Anti-African sentiment, Afroscepticism, or Afrophobia is prejudice, discrimination, or racism towards people and cultures of Africa and of the African diaspora.
Prejudice against Africans and people of African descent has a long history, dating back to ancient history, although it was especially prominent during the Atlantic slave trade, the trans-Saharan slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the Red Sea slave trade, and the colonial period. Under the pretence of white supremacism, Africans were often portrayed by Europeans as uncivilised and primitive, with colonial conquest branded civilising missions. Due to the use of oral tradition, and subsequent lack of written histories in most African cultures, African people were portrayed as having no history at all, despite having a long, complex, and varied history. The phenomenon of scientific racism spread in the 19th century as a pseudoscientific method of justifying white supremacist beliefs and the discrimination of African peoples. In the United States, Afrophobia influenced Jim Crow laws and segregated housing, schools, and public facilities.Greene, Frederick Dennis. "Immigrants in Chains: Afrophobia in American Legal History-The Harlem Debates Part 3." Or. L. Rev. 76 (1997): 537. In South Africa, it took the form of apartheid.
In recent years, there has been a rise in Afrophobic hate speech and violence in Europe and the United States. This has been attributed to a number of factors, including the growth of the African diaspora in these regions, the increase in refugees and migrants from Africa, and the rise of far-right and populist political parties.
In October 2017, the United Nations' Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) told the Human Rights Council that the human rights situation of Africans and people of African descent remained an urgent concern, citing racist violence, police brutality and killings, and systemic racism. Earlier that year, WGEPAD had recommended the term Afrophobia be used to describe "the unique and specific form of racial discrimination affecting people of African descent and African Diaspora".
Terminology Anti-African sentiment is prejudice or discrimination towards any of the various traditions and peoples of Africa for their perceived Africanness.Koenane, M.L.J. and Maphunye, K.J., 2015. Afrophobia, moral and political disguises: Sepa leholo ke la moeti. Td: The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa, 11(4), pp.83-98. It is distinct from, but may overlap with, Anti-Black racism or Negrophobia, which is contempt specifically for Black people of African descent, excluding other Africans such as white Africans or North Africans. The term Afrophobia may be used to describe both anti-Black racism and anti-African sentiment more broadly.Privot, M., 2014. Afrophobia and the ‘Fragmentation of Anti-racism.’. Visible Invisible Minority: Confronting Afrophobia and Advancing Equality for People of African Descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.31-38.Momodou, J. and Pascoët, J., 2014. Towards a European strategy to combat Afrophobia. European Network Against Racism, Invisible visible minority: Confronting Afrophobia and advancing equality for people of African descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.262-272.
Afrophobia The opposite of Afrophobia is Afrophilia, which is a love for all things pertaining to Africa.
Afroscepticism Anti-African sentiment and Afroscepticism are comparable terms to anti-Europeanism and Euroscepticism. Afroscepticism is positioned as an opposition to Africanity (the idea of a shared African culture), Africanization, or Afrocentrism, often seen as facets of Pan-Africanism.Oloruntoba-Oju, T., 2014. Location of African culture: Beyond Afroscepticism and the new cosmopolitan exotic. Culture and the Contemporary African, pp.120-53.Horsthemke, K., 2006. The idea of the African university in the twenty-first century: Some reflections on Afrocentrism and Afroscepticism. South African Journal of Higher Education, 20(4), pp.449-465.Nikolaidis, A.C. and Thompson, W.C., 2023. Epistemic injustice: complicity and promise in education. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 57(4-5), pp.781-790. Afroscepticism may include embracing Afropessimism, and rejecting traditional African practices or "African Indigenous Knowledge Systems".Gbogi, T., 2022. Against Afropolitanism: Race and the Black migrant body in contemporary African poetry. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, p.00219894221113767.Nokuzola, G.G. and Gqeba, L.M., 2023. Is Afrosceptism at the Core of the Deaths of South African Boys at Initiation Schools? The Contributory Effects of Undermining African Indigenous Knowledge Systems. African Renaissance, 20(4), p.367.Endong, F.P.C., 2021. Images as Afro-positivist narratives and counter hegemonic strategy: A study of# TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou. International Journal of Modern Anthropology, 2(16), pp.601-628. The Afropessimist view sees Africa in terms of "the negative traits described by AIDS, war, poverty and disease", and thus as unable to be helped.Bodziany, M. and Nowakowska, M., 2020. “Heart of Darkness” and “Dark Continent”: Africa and its Nations in Polish Media and Social Perception. Social Psychology & Society, 11(2).
Anti-Black racism
The term racism is not attested before the 20th century, but negrophobia (first recorded between 1810–1820; often capitalised), and later colourphobia (first recorded in 1834),"Colourphobia | Colorphobia, N., Etymology." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9131678901. likely originated within the abolitionist movement, where it was used as an analogy to rabies (then called hydrophobia) to describe the "mad dog" mindset behind the pro-slavery cause and its apparently contagious nature."Negrophobia, N., Etymology." Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/5704106894. J. L. A. Garcia refers to negrophobia as "the granddaddy" of terms such as xenophobia, Islamophobia and homophobia. Melanophobia has been used to refer to both anti-Black racismBiale, D., Galchinsky, M. and Heschel, S. eds., 1998. Insider/outsider: American Jews and multiculturalism. Univ of California Press. and colourism (prejudice against people with darker skin), especially in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.Madden, R., 2006. Tez de mulato. Colonialism and Race in Luso-Hispanic Literature, p.114.Torres-Saillant, S., 2003. Inventing the race: Latinos and the ethnoracial pentagon. Latino Studies, 1, pp.123-151.Mirmotahari, E., 2015. A Cloud of Semitic Mohammedanism: The African Novel and the Muslim Question in the National Age. Interventions, 17(1), pp.45-63.
By location It has been observed that writing and terminology about racism, including about Afrophobia, has been somewhat centered on the US. In 2016, "Afrophobia" has been used as a term for racism against darker-skinned persons in China. In such usage, that is an inexact term because the racism is directed against darker-skinned persons from anywhere, without regard to any connection to Africa. Conversely, Chinese views for lighter-than-average skin are more positive, as is reflected in advertising. (posted originally at The Conversation, with the title Of washing powder, Afrophobia and racism in China, August 11, 2016)
Scientific racism Scientific racism represents a pseudoscientific justification for the discriminatory treatment of Africans that gained popularity in the 19th century, following the publication of Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species (1859) and his concept of natural selection. Although his work focused primarily on the evolution of animal species, Social Darwinists such as Herbert Spencer later applied the principle of "survival of the fittest" to human society. The so-called "fittest" were considered innately more capable of survival amongst competition due to physical and intellectual superiority, providing an explanation for the comparative success of European empires against African societies at the time. The "father of the eugenics movement," Francis Galton, believed heavily in the biological importance of heredity and encouraged reproduction amongst the Anglo-Saxon population, and discouraged it amongst those he deemed "unfit" (often people of color) for the betterment of Western society.
The popularization of scientific racism was born from an emergence of ideas about the importance of heredity over environment in determining individual characteristics. This was combined with beliefs about the superiority of the White European (called "Aryanism" or "Teutonicism," and later "Nordicism") over other races, including the African, to produce scientific racist thought closely related to the emerging eugenics movement. Scientific racists utilized a pseudoscientific method of applying empiricism to "prove" innate biological differences between races. Measurements of cranium size were used in the 19th century to suggest that Africans and African-Americans were inherently inferior in terms of intelligence and capability.
Although scientifically racist ideas were common centuries earlier, Georges Vacher de Lapouge, a French writer, became the first to espouse a complete ideology of scientific racism with his works Social Selection (1896) and The Aryan and his Social Role (1899). Vacher de Lapouge divided the human population into distinct races based on head shape, with what he referred to as the "Dolichos" ("Aryans," or White Europeans) being the most superior and socially favorable. Africans and other races fell into the category of "Brachies," described by Vacher de Lapouge as being dark-skinned, timid, and without natural leadership abilities. These ideas of the existence of "superior" and "inferior" races and societies served to justify the colonialism and imperialism being done to Africans on the continent and racial discrimination within the diaspora, as well as contributed to the growth of the larger eugenics movement in 20th-century Germany and the United States.
Today, scientific racism is considered to be a pseudoscience as it does not align with the consensus of modern scientific thought. Its division of Africans and other peoples into separate groups with distinct mental and physical characteristics contradicts with 21st-century understandings of genetics, and represents a misapplication of anthropology and evolutionary biology.
Colonial historiography
Most African societies used oral tradition to record their history, meaning there was little written history. Colonial histories focussed on the exploits of soldiers, colonial administrators, and "colonial figures", using limited sources and written from an entirely European perspective, ignoring the viewpoint of the colonised under the pretence of white supremacism. Africans were considered racially inferior, supporting their "civilising mission". Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by most historians, giving them the impression Africa had no history and little desire to create it. Some colonisers took interest in the other viewpoint and attempted to produce a more detailed history of Africa using oral sources and archaeology, however they received little recognition at the time.
Stereotypes of Africa
Activism To overcome any perceived "Afrophobia", writer Langston Hughes suggested that European Americans must achieve peace of mind and accommodate the uninhibited emotionality of African Americans. Author James Baldwin similarly recommended that White Americans could quash any "Afrophobia" on their part by getting in touch with their repressed feelings, empathizing to overcome their "emotionally stunted" lives, and thereby overcome any dislike or fear of African Americans.