Maddy Glotfelty

The Color Red

“Black Lives Matter!” has been a call across the world recently, echoing into the recesses of
society. It is the cause for both peaceful and not-so-peaceful marches, a call for change, but why
is it necessary? The answer is as simple in its roots as it is vast in its effect on the world.
Colonization.

Colonization was experienced by the people of what is now Malawi. The land of current day
Malawi was originally colonized by Britain, who took the liberty of naming it Nyasaland.
Government figures created legislation that suppressed the different cultures in favor of
European security and cheap labor. This was a time of relative peace in the region, at least for the
white males. This ill-formed peace lasted until the idea of the Federation of Nyasaland and
Rhodesia was enacted despite protests from the native people. This caused a pull for more input
from the people in their governing system, which would later be granted. The nation gained
independence from European powers, but not from the racist colonial ideals instilled in the
country for a century, and which continue to be present across the globe today.

Through systematic colonization, such as that of Nyasaland, you can see the fundamental
building blocks of racism. As is true with most false ideologies, if you want to destroy a
structure, you must first know how it is built. If you want to shatter an erroneous ideal, you must
first know its pressure points.

Race is not an ideology that was born with society. Claiming that race was an idea that was born
with the first human is the equivalent of claiming that the color red is better than the color red. If
that doesn’t make sense, then perhaps you can be consoled by the fact that it shouldn’t. The idea
of race does not, at its core, make sense. To determine that one person is more likely to be dumb
or smart, civilized or barbaric based on Their melanin levels is ridiculous. So how did the idea of
race become so prominent that people are marching in protest even now? Because we continue to
follow the colonial ideals of racism despite having learned so much since they were formed, and
to treat colonization like a beacon of civilization rather than the massacre of people and culture
that it was.

The roots of colonial racism lie in the greed of the colonizers. Colonial structures were not
created so that the black natives and white colonists could interact peacefully, but rather for the
black natives to be beneath the white men in station and economic capability: “The political
truces of 1896 were not ones designed to encourage two radically different peoples to live and
work together towards unity and equality. Rather peace was imposed by the white man first to
give him security against further African uprisings. Secondly, the truces were designed to
provide a steady stream of African labor for European farms and mines.”(Richardson, et al)

This exemplifies the way in which colonization can be seen as an economic propeller, because it
solves the two problems that most large organizations encounter as they grow: where to find
resources (land, raw materials) and labor. Now we see the benefits of colonization for the
colonizers, but how does this explain the origins of racism? Because racism itself was a way to
justify the use of yet another resource, people.

One of the two problems most organizations face as they grow is labor. Businesses don’t run
themselves, and cheap labor isn’t common. So, when Africa was being divided by European
powers during the Berlin Conference it was not lost on the participants that one of the most
valuable resources were humans. Indeed, the slave trade was, at one point, an extremely
profitable business in and of itself. In order to justify this profit, Europeans decided that having
darker skin made you inferior to those people with lighter skin. This idea morphed over many
years, until race was inseparable from the realities of society.

In testimony by Joseph Bismark, a Malawian man born in 1859, he discusses the injustices that
the people of Nyasaland faced on a day to day basis based on differences in skin color: “If you
pass along a street with a hat on, if you don’t be polite you will suffer for it… I have been three
times, myself, assaulted… When he meets a European on the way whom he does not know and
when he gets about 10 yards from the European, he says ‘Good morning, Bwana’, he takes off
his hat and nothing is said to him…” The man then goes on to describe his own experience: “My
friends, who were in front, passed on, and I saw him coming, and when he was close to me, I
took off my hat. And he said “Take off your hat, you nyani [baboon]”. And I said “I am not a
nyani. I am a living being like yourself”. He said “I will shoot you”. And he pulled out his
revolver. And I said ‘Shoot me’. And I said ‘Why?’ And he said ‘You are a blackman and I am a
whiteman, and you must take off your hat.’” (McCracken 32) Reflecting on this causes pause
because, although racism might not manifest itself in this way now, the racism we employ today
is just as degrading and dehumanizing to the recipient as this was. It comes down to the idea that
if you get told you have less worth than another person enough times, one day you will begin to
believe it to be true.

Colonialism was used in order to make profit and it did this both quickly and effectively, but
when that money was spent, and the land's resources depleted all that we left behind was a trail
of racism and people who had lost not only their way, but their voices as well. And so now it is
our job and the job of our society to leave the trail behind, and help those that we have
oppressed, in the hope that when they find their voice again, they don’t whisper, they roar. Just as
Nyasaland would later become Malawi because they all chose to stand and fight rather than sit
idly - we too must become independent of the colonial ideals that created race.
 Works Cited

McCracken, John ed. Voices from the Chilembwe Rising: Witness Testimonies made to the
Nyasaland Rising Commission of Inquiry, 1915, British Academy’s Fontes Historiae Africanae
(Sources of African History), New Series. Oxford University Press via http://global.oup. com/
academic/product/ voices-from-the-chilembwerising-9780197265925. Date Accessed 19
October 2020.

Richardson, Channing, et al. “The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland.”Africa Today

Pamphlet: Vol. 4 1959 Pp. 2 kora.matrix.msu.edu/files/50/304/32-130-B60-84-32-130-B60-84-
al.sff.document.acoa000245.pdf