Every time I see a conservative attempt to use historical imperialism and caste systems by non-European countries to justify why racism can’t possibly be real I cringe and want them to read more than the Wikipedia page.

They’re dangerously close to a decent understanding of the foundations that white supremacy was built on but want to ignore the historical reality of the past 200+ years to instead complain about the Ottoman Empire and North African colonialism into Spain. And always Japan.

Like that’s part of why that bullshit race science stuff was invented. The wealthy, educated, European ruling class knew the choice they were making was morally wrong & chose to invent racism to justify it. Let’s be clear here, that’s why we still talk about European colonialism.

You cannot use Europe’s historical status as a victim of colonialism, slave trades and non-European Imperialism to argue against contemporary racism, because all that does is show the moral gymnastics that took place to justify their own.

Also, it ignores the entire slave class that existed within pre-renaissance (and in some cases pre-industrial age) which were a huge source of Europe’s wealth because they were a working class that didn’t need to be paid for their labour. And that’s prior to the slave trade.

And I don’t want to hear any attempt to twist the serf class into anything other than what it was. Serfs were, for all intents and purposes, slaves. They were bound to serve with minimal to no personal rights and pretty much no available recourse for upward mobility or justice.

That’s the reality of it. You cannot wipe away white supremacy as a talking point by pointing out history in a deceitful and gross way. You can’t distract it by pointing to the Japanese. Or India. Or the Mongols. Imperialism doesn’t justify imperialism.

I’m gonna delete this soon but I’m just very frustrated by people trying to bend history for their own ends. It simply doesn’t add up.