Anti-African sentiment

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This article is about negative sentiment towards African peoples and societies, and those of the African diaspora. For negative sentiment towards people because of their darker skin, see Anti-Black sentiment.

Anti-African sentiment, Afroscepticism, or Afrophobia is prejudice, hostility, discrimination, or racism towards

people and cultures of Africa and of the African diaspora.[1]

Prejudice against Africans and people of African descent has a long history, dating back to ancient times, although more prominently during

civilising missions, and, due to their reverence for the spoken word and emphasis on oral history, and subsequent lack of written histories, they were portrayed as having no history at all, despite having a long, complex, and varied history.[citation needed] In the United States, it was manifested in the form of Jim Crow laws and segregated housing, schools, and public facilities.[citation needed] In South Africa, it was manifested in the form of the apartheid system.[citation needed
]

In recent years, there has been a rise in Afrophobic hate speech and violence in Europe and the United States.[citation needed] This has been attributed to a number of factors, including the growth of the African diaspora in these regions, the increase in refugees and migrants from Africa, and the rise of far-right and populist political parties.[citation needed]

In October 2017, the United Nations General Assembly held a high-level meeting on combating Afrophobia, with a view to adopting a resolution to address the issue.[citation needed]

Lexicology

Primarily a cultural phenomenon, Afrophobia pertains to the various traditions and peoples of

Afrophilia, which is a love for all things pertaining to Africa.[1]

By location

It has been observed that writing and terminology about racism, including about Afrophobia, has been somewhat centered on the US.[citation needed] In 2016, "Afrophobia" has been used as a term for racism against darker-skinned persons in China. In such usage, that is an inexact term because the racism is directed against darker-skinned persons from anywhere, without regard to any connection to Africa. Conversely, Chinese views for lighter-than-average skin are more positive, as is reflected in advertising.[3]

Terminology

The terms "Afrophobia" and "Afroscepticism" are similar to Europhobia and Euroscepticism and can refer to three different ideas:[citation needed]

  1. Afrophobia, or Anti-African sentiment, is a perceived fear and hatred of the cultures and peoples of Africa, as well as the African diaspora, which is also a social struggle about who has the right to be cared for by the state and society and a fight for the collective balance of rights and economic resource allocation by the modern state.
  2. Hard Afroscepticism is a principled opposition to African integration and therefore can be seen in groups that think that their countries should not be part of it or whose policies towards the integration are tantamount to being opposed to the whole project of African integration, as it is currently conceived and/or projected to be.
  3. Soft Afroscepticism does not have a principled objection to African integration but has concerns on one or a number of policy areas, which lead to the expression of qualified and justified opposition to the integration, or there is a sense that national rights and interests are currently at odds with the integration's trajectory.

Academic racism and colonial historiography

Main articles: African historiography § Colonial historiography, and Scientific racism

The academic discipline of

written word. This led to a perception by Europeans that Africa and its people had no recorded history and had little desire to create it.[7]

The historical works of the time were predominantly written by scholars of the various European powers and were confined to individual nations, leading to disparities in style, quality, language and content between the many African nations.[4] These works mostly concerned the activities of the European powers and centered on events concerning economic and military endeavors of the powers in the region.[5] Examples of British works were Lilian Knowles' The Economic Development of the British Overseas Empire and Allan McPhees The Economic Revolution in British West Africa, which discuss the economic achievements of the British empire and the state of affairs in African nations controlled by Britain.[5]

Racism in Africa

Main article: Racism in Africa

Activism

To overcome any perceived "Afrophobia", writer Langston Hughes suggested that European Americans must achieve peace of mind and accommodate the uninhibited emotionality of African Americans.[citation needed] Author James Baldwin similarly recommended that White Americans could quash any "Afrophobia" on their part by getting in touch with their repressed feelings, empathizing to overcome their "emotionally stunted" lives, and thereby overcome any dislike or fear of African Americans.[8]

In 2016, Tess Asplund made a viral protest against Neo-Nazism as part of her activism against Afrophobia.[9]

In academia

Some Afrophobic sentiments are based on the belief that Africans are unsophisticated. Such perceptions include the belief that Africans lack a history of

stereotypes perpetuate the notion that Africans still live in mud huts and carry spears, along with other notions that indicate their primitiveness.[10][11]

Afrophobia in academia may also occur through by oversight with regards to lacking deconstruction in mediums such as African art forms, omitting historical African polities in world cartography, or promoting a eurocentric viewpoint by ignoring historic African contributions to world civilization.[12]

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 9966835733
    . Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  2. ^ The Congregational Review, Volume 2. J.M. Whittemore. 1862. p. 629. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  3. ^ Roberto Castillo (August 12, 2016). "Claims of "China's Afrophobia" show we need new ways to think about race and racism". (posted originally at The Conversation, with the title Of washing powder, Afrophobia and racism in China, August 11, 2016)
  4. ^
    S2CID 33615987
    .
  5. ^
    S2CID 162869454
    .
  6. OCLC 1085905753.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  7. JSTOR 486417
    .
  8. ISBN 9780742509504
    .
  9. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  10. doi:10.1037/h0085518
    .
  11. ISBN 978-9956-763-54-2
    .
  12. S2CID 149746823
    .
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