Chapter 1 Learning Objectives

By the end of the chapter, the student will be able to do the following:

  • Define the following terms: race, racism, ethnicity, social and historical construction, colonialism, genocide, and ideology.
  • Understand the genesis of the idea of race as a relatively recent product of social and historical construction.
  • Explain how European ideologies were used to justify colonialism, both through the taking of land and through slavery, within a society that celebrated freedom.
  • Name different propagators of race science and their pseudo-theories, including human classifications and anthropometrics.
  • Describe how it was possible for freedom and slavery to coexist.
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