Scientific Racism and the "Colour Line"

Skin colour is a visual marker of difference and has been employed to justify the enslavement of people and their exploitation to build the empires of the western world. Slave trade is an integral part of the story of ‘civilisation’ and conquest. Though the impact of racial discrimination unfolded in different ways in different parts of the world, the arguments utilised to deny their humanity and present the ‘coloured’ people of the world are very similar. This paper will analyse the development of Scientific and Biological Racism from the writings of Bernier, Linnaeus and the thinkers they influenced. It will also focus on the manner in which these arguments were used to justify the brutality of colonisation, slavery and social exclusion. The challenges to this superstructure of racial superiority through King Jr., Du Bois, Malcolm X will be studied. The Civil Rights Movement in America, the freedom movements in worldwide, and other struggles for equity, power and justice need to be seen in this light.