This article is about negative sentiment towards African peoples and societies, regardless of race. For racism towards Black people, seeAnti-Black racism.
In recent years, there has been a rise in Afrophobic hate speech and violence in Europe and the United States. This has been attributed to a number of factors, including the growth of the African diaspora in these regions, the increase in refugees and migrants from Africa, and the rise offar-right andpopulist political parties.[5][6]
In October 2017, the United Nations' Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent (WGEPAD) told the Human Rights Council that the human rights situation of Africans and people of African descent remained an urgent concern, citing racist violence,police brutality and killings, and systemic racism.[7] Earlier that year, WGEPAD had recommended the term Afrophobia be used to describe "the unique and specific form of racial discrimination affecting people of African descent and African Diaspora".[8]
Anti-African sentiment is prejudice or discrimination towards any of the various traditions and peoples ofAfrica for their perceived Africanness.[9][1] It is distinct from, but may overlap with,Anti-Black racism orNegrophobia, which is contempt specifically forBlack people of African descent, excluding other Africans such aswhite Africans orNorth Africans.[10] The termAfrophobia may be used to describe both anti-Black racism and anti-African sentiment more broadly.[11][12][9]
Anti-African sentiment andAfroscepticism are comparable terms toanti-Europeanism andEuroscepticism. Afroscepticism is positioned as an opposition toAfricanity (the idea of a sharedAfrican culture),Africanization, orAfrocentrism, often seen as facets ofPan-Africanism.[16][17][18] Afroscepticism may include embracingAfropessimism, and rejecting traditional African practices or "African Indigenous Knowledge Systems".[19][20][21] The Afropessimist view sees Africa in terms of "the negative traits described by AIDS, war, poverty and disease", and thus as unable to be helped.[22]
Anti-Black racism was a term used by Canadian scholarAkua Benjamin in a 1992 report on Ontariorace relations.[23][24] It has been defined as follows:
Anti-Black racism is a specific manifestation of racism rooted in European colonialism, slavery and oppression of Black people since the sixteenth century. It is a structure of iniquities in power, resources and opportunities that systematically disadvantages people of African descent.[25][26][27]
The termracism is not attested before the 20th century,[32] butnegrophobia (first recorded between 1810–1820; often capitalised), and latercolourphobia (first recorded in 1834),[33][34] likely originated within theabolitionist movement, where it was used as an analogy torabies (then calledhydrophobia) to describe the "mad dog" mindset behind the pro-slavery cause and its apparently contagious nature.[35][36][37][38] J. L. A. Garcia refers tonegrophobia as "the granddaddy" of terms such asxenophobia,Islamophobia andhomophobia.[37]Melanophobia has been used to refer to both anti-Black racism[39] andcolourism (prejudice against people with darker skin), especially in Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa.[40][41][42]
It has been observed that writing and terminology about racism, including about Afrophobia, has been somewhat centered on the US.[citation needed] In 2016, "Afrophobia" has been used as a term for racism against darker-skinned persons in China. In such usage, that is an inexact term because the racism is directed against darker-skinned persons from anywhere, without regard to any connection to Africa. Conversely, Chinese views for lighter-than-average skin are more positive, as is reflected in advertising.[43]
Most African societies usedoral tradition to record theirhistory, meaning there was littlewritten history. Colonial histories focussed on the exploits of soldiers, colonial administrators, and "colonial figures", using limited sources and written from anentirely European perspective, ignoring the viewpoint of the colonised under the pretence ofwhite supremacism.[44] Africans were consideredracially inferior, supporting their "civilising mission".[45] Oral sources were deprecated and dismissed by most historians, giving them the impression Africa had no history and little desire to create it.[46] Some colonisers took interest in the other viewpoint and attempted to produce a more detailed history of Africa using oral sources and archaeology, however they received little recognition at the time.[47]
Stereotypes aboutAfrica,Africans, andAfrican culture are common, especially in theWestern world.[48][49] European imperialism was often justified on paternalistic grounds, portraying Africa as less civilized, and Africans as less capable of civilizing themselves.[a] As of the 2010s, these stereotypes persisted in Europeanmedia.[55][56]
To overcome any perceived "Afrophobia", writerLangston Hughes suggested thatEuropean Americans must achieve peace of mind and accommodate the uninhibited emotionality ofAfrican Americans.[citation needed] AuthorJames Baldwin similarly recommended that White Americans could quash any "Afrophobia" on their part by getting in touch with their repressed feelings, empathizing to overcome their "emotionally stunted" lives, and thereby overcome any dislike or fear of African Americans.[57]
Originally established in 1998 by "approximately 150" organisations from across theEuropean Union, theEuropean Network Against Racism (ENAR) aimed to combat "racism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism — the accepted categories of theanti-racist struggle at that time". However, Afrophobia wasn't specifically named as a focus of the network until 2011, at the behest of Black civil rights activists.[11]
In 2016,Tess Asplund made a viral protest againstNeo-Nazism as part of her activism against Afrophobia.[58]
Some Afrophobic sentiments are based on the belief that Africans are unsophisticated. Such perceptions include the belief that Africans lack a history ofcivilization, and visual imagery of suchstereotypes perpetuate the notion that Africans still live in mud huts and carry spears, along with other notions that indicate their primitiveness.[59][60]
Afrophobia in academia may also occur through by oversight with regards to lacking deconstruction in mediums such as African art forms, omitting historical African polities in world cartography, or promoting aeurocentric viewpoint by ignoring historic African contributions to world civilization.[61]
^abKoenane, M.L.J. and Maphunye, K.J., 2015. Afrophobia, moral and political disguises: Sepa leholo ke la moeti.Td: The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa,11(4), pp.83-98.
^abPrivot, M., 2014. Afrophobia and the ‘Fragmentation of Anti-racism.’.Visible Invisible Minority: Confronting Afrophobia and Advancing Equality for People of African Descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.31-38.
^Momodou, J. and Pascoët, J., 2014. Towards a European strategy to combat Afrophobia.European Network Against Racism, Invisible visible minority: Confronting Afrophobia and advancing equality for people of African descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.262-272.
^Privot, M., 2014. Afrophobia and the ‘Fragmentation of Anti-racism.’.Visible Invisible Minority: Confronting Afrophobia and Advancing Equality for People of African Descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.31-38.
^Momodou, J. and Pascoët, J., 2014. Towards a European strategy to combat Afrophobia.European Network Against Racism, Invisible visible minority: Confronting Afrophobia and advancing equality for people of African descent and Black Europeans in Europe, pp.262-272.
^Koenane, M.L.J. and Maphunye, K.J., 2015. Afrophobia, moral and political disguises: Sepa leholo ke la moeti.Td: The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa,11(4), pp.83-98.
^Oloruntoba-Oju, T., 2014. Location of African culture: Beyond Afroscepticism and the new cosmopolitan exotic.Culture and the Contemporary African, pp.120-53.
^Horsthemke, K., 2006. The idea of the African university in the twenty-first century: Some reflections on Afrocentrism and Afroscepticism.South African Journal of Higher Education,20(4), pp.449-465.
^Nikolaidis, A.C. and Thompson, W.C., 2023. Epistemic injustice: complicity and promise in education.Journal of Philosophy of Education,57(4-5), pp.781-790.
^Gbogi, T., 2022. Against Afropolitanism: Race and the Black migrant body in contemporary African poetry.The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, p.00219894221113767.
^Nokuzola, G.G. and Gqeba, L.M., 2023. Is Afrosceptism at the Core of the Deaths of South African Boys at Initiation Schools? The Contributory Effects of Undermining African Indigenous Knowledge Systems.African Renaissance,20(4), p.367.
^Endong, F.P.C., 2021. Images as Afro-positivist narratives and counter hegemonic strategy: A study of# TheAfricaTheMediaNeverShowsYou.International Journal of Modern Anthropology,2(16), pp.601-628.
^Bodziany, M. and Nowakowska, M., 2020. “Heart of Darkness” and “Dark Continent”: Africa and its Nations in Polish Media and Social Perception.Social Psychology & Society,11(2).
^Maynard, Robyn (2017).Policing Black Lives: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to the Present. Halifax Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing.ISBN978-1-55266-979-2.
^Mays, Vickie M. (1985). "The Black American and psychotherapy: The dilemma".Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training.22 (2S):379–388.doi:10.1037/h0085518.
^Skinner, Ryan Thomas (24 April 2018). "Walking, talking, remembering: an Afro-Swedish critique of being-in-the-world".African and Black Diaspora.12 (1):1–19.doi:10.1080/17528631.2018.1467747.S2CID149746823.
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