The Italo-Ethiopian War triggered militant racial consciousness in the West Indies.
Evidence
Some colonial authorities would trace the disturbances of the late 1930s in the West Indies to the Italo-Ethiopian War. In 1938, Sir Selsyn Grier would inform his audience at an Oxford University seminar on colonial administration: “Repercussions of the Italo-Abyssinian War were profound and widespread. The people of the West Indies saw in it an unprovoked attack by the European upon the African, and this gave rise to a feeling of racial animosity.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2417
Categorization
Category: Causal Relationships
- XREF: Builds on the book’s causal thread of how external events (war, imperialism) catalyzed Black radical consciousness. Connects to earlier discussion of race consciousness formation.
Related
- The Italo-Ethiopian War inflamed racial antagonism across the West Indies (similarity 0.93)
- The Ethiopian War exposed colonialism’s reality and promised African revolutionary counterparts to Leninism (similarity 0.79)
- The Italo-Ethiopian War ended James’s tutorship under European radical thought. (similarity 0.79)
- World War I and right-wing politics drove French racism into colonial policy (similarity 0.78)
Broader Connections
- African conscription in World War I triggered postwar racialization and reaction.
#expands(0.60) — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 601 - Colonial accusations of indolence and insolence were codes for racial unfitness.
#corroborates(0.55)