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Are agrarian societies the reason why skin colour is selected as the criteria for colonial racism?
Is racism towards dark skin people an outcome of colonization, or simply a question of class?
In ancient times, Asian cultures (and most cultures more or less in the globe) depended on agriculture. Those who were born into loaded families didn't need to cultivate in the rice paddies, or millet/wheat fields hence they didn’t spend all day underneath sun and their skin persisted as light-coloured. On the other hand, the "low-class" farmers who spent all day in the field acquired tanned skin and were looked down by the upper class.
What are the reasons that in the period of the epoch of colonization, the ideology of race centralized so much on skin colours, and what were the reasons that this was so easily acknowledged? Did it have something to do with agrarian societies?
The enquiry here is very subtlety: what is the mental backdrop for selecting skin colour as a racial indicant; why not select another indicant, like placement? Why did the light versus dark continuum add up as a racial indicant, but yet say the East versus West continuum didn't?
I don't mean to offend anyone but I think this is worth discussing.
Is racism towards dark skin people an outcome of colonization, or simply a question of class?
In ancient times, Asian cultures (and most cultures more or less in the globe) depended on agriculture. Those who were born into loaded families didn't need to cultivate in the rice paddies, or millet/wheat fields hence they didn’t spend all day underneath sun and their skin persisted as light-coloured. On the other hand, the "low-class" farmers who spent all day in the field acquired tanned skin and were looked down by the upper class.
What are the reasons that in the period of the epoch of colonization, the ideology of race centralized so much on skin colours, and what were the reasons that this was so easily acknowledged? Did it have something to do with agrarian societies?
The enquiry here is very subtlety: what is the mental backdrop for selecting skin colour as a racial indicant; why not select another indicant, like placement? Why did the light versus dark continuum add up as a racial indicant, but yet say the East versus West continuum didn't?
I don't mean to offend anyone but I think this is worth discussing.