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Assignment 3

In the first chapter “Male Travelers,  Female Bodies, and the Gendering of Racial Ideology” of Jennifer Morgan’s book, she mainly talks about how European countries were exploding West Africa and how the white explorers looked black women for sending America to work as slaves. In 15-16th century, Europeans started travel over the sea, they knew African continent exist unlike the Americas, but they did not know what was there. Then, they found African people who are totally different from white Europeans and started label them as savage. Some documents shows that white Europeans viewed them as nonsexual animals, monstrous, human savage. Some people expressed as monsters with six legs. They basically looked them as not human, and they usually couldn’t distinguish their sex, and the only crew to distinguish their sex was whether or not they have breasts. This majority view for African women is one of the main causes racism and degradation of African women. Furthermore, they are thought to be inferior because of their cultures and customs that was totally different from European region. For example, African people at that time were naked constantly and they did not have idea of chastity because African women usually had sexual intercourse everyone in the group. Moreover, they had to work while they are pregnant. This was really savage for white Europeans. This caused them to behave inhumanly and sell them to America as slaves. These cultural and physical differences were enough for Europeans to justify racism. They might have thought like they are useful for white people and they don’t even have to be treated as human. Some document says that they are not sexually attractive at all, but they are good enough for reproducing slaves.

Discussion Question: What made European explorers think they are inferior to white Europeans?