[Eaten up by Stereotypes]

http://race.eserver.org/eaten.html

The above link is to an article titled, “Eaten up by Stereotypes.” It is about how the stereotype that Christopher Columbus had about the Indians created an opportunity for slavery and the creation of many other stereotypes. I chose this media item because it talked about Christopher Columbus’ stereotype of the Indians, which began racism, as we know it in our society today.

This media item relates to the article by Zinn, “Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress.” It talks about how Christopher Columbus and other Europeans created these stereotypes out of selfishness. They told the Europeans that the Indians were cannibals, which allowed colonists to enslave the Indians. These rumors of cannibalism also “influence the work of William Shakespeare, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.” Because these famous people were influenced by Columbus’s rumors and stereotypes, their famous works have influenced “modern thought.” This was the start of racism. Racisms start can be traced all the way back to Columbus. He started it all when he thought he was superior to the Indians because they were naive and had darker skin. Zinn wrote that, “The Indians, Columbus reported, ‘are so naïve and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it’” (5). Columbus was very egocentric and thought he was above everyone else. This also had a great influence on the people of his country, because then they also thought that they were better than the Indians were.

I feel that if Columbus would not have told the Europeans rumors about the Indians and he had a little more respect for them, then the settlers who came into America would not have thought that it was ok to enslave the Indians. Also, then people might have not thought it was all right to enslave the blacks either. It is a long stretch, but if Columbus had not brought back Indians as slaves to his country and had not told rumors about them, it might be possible that there would have been no slavery in the United States at all or at least not until later in our history. Furthermore, if this had happened, racism would not have occurred at all. People would not have had negative feelings about black people and it would have stayed the way it was, white and black people working side by side with no privileges or tension between races.