Did the Enlightenment Give Rise to Racism?

#perspective

The Enlightenment indeed played a significant role in shaping modern notions of race and racism. While it championed ideas of human freedom and individual rights, it paradoxically coexisted with colonial domination and the spread of “liberty.”

Enlightenment thinkers contributed to an enduring racial taxonomy, creating the color-coded ideology we recognize today. European powers used these racial notions to justify brutality and domination as they expanded across the globe. So, yes, the Enlightenment is intrinsically linked to the development of racism

Race as we understand it—a biological taxonomy that turns physical difference into relations of domination—is a product of the Enlightenment. Racism as we understand it now, as a socio-political order based on the permanent hierarchy of particular groups, developed as an attempt to resolve the fundamental contradiction between professing liberty and upholding slavery. Those who claim the Enlightenment’s mantle now should grapple with that legacy and what it means for our understanding of the modern world.