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== Terminology ==
== Terminology ==
Anti-African sentiment is prejudice or discrimination towards any of the various traditions and peoples of [[Africa]] for their perceived Africanness.<ref name=":2">Koenane, M.L.J. and Maphunye, K.J., 2015. Afrophobia, moral and political disguises: Sepa leholo ke la moeti. ''Td: The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa'', ''11''(4), pp.83-98.</ref><ref name="Pwpa"/> It is distinct from, but may overlap with, [[Anti-Black sentiment|anti-Black racism]] or ''Negrophobia'', which is contempt specifically for [[Black people#Africa|Black people of African descent]]'','' excluding other Africans such as [[White Africans of European ancestry|white Africans]] or [[North Africa|North Africans]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Congregational Review, Volume 2|year=1862|publisher=J.M. Whittemore|page=629|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LkZKAAAAMAAJ|access-date=10 December 2015}}</ref> The term ''Afrophobia'' may be used to describe both anti-Black racism and anti-African sentiment more broadly.<ref>Privot, M., 2014. Afrophobia and the ‘Fragmentation of Anti-racism.’. ''Visible Invisible Minority: Confronting Afrophobia and Advancing Equality for People of African Descent and Black Europeans in Europe'', pp.31-38.</ref><ref>Momodou, J. and Pascoët, J., 2014. Towards a European strategy to combat Afrophobia. ''European Network Against Racism, Invisible visible minority: Confronting Afrophobia and advancing equality for people of African descent and Black Europeans in Europe'', pp.262-272.</ref><ref name=":2" />
Anti-African sentiment is prejudice or discrimination towards any of the various traditions and peoples of [[Africa]] for their perceived Africanness.<ref name=":2">Koenane, M.L.J. and Maphunye, K.J., 2015. Afrophobia, moral and political disguises: Sepa leholo ke la moeti. ''Td: The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa'', ''11''(4), pp.83-98.</ref><ref name="Pwpa"/> It is distinct from, but may overlap with, [[Anti-Black sentiment|anti-Black racism]] or ''Negrophobia'', which is contempt specifically for [[Black people#Africa|Black people of African descent]]'','' excluding other Africans such as [[White Africans of European ancestry|white Africans]] or [[North Africa|North Africans]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The Congregational Review, Volume 2|year=1862|publisher=J.M. Whittemore|page=629|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LkZKAAAAMAAJ|access-date=10 December 2015}}</ref> The term ''Afrophobia'' may be used to describe both anti-Black racism and anti-African sentiment more broadly.<ref name=":3">Privot, M., 2014. Afrophobia and the ‘Fragmentation of Anti-racism.’. ''Visible Invisible Minority: Confronting Afrophobia and Advancing Equality for People of African Descent and Black Europeans in Europe'', pp.31-38.</ref><ref>Momodou, J. and Pascoët, J., 2014. Towards a European strategy to combat Afrophobia. ''European Network Against Racism, Invisible visible minority: Confronting Afrophobia and advancing equality for people of African descent and Black Europeans in Europe'', pp.262-272.</ref><ref name=":2" />


=== Afrophobia ===
=== Afrophobia ===
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==Activism==
==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]].{{cn|date=January 2024}} 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.<ref name="Washington">{{cite book|date=2001|title=The Ideologies of African American Literature|author =Washington, Robert E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PP6DSxXSFhsC|page=272|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]]|isbn=9780742509504}}</ref>
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]].{{cn|date=January 2024}} 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.<ref name="Washington">{{cite book|date=2001|title=The Ideologies of African American Literature|author =Washington, Robert E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PP6DSxXSFhsC|page=272|publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]]|isbn=9780742509504}}</ref>

Originally established in 1998 by "approximately 150" organisations from across the [[European Union]], the [[European Network Against Racism]] (ENAR) aimed to combat "racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism — the accepted categories of the [[Anti-racism|anti-racist]] struggle at that time". However, Afrophobia wasn't specifically named as a focus of the network until 2011, at the behest of Black civil rights activists.<ref name=":3" />


In 2016, [[Tess Asplund]] made a viral protest against [[Neo-Nazism]] as part of her activism against Afrophobia.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/04/woman-defied-neo-nazis-sweden-tess-asplund-viral-photograph|title=Woman who defied 300 neo-Nazis at Swedish rally speaks of anger|last=Crouch|first=David|date=2016-05-04|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077|access-date=2016-12-08}}</ref>
In 2016, [[Tess Asplund]] made a viral protest against [[Neo-Nazism]] as part of her activism against Afrophobia.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/04/woman-defied-neo-nazis-sweden-tess-asplund-viral-photograph|title=Woman who defied 300 neo-Nazis at Swedish rally speaks of anger|last=Crouch|first=David|date=2016-05-04|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077|access-date=2016-12-08}}</ref>

Revision as of 13:17, 14 August 2024

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This article is about negative sentiment towards African peoples and societies, regardless of race. For negative sentiment towards Black people, 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 Atlantic slave trade and the colonial period. Following the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, Africans were often portrayed as uncivilised and primitive, with colonial conquest branded 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.[2] 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' Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) told the Human Rights Council that the human rights situation of Africans and people of African descent remained an urgent concern, citing racist violence, police brutality and killings, and systemic racism.[3] Earlier that year, WGEPAD had recommended the term Afrophobia be used to describe "the unique and specific form of racial discrimination affecting people of African descent and African Diaspora".[4]

Terminology

Anti-African sentiment is prejudice or discrimination towards any of the various traditions and peoples of Africa for their perceived Africanness.[5][1] It is distinct from, but may overlap with, anti-Black racism or Negrophobia, which is contempt specifically for Black people of African descent, excluding other Africans such as white Africans or North Africans.[6] The term Afrophobia may be used to describe both anti-Black racism and anti-African sentiment more broadly.[7][8][5]

Afrophobia

This section is an excerpt from Anti-Black racism § Afrophobia.[edit]
Afrophobia, or Afriphobia, is often used to describe racism (particularly systemic racism) against Black people of African descent, such as by the European Network Against Racism (ENAR).[9][10] Others use Afrophobia to describe racism and xenophobia against people of African descent, and against especially indigenous Africans, for their perceived Africanness. This may also include prejudice against African traditions and culture. For example, Afrophobia is used to describe xenophobia in South Africa against people of other African nationalities for being too racially Black, too culturally African, or both.[11]

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

Afroscepticism

Anti-African sentiment and Afroscepticism are similar to anti-Europeanism and Euroscepticism and can refer to three different ideas:[citation needed]

  1. 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.

Anti-Black racism

This section is an excerpt from Anti-Black racism § Anti-Black racism.[edit]

Anti-Black racism was a term first used by Canadian scholar Dr. Akua Benjamin in a 1992 report on Ontario race relations. It is defined as follows:

Anti-Black racism is a specific manifestation of racism rooted in European colonialism, slavery and oppression of Black people since the sixteenth century. It is a structure of iniquities in power, resources and opportunities that systematically disadvantages people of African descent.[12]

The term quickly came to be used to refer to racism against other groups also considered Black,[13][14] such as Indigenous Australians (who sometimes prefer the term Blak) and Melanesians.[15][16]

Negrophobia

This section is an excerpt from Anti-Black racism § Negrophobia and colourphobia.[edit]

The term racism is not attested before the 20th century,[17] but negrophobia (first recorded between 1810–1820; often capitalised), and later colourphobia (first recorded in 1834),[18][19] likely originated within the abolitionist movement, where it was used as an analogy to rabies (then called hydrophobia) to describe the "mad dog" mindset behind the pro-slavery cause and its apparently contagious nature.[20][21][22][23] In 1819, the term was used in U.S. Congressional debates to refer to a "violent aversion or hatred of Negroes".[24]

The term negrophobia may also have been inspired by the word nigrophilism, itself first appearing in 1802 in Baudry des Lozières's Les égarements du nigrophilisme.[25] Noting the shift of -phobia terms to cover prejudice and hatred rather than mere fear or aversion, J. L. A. Garcia refers to negrophobia as "the granddaddy of these ‘-phobia’ terms", preceding both xenophobia and homophobia.[22]

Both at the time, and since, critics of the terms negrophobia and colourphobia have argued that, although their use of -phobia is rhetorical, if taken literally they could be used to excuse or justify the behaviour of racists as mental illness or disease. John Dick, publisher of The North Star, voiced such concerns as early as 1848 while legal scholar Jody David Armour has voiced similar concerns in the 21st century.[22][9] Nevertheless, negrophobia had a clinical and satirical edge that made it popular with abolitionists.[22][23] In 1856, abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe published Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp, a novel which explored the fear of Blackness within negrophobia via the titular character Dred, a Black revolutionary Maroon.[26]

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.[27]

Scientific racism and colonial historiography

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

The academic discipline of history arrived with the discovery and colonisation of Africa and involved the study of Africa and its history by European academics and historians.[28] Prior to colonisation in the 19th century, most African societies used oral tradition to record their history, including in cases where they had developed or had access to a writing script, resulting in there being little written history, and the domination of European powers across the continent meant African history was written entirely from an European perspective under the pretence of Western superiority supported by scientific racism.[29] This predilection stemmed from the perceived technological superiority of European nations and the decentralization of the African continent with no nation being a clear power in the region, as well as a perception of Africans as racially inferior.[30] Another factor was the lack of an established body of collective African history created in the continent, there being instead a multitude of different dialects, cultural groups and fluctuating nations as well as a diverse set of mediums that document history other than 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.[31]

Stereotypes of Africa

Main article: Stereotypes of 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.[32]

Originally established in 1998 by "approximately 150" organisations from across the European Union, the European Network Against Racism (ENAR) aimed to combat "racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism — the accepted categories of the anti-racist struggle at that time". However, Afrophobia wasn't specifically named as a focus of the network until 2011, at the behest of Black civil rights activists.[7]

In 2016, Tess Asplund made a viral protest against Neo-Nazism as part of her activism against Afrophobia.[33]

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 civilization, and visual imagery of such stereotypes perpetuate the notion that Africans still live in mud huts and carry spears, along with other notions that indicate their primitiveness.[34][35]

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.[36]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Kivuto Ndeti; Kenneth R. Gray; Gerard Bennaars (1992). The second scramble for Africa: a response & a critical analysis of the challenges facing contempory [sic] sub-Saharan Africa. Professors World Peace Academy. p. 127. ISBN 9966835733. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  2. ^ Cooper, Frederick (2000). "Africa's Pasts and Africa's Historians". Canadian Journal of African Studies. 34 (2): 298–336. doi:10.2307/486417. JSTOR 486417.
  3. ^ "Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent to the Human Rights Council: the Human Rights Situation of Persons of African Descent Remains an Urgent Concern". United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2022-10-02. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  4. ^ "Statement to the media by the United Nations' Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, on the conclusion of its official visit to Germany, 20-27 February 2017". Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. 2017-02-27. Retrieved 2024-08-14.
  5. ^ a b Koenane, M.L.J. and Maphunye, K.J., 2015. Afrophobia, moral and political disguises: Sepa leholo ke la moeti. Td: The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 11(4), pp.83-98.
  6. ^ The Congregational Review, Volume 2. J.M. Whittemore. 1862. p. 629. Retrieved 10 December 2015.
  7. ^ a b Privot, M., 2014. Afrophobia and the ‘Fragmentation of Anti-racism.’. Visible Invisible Minority: Confronting Afrophobia and Advancing Equality for People of African Descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.31-38.
  8. ^ Momodou, J. and Pascoët, J., 2014. Towards a European strategy to combat Afrophobia. European Network Against Racism, Invisible visible minority: Confronting Afrophobia and advancing equality for people of African descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.262-272.
  9. ^ a b Privot, M., 2014. Afrophobia and the ‘Fragmentation of Anti-racism.’. Visible Invisible Minority: Confronting Afrophobia and Advancing Equality for People of African Descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.31-38.
  10. ^ Momodou, J. and Pascoët, J., 2014. Towards a European strategy to combat Afrophobia. European Network Against Racism, Invisible visible minority: Confronting Afrophobia and advancing equality for people of African descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.262-272.
  11. ^ Koenane, M.L.J. and Maphunye, K.J., 2015. Afrophobia, moral and political disguises: Sepa leholo ke la moeti. Td: The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 11(4), pp.83-98.
  12. ^ Husbands, Winston; Lawson, Daeria O.; Etowa, Egbe B.; Mbuagbaw, Lawrence; Baidoobonso, Shamara; Tharao, Wangari; Yaya, Sanni; Nelson, LaRon E.; Aden, Muna; Etowa, Josephine (2022-10-01). "Black Canadians' Exposure to Everyday Racism: Implications for Health System Access and Health Promotion among Urban Black Communities". Journal of Urban Health. 99 (5): 829–841. doi:10.1007/s11524-022-00676-w. ISSN 1468-2869. PMC 9447939. PMID 36066788.
  13. ^ MacMaster, Neil (2001), MacMaster, Neil (ed.), "Anti-Black Racism in an Age of Total War", Racism in Europe 1870–2000, London: Macmillan Education UK, pp. 117–139, doi:10.1007/978-1-4039-4033-9_5, ISBN 978-1-4039-4033-9, retrieved 2024-07-21
  14. ^ Shilliam, Robbie (2015). The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections (1 ed.). Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. doi:10.5040/9781474218788.ch-003. ISBN 978-1-4742-1878-8.
  15. ^ Barwick, Daniel; Nayak, Anoop (2024-07-08). "The Transnationalism of the Black Lives Matter Movement: Decolonization and Mapping Black Geographies in Sydney, Australia". Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 114 (7): 1587–1603. doi:10.1080/24694452.2024.2363782. ISSN 2469-4452.
  16. ^ Fredericks, Bronwyn; Bradfield, Abraham (2021-04-27). "'I'm Not Afraid of the Dark': White Colonial Fears, Anxieties, and Racism in Australia and Beyond". M/C Journal. 24 (2). doi:10.5204/mcj.2761. ISSN 1441-2616.
  17. ^ "Definition of RACISM". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2024-07-20.
  18. ^ "Definition of COLORPHOBIA". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2024-07-20.
  19. ^ "Colourphobia | Colorphobia, N., Etymology." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9131678901.
  20. ^ "Negrophobia, N., Etymology." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5704106894.
  21. ^ "Dictionary.com | Meanings & Definitions of English Words". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2024-07-20.
  22. ^ a b c d Garcia, J. L .A. "Racism and the Discourse of Phobias: Negrophobia, Xenophobia and More---Dialogue with Kim and Sundstrom". SUNY Open Access Repository. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-07-03.
  23. ^ a b "The Anti-Slavery Roots of Today's "-Phobia" Obsession". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved 2024-07-20.
  24. ^ "Negrophobia | Etymology of Negrophobia by etymonline". www.etymonline.com. Retrieved 2024-07-20.
  25. ^ Une Autre Histoire (13 January 2015). "Négrophobie". une-autre-histoire.org. Retrieved 6 May 2020.
  26. ^ McLaughlin, Don James (2019). "Dread: The Phobic Imagination in Antislavery Literature". J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. 7 (1): 21–48. doi:10.1353/jnc.2019.0001. ISSN 2166-7438.
  27. ^ 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)
  28. ^ Manning, Patrick (2013). "African and World Historiography". The Journal of African History. 54 (3): 319–330. doi:10.1017/S0021853713000753. ISSN 0021-8537. JSTOR 43305130. S2CID 33615987.
  29. ^ Roberts, A.D. (1978). "The Earlier Historiography of Colonial Africa". History in Africa. 5: 153–167. doi:10.2307/3171484. ISSN 0361-5413. JSTOR 3171484. S2CID 162869454.
  30. ^ Fanon, Frantz (December 2007). The wretched of the earth. Philcox, Richard; Sartre, Jean-Paul; Bhabha, Homi K. New York. ISBN 9780802198853. OCLC 1085905753.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  31. ^ Cooper, Frederick (2000). "Africa's Pasts and Africa's Historians". Canadian Journal of African Studies. 34 (2): 298–336. doi:10.2307/486417. JSTOR 486417.
  32. ^ Washington, Robert E. (2001). The Ideologies of African American Literature. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 272. ISBN 9780742509504.
  33. ^ Crouch, David (2016-05-04). "Woman who defied 300 neo-Nazis at Swedish rally speaks of anger". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2016-12-08.
  34. ^ Mays, Vickie M. (1985). "The Black American and psychotherapy: The dilemma". Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training. 22 (2S): 379–388. doi:10.1037/h0085518.
  35. ^ Marongwe, Ngonidzashe; Mawere, Munyaradzi (2016). "Violence, Identity and Politics of Belonging: The April 2015 Afrophobic Attacks in South Africa and the Emergence of Some Discourses". In Munyaradzi, Mawere; Ngonidzashe, Marongwe (eds.). Violence, Politics and Conflict Management in Africa: Envisioning Transformation, Peace and Unity in the Twenty-First Century. Langaa RPCIG. pp. 89–116. ISBN 978-9956-763-54-2.
  36. ^ Skinner, Ryan Thomas (24 April 2018). "Walking, talking, remembering: an Afro-Swedish critique of being-in-the-world". African and Black Diaspora. 12 (1): 1–19. doi:10.1080/17528631.2018.1467747. S2CID 149746823.
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