Description

Racism has not existed since the dawn of time. This chapter explains that racism is a socio-historical phenomenon thrown up by the rebirth of chattel slavery, when the newly-born capitalist system required a form of coerced labour to power its New World plantation economy - the engine-room of the new mode of production. This reborn chattel slave system eventually became distinguished by the skin-colour of the enslaved, giving rise to the whole new constellation of ideas, social psychology and cultural practices of racial oppression and racism.