Slavery went unchallenged in surviving literature since ancient times. Aristotle, for instance, just assumed it was the natural order. Enslaved people were against it, of course, but if they left written evidence, it did not survive. Not until the 16th century do we find protest.

For the ancients, slavery was primarily something a tribe or society would do to defeated enemies in war. There is evidence of its existence around the world. In the ancient "classical" era, it became an economic function, part of class systems.

The Romans brought the institution to its highest pitch. Enslaved people now constituted a significant percentage of the empire's population. I believe this aspect of the empire was a factor in the rise of Christianity, and the eventual collapse of the system.

After this, slavery still existed in the world, but not as universally as during the Roman period. Under feudalism, an extreme class system perpetuated bondage by other means. Serfdom was a less overt kind of enslavement, but similar in many ways. It lasted in Russia until 1861.

The enslavement of Africans which was perpetrated after Europeans discovered the existence of previously unknown continents, was in many ways a new kind of institution. With the prospect of untold wealth to be gained in America, the idea of race was invented to justify slavery.

European powers realized that unpaid labor would create incredibly vast wealth for them in America. The notion of universal Christian values was nothing but a veneer when it came to the possibility of such wealth. These other "races" were heathen, first of all, thus undeserving.

But the idea of race was more elemental than this superficial doctrine of "pagan" people, who still merited some type of "conversion." Race is essentially the idea that these non-Europeans with different skin color were inherently inferior to white people.

The other "races" were therefore born to be enslaved by the superior race. The greedy people who invented race persuaded themselves of this, because of their basic narrow "self-interest" (greater than any religious faith), while they exploited the common fear of difference.

The European powers treated all others as worthy of enslavement, but complex historical factors made them focus most of their efforts for chattel slavery on Africa, where they could most quickly capture and transport the most people to America to work on their plantations.

I find it significant that the first glimmerings of European awareness, feeble as they were, occurred in the 16th century, immediately following the "discovery" of the so-called new world (America). The business of enslavement, and the brutality of the methods, was a new thing.

Yet evidence for the concept of abolition in European writings doesn't appear until the 18th century. That's how long it took for some white people to realize that what was happening was a crime. This realization was sparked by the voices of escaped and freed black people.

Most historians draw a distinction between traditional slavery as it developed in the ancient world (as reprehensible as that was) and the enslavement of Africans that began in the 16th century. The latter was larger and more pernicious, and was based on racist ideology.

The very concept of race was created as a justification for slavery. That was its only purpose and function. Instilled through generations, racism became a core belief in the minds of people of European origin, taking on many characteristics supplementing its original purpose.

Fear and hatred of the "other" and the "different," tribalism, scapegoating, seeing others as rivals for economic goods, the general desire to feel superior to someone. There are too many such characteristics to name in detail here. But the central link to slavery is essential.

"Race" was attached to Jewish people in the 19th century, as part of an immense racist movement that culminated in Nazism. Previously, the persecution was based almost exclusively on religious bigotry. Racist ideology tapped into that old bigotry to create "antisemitism."

This old tribal hatred (propagated by Christian churches for centuries) injected a potent shot of energy into racist ideology. Racism became sophisticated and "modern." A bogus science of race was created. Every non-white person was declared a lower kind of animal.

But prior to this, racists relied on the Bible to argue for the legitimacy of slavery. As in the ancient world in general, the Hebrew and Greek (Christian) scriptures assumed slavery as an unquestioned social reality. Racists clung to that, to justify their beliefs and practices.

There was even a popular argument from the Book of Genesis that black people were descended from Ham, whose offspring was cursed by Noah to perpetual slavery. The use of religious scripture to bolster oppression is surely a familiar thing by now, driven by warped self-interest.

We have to talk about race because it became embedded in the U.S. social order, including its class structure, cultural tropes, and much else. Even as we do so, we also need to understand that it's a concept that was created to justify slavery, not a scientific phenomenon.

Different human characteristics such as hair, skin color, facial features, etc., are the results of thousands of years of evolution. They are not fixed. The only reason there are apparent categories is that people lived in the same environments for millennia.

There is wide diversity of characteristics within the so-called "races." The slaver and the colonizer simply ignore the differences, which are irrelevant to their purpose. In the movies, all Indians wore feather war bonnets. Part of the racist method is to ignore diversity.

Racism is a monumental pile of lies. Race is nonsense. We struggle with it because the lie is embedded in our social order. It doesn't go away by pretending to be "color blind." It has to be dismantled: politically, economically, intellectually, spiritually.