European racism predates African enslavement and originated as intra-European domination

Evidence

At the very beginnings of European civilization (meaning literally the reappearance of urban life at the end of the first Christian millennium), the integration of the Germanic migrants with older European peoples resulted in a social order of domination from which a racial theory of order emerged; one from which the medieval nobilities would immerse themselves and their power in fictional histories, positing distinct racial origins for rulers and the dominated. The extension of slavery and the application of racism to non-European peoples as an organizing structure by first the ruling feudal strata and then the bourgeoisies of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries retained this practical habit, this social convention. … Moreover, European racialism was to undergo a kind of doubling onto itself, for in between the era of intra-European racism that characterized the first appearance of European consciousness and the predatory era of African enslavement, is the almost entirely exogenous phenomenon of Islamic domination of the Mediterranean—the eventual fount of European revitalization and recivilization. Independent of the historical meshings of European development but profoundly restricting that development—first in literally retarding European social development by isolating it from civil life, science, speculative thought, and so on, and then, after four centuries, by accelerating its recovery from the twelfth century onward—Muslim civilization mapped the contours of the European cultural renaissance. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 384

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Builds on Part I’s account (chapter on racial capitalism) and connects to the ‘four moments of European racialism’ that follow in this chapter.
• QUESTION: The claim that Islamic domination ‘mapped the contours of the European cultural renaissance’ raises a question about how Robinson’s account interacts with standard Mediterranean historiography.

Related

• European racism began as intra-European class domination before it was applied to Africans. (similarity 0.91)
• Europeans already possessed race as a ready concept before enslaving Africans (similarity 0.88)
• European racialism has four analytically distinct historical moments (similarity 0.88)
• European nations tolerated Nazism because it was first used against non-European peoples. (similarity 0.88)
• European racism began inside Europe before capitalism or African encounters (similarity 0.87)
• Racialism pervaded Western consciousness before and beyond capitalism (similarity 0.87)
• Race replaced medieval citizenship as the principle of European social order. (similarity 0.86)
• European racialism originated in intra-European caste ordering, not color (similarity 0.85)
• Racism has no universal structure but only historically specific forms (similarity 0.85)
• European racial hierarchy is ancient, predating modern slavery (similarity 0.85)
• European racial ideology predates colonial encounters and was extended to non-Europeans later (similarity 0.85)
• Islamic societies originated modern racial stratification and racialized slavery (similarity 0.85)
• Islamic Mediterranean civilization both retarded and then accelerated Europe’s development, seeding anti-Islamic racism. (similarity 0.85)
• Europe’s first racialized view of Africans came through Islam’s armies (similarity 0.85)
• Racial difference had to be manufactured before Europeans seemed alien (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Racism originated in internal relations among European peoples, not colonial contacts #corroborates (0.95) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 115
• Racism against Europeans like the Irish predated color-based slavery #exemplifies (0.85) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1725
• European racialism originated in intra-European caste ordering, not color #corroborates (0.85)
• Racism is a structural feature of European civilization, not the exception of colonial adventurers #expands (0.80) — Frantz Fanon, Constance Farrington, Black skin, white masks, 338
• European racial hierarchy is ancient, predating modern slavery #corroborates (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1700
• Racial hierarchy and whiteness were invented inside Europe before modern capitalism #corroborates (0.75)
• Medieval racial classification from Noah’s sons seeded later European denials of African achievement #expands (0.65) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 158
• The Negro and whiteness were invented in Europe through scholarly effort #expands (0.60)