Local Africans rejected racial categories until Europeans imposed them

Evidence

Blacks wisely gave no credence to race as such before having it thrust upon them by Europeans. Saul Dubow rightly comments, however, that prior to the twentieth century there was little if any locally sustained work formally undertaken in southern Africa on the “science” of race. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1426

Categorization

• QUESTION: Supports a general mechanism claim: an out-group absorbs a salient identity category only after a privileged group thrusts it on them - worth comparing to how gender categories are imposed vs. adopted.
• XREF: connects to: European colonization of Africa preceded and required the racist ideas justifying it — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 394; Colonial classifications imposed race categories that subjects never recognized as their own — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 650

Broader Connections

• Colonial classifications imposed race categories that subjects never recognized as their own #corroborates (0.90) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 650
• European colonization of Africa preceded and required the racist ideas justifying it #corroborates (0.88) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 394