Antebellum slaveholders saw their racism as the accepted norm, not deviance

Evidence

Loving reviews from distinguished medical journals and scientists came pouring into Philadelphia about Morton’s “immense body of facts.” Not from everyone, though. German Friedrich Tiedemann’s skull measurements did not match Morton’s hierarchy. So Tiedemann concluded there was racial equality. Like the Germantown petitioners in the 1600s, and John Woolman in the 1700s, Tiedemann showed that racists were never simply products of their time. Although most scholars made the easy, popular, professionally rewarding choice of racism, some did not. Some made the hard, unpopular choice of antiracism. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 479 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Slave owners saw their enslavement of Black people as normal, not prejudiced; Plantation slavery produced juridical racism, not the reverse; Antiblack prejudice in America followed slavery rather than preceding it (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Racism was a professionally rewarded choice, not an inevitable product of era #complicates (0.82) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 479
• Plantation slavery produced juridical racism, not the reverse #complicates (0.78)
• Antiblack prejudice in America followed slavery rather than preceding it #complicates (0.75)