The problem of racism is not specifically an American problem. Racism occurs whenever there is a dominant racial group that uses its position to discriminate against a minority racial group on the basis of racial characteristics. Europe has also had its problems with racism. Imperialist policies of the various European governments were racially based and were justified with the idea that the non-white races were culturally inferior and never achieved the level of civilization of the white race. This idea made it seem that the white race was destined to be dominant and to oversee the development of these lesser peoples. In places like Africa, European imperialists claimed that natives were little more than savages before the coming of the white race and that they had never developed any lasting or important civilization of their own. However, as has been shown by archaeological evidence since that time, this was not the case. There were indeed important civilizations in Africa extending far back into history, including into the prehistory of Europe.
Khapoya (1998) notes that the Africa of today is not as primitive as Europeans may believe, and he cites the fact that based on the diversity of the languages in the region, the African peoples have developed more than 800 distinctive cultures, some of which share common characteristics (Khapoya, 1998, 25). Khapoya also notes that most non-African scholars emphasize commonalities and so see African cultures as more alike than they really area, which is another reason why Europeans can characterize all of African culture as inferior without making distinctions.
Iliffe (1996) notes that Africa is immensely old, and while Europeans may see their ancestors as primitive at a certain point, the history of Africa is much older even than that, extending back perhaps to the origins of mankind. Europeans claiming superiority because they have advanced beyond their primitive ancesto...