
Historically slavery was justified by the claim that black people were ‘sub human’ due to their darker skin being a sign that they were more closely related to monkeys and apes than white people meaning they were behind in the evolutionary process and therefore the concept of them being a closer descendent of a primate would somehow moralize treating them as animals. This was also contributed to by the perceived superiority that white people had since they were more ‘civilized’ 1/2-
while they viewed African American culture as animalistic and uneducated, a perspective that was also held towards Native Americans, hence the historical tragedy of forced assimilation. European countries viewed slavery and the injustices they enacted on these ‘primal beings’ as educating them. The racist history behind the comparison between black people and primates (monkeys, apes etc) is in its self the racist discrimination, claiming that they are lesser, not their facial features.