Step-by-step explanation:
Cause #1: Greed and self-interest
Many experts believe racist beliefs were developed to justify self-interest and greed. For almost 400 years, European investors enslaved people through the Transatlantic slave trade to support the massive tobacco, sugar, and cotton industries in the Americas. Slavery was cheaper than indentured servitude, so slavery was a business decision, not a reflection of hatred or bigotry.
Chesapeake, which grew tobacco, provides a good example. For a while, land owners used indentured servants, most of whom were young men who signed a 4-7 year contract. Servants were exploited during their contract, but after their time was over, they were free. The first Africans, some of whom worked as indentured servants, likely arrived in 1619. However, by the 1660s, the number of indentured servants from Europe dwindled, so tobacco plantation owners began to rely on slavery to raise profits. What could justify the ownership of other humans? Defenders of slavery had a list of racist reasons, saying that slavery was part of God’s plan, it “civilized” Black people, and that some races were so inferior they were meant to be slaves. As Preston Tisdale wrote in an opinion piece for CTPost, “the demonization and dehumanization of African Americans needed to be powerful enough to obfuscate the horrors of slavery.” Racism has certainly proved powerful.
Cause #2: Scientific racism
While many say ignorance sparks racism, some of history’s most intelligent minds were behind racist ideas. Around the end of the 18th century, science replaced religion and superstition as the intellectual authority. In the way scientists started categorizing animals and plants, they also started categorizing humans. In 1776, German scientist Johann Fredrich Blumenbach classified humans into five groups, putting “Caucasian,” or “the white race” at the top. In the mid-1800s, Samuel George Morton posited that brain size was linked to intelligence. He concluded that white people had larger skulls and were therefore intellectually superior. While scientific texts were not widely available in this era, Morton’s ideas managed to spread in accessible publications, like cheap periodicals.
Scientific racism only grew stronger as the years went by. The Nazis relied heavily on classifications, eugenics, and other racist junk science when justifying their genocide. While no longer held in high regard, scientific racism continues to this day thanks to groups like the Pioneer Fund, which supports publications writing about race-based differences in intelligence.
Cause #3: Discriminatory policies
Policies that discriminate by race reinforce racist beliefs. It sends a message to society that certain people, simply because of their race, don’t deserve the same treatment or opportunities as everyone else. Governments use a variety of justifications, such as natural security or public health, that many won’t ever question. It rarely matters if those justifications are at all based in reality.
Housing laws are a prime example of this. In the United States, regulations kept Black people from owning houses in certain neighborhoods for decades, relegating them to lower-quality housing and preventing them from accumulating wealth. This process of providing housing to white, middle-class, and lower-middle-class families while excluding Black Americans and other Americans of color is known as “red-lining.” The Federal Housing Administration believed if Black Americans bought homes in or near suburbs, the property values would drop. The FHA had no facts to back up this belief. Red-lining had consequences that resonate to this day, including but not limited to a gap in generational wealth and racist beliefs about Black people.