayton school of Law
Writing Marginality in Modern French Literature: From Loti to Genet" by Edward J. Hughes
"The Not-so-dark Continent " and "America loses its Afrophobia", pp. 18, 23-24, The Economist (April 26, 1997).
The Rising tide of color against white world supremacy by Lothrop Stoddard