The “Africans/Blacks never invented/did ‘x’…” Is one of the oldest circulating internet racist rallying cries.
With a little sleuthing you can find entire lists developed of supposedly “proof of black inferiority” talking points that were collected and disseminated by internet hate groups to use as propaganda. I’m sure many people (right here on the SDMB) are familiar with new members arriving on this board only to preach “blacks never”… invented the wheel, or written language, or math, or boats, etc. -I’m reluctant to even link to such trash, but you can find alt-right youtubers making these exact claims, no doubt, after being exposed to them via internet hate groups.-
Why do this? I think the value of making these claims comes from common shared ignorance of Africa and its ultimate goal is to use your own ignorance against you. I can make 100 claims on the life cycle of the nematode but how many are equipt to challenge them? The fact of the matter is we are all ignorant of both Africans and the African continent (we are so ignorant that we often cannot refer to the place/people as anything but “Africa” and not as any smaller individualized pieces of that whole). However if you do try to fight the claims with reason and facts the conversation almost always goes like this:
Racialist: African/Blacks never did ‘x’
Anti-Racialist: Here’s an example of ‘x’ in Africa
Racialist 1: That is not a true/complex enough example of ‘x’
Racialist 2: Those are not true blacks/Africans.
Racialist 3: Those were done by non-locals (Arabs/Europeans/Asians) traders/invaders/colonizers.
Racialist 4: ‘x’ was done by Arabs/Europeans/Asians first! Africans came well after.
If you take a different route and ask why is ‘x’ being used as the key for black/African inferiority. The answer often is that there is nothing special about ‘x,’ it just represents a wider pattern of dysfunction/inferiority; thus the ‘x’ gold standard can be dropped and exchanged for the ‘y’ gold standard (and the ‘z’ one after that…) at the drop of a hat. This is why giving facts and debunking their claims rarely lead to fruitful exchanges.
Any example of black/African non-excellence is the gold standard of black/African inferiority.
No matter how often you show that, yes, one can find plenty examples of African art, language, religion, cities, technology, sea travel, farming, trading, infrastructure, etc… It does not matter. A racialist just changes that nebulous goal post to be something esoteric like
Odd eh? Not if you have racialist beliefs that need defending. Any fig leaf will do for this task. Any fig leaf must do.