Why Does Racism Exist?

     Racism has existed for a long time, more than 5000 years. Most people refer to slavery when they think of racism. You can trace slavery all the way back to the first civilizations of Mesopotamia, where slavery was mentioned in Hammurabi's Code. Back then slaves were prisoners of war, not exactly slaves because of the color of their skin. The first actual slavery based on racism is found in the 14th century Ottoman Empire, during the Byzantine-Ottoman Wars. As the Ottomans gained more land they gained more people, who were all Christian. The Ottomans, being Islamic, saw these people as lesser than them and enslaved them to do manual labor. Before the Ottomans Egyptians also enslaved Arabs. Centuries later, when Europe was in its monarchial stage, white people began to go to Africa. They noticed the natives, and they observed as to how primitive they were. They still had spears, they didn't have clothes, and they weren't intellectual. Noticing these differences, the Europeans thought of themselves superior and enslaved the Africans. When the Americas were discovered and European countries found out that they could have a ton of agriculture in the new world, slavery skyrocketed. Places such as Haiti had around 500,000 slaves growing and harvesting sugar canes. After those places in the New World became independent they continued to use slavery (apart from Haiti, because that would be ironic) because they were influenced by Europe's mindset of "we are superior". Even when slavery ended, many whites believed they were superior because they thought that every other race was stupid and primitive. When Jim Crow laws were instituted, they gave advantages to the whites and left the colored with practically nothing. The education systems left most whites believing that colored were less smart than them. But even after the Jim Crow Laws were abolished, people remain racist. Why? It's because they maintained the same mindset the Europeans came up with, "we are superior".