After colonizing the Americas, the race became institutionalized in North American English Colonies once the colonizers realized they were superior to the Natives. As argued by Bulhan (2015), the Europeans, on realizing the new opportunities available in North America, discovered the only way to exploit the Natives was through cultural domination. Moreover, the established differences between the Europeans and the Natives, founded on the need for material exploitation, fueled the claims of racial and religious superiority (Bulhan, 2015). Courtesy of racial distinctions, the Europeans considered themselves more concrete in terms of reasoning and used racism as a convenient exploitation justification.
Race distinctions and the associated natural superiority claims facilitated the injustices by the Europeans from three cataclysm assaults through maximum violence. Once achieved, the Europeans practiced similar injustices throughout the world. Considered brutes, every other race was meant to be exterminated, resulting in genocide in the Natives, followed by the Africans when racial superiority started to be practiced in Africa (Peck, 2021). Initially, the Europeans first assaulted North America through what is referred to as the world of things in terms of land. That was followed by the second assault, relative to the world of people, and lastly, the world of meaning, where the Europeans changed the religion of the Natives and their identity and knowledge (Takaki, 2008). The assaults by the Europeans in North America, driven by the established social construct that they were superior to the Natives, were, justified by what the Whites considered European superiority, allowing them to justify their domination over the Natives (Takaki, 2008). The concept of whiteness in North America, matched by the racial superiority assumption, gave authority to abuse the Natives hence institutionalizing race in the region.
References
Bulhan, H. A. (August 21, 2015). Stages of Colonialism in Africa: From Occupation of Land to Occupation of Being. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 3, 1, 239-256.
Peck, R., Delume, D., Hartnett, J., Lyons, D., Strauss, A., Aigi, A., Lindqvist, S.,…Kanopy (Firm). (2021). Exterminate all the brutes. Home Box Office.
Takaki, R. (2008). A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America. New York, NY. Back Bay Books/Little, Brown, and Company.