I am a minor. I am Black. I am a woman. In the past three days, I’ve received dozens of racist death threats and comments reducing me to the six letters of the n-word, all from people who had the audacity to call me “racist” for an article I’ve written on Black people being rightfully anti-white.
I know anti-whiteness, or “racism” as some would say, sounds like a very radical idea, but it really isn’t. Having a hatred for whiteness is a justified feeling, especially if you’re a Black woman living in America today. I shouldn’t have to be compassionate towards the same group of people that continue to spout the unrealistic fallacy of “colorblindness,” while calling me a n*gger in the same sentence as a means to dehumanize me.
“All because they were offended by a well-educated black woman stating facts that they aren’t accustomed to. “
Many of the responses I received lied within the bounds of “the word slave derives from the world Slav!” and “why do you hate white people? That means I can be anti-Black! Racist liberals!”
My favorite of all of them was “what about the Barbary slave trade?”
The Barbary Slave Trade took place in the 16th-18th centuries and it mainly consisted of Muslim corsairs from the Ottoman Empire raiding coastal settlements in France, Italy and Spain enslaving people (mainly whites) that were taken to the Barbary coast (what is now North Africa).
But they weren’t specifically looking for white people to enslave, it just so happened that they populated the places that the Corsairs came across. Also, that institutional racism that came along with the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is not there. White features weren’t considered ugly and they weren’t dehumanized for their European look. Famous advertisements didn’t feature “whiteface” archetypes that stereotyped white people for decades. Did the Barbary Slave Trade lead to white people being disproportionately arrested at a higher rate than their Black counterparts? Generational poverty? Redlining? A worldwide system of institutionalized anti-whiteness?
Slavery has taken place on almost every continent, but no case of indentured servitude/slave trade could compare to the inhumane, dehumanizing treatment that Black people faced worldwide. Look at the Arab slave trade—it was estimated to have started around the 8th and 9th century, and around 10 to 18 million people were enslaved in the process. They went to multiple African countries, raping and killing the people there. In the process, they had Arabized the slaves along with the areas itself. Many were forced to practice Islam with their native customs, languages, clothing being erased and replaced for a more “Middle Eastern” one. To this day, anti-blackness is rampant in Arab communities. Slavery is still a common practice in Middle Eastern countries, consisting of the exploitation of East African & South Asian folks.
After all the hate I’ve received within the past week from angry white people, I still have no reason to explain anything to them. Their poor understanding and erasure of systemic effects like white supremacy, anti-blackness, colonialism, indentured servitude and decontextualized claims aren’t my problem whatsoever. I remain unaffected and will continue to voice my opinions on important issues that affect the day-to-day lives of people of color. XOXO.
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