Erasing Ignorance Part 2: Racism Fails the test of Science and History because RACE itself is a FRAUD

This is The ARCC of Change with Donzel Leggett, a podcast from the Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition, an organization dedicated to eradicating racism and hate and spreading anti-racism. Listen as Donzel talks about the relevant topics that will inspire you and help build your capability to take action and change the world. Because none of us are doing enough as long as racism still exists. And now, here's your host, Donzel Leggett.

DONZEL LEGGETT: Hello and welcome to the seventh episode of The ARCC of Change with Donzel Leggett. In this episode, we will continue focusing on the long-term mission of ARCC, which is to transform ourselves and our networks to be anti-racist by following up on episode five, "Erasing the Ignorance About Racism," as we go beyond the reasonableness test and common sense and explain how racism also fails the tests of history and science. And finally, I will explain how racism makes no sense because the concept of race itself is a fraud. Now let's get started with our show.

So I am Donzel Leggett, host of The ARCC of Change podcast and founder of the Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition, or ARCC. ARCC is a coalition of dedicated people committed to eradicating racism and spreading anti-racism throughout our communities, our countries, and the world. This is The ARCC of Change.

In episode 3, "45 Is Out, What Now?" I introduced the process of transforming yourself by first erasing your ignorance about racism and hate. Then second, educating yourself about anti-racism. And third, building the character and courage to stand up, speak out and take action to spread anti-racism. In episode four, I shared my anti-racism personal journey to help bring this to life. I provided a holistic example of how I'm continuing to break down my own walls of ignorance about racism and hate to educate myself about anti-racism and continue to build the character, strength and courage to take action and spread it. And continue to do more. Because as I've said before, we've never done enough as long as racism still exists.

Then in episode 5, "Erasing Ignorance About Racism." A nine-year-old Donzel explained why racism made no sense to me at that time. I started going step by step with the transformation process, starting with, again, step one, erasing ignorance about racism. I began focusing on reasonableness. In other words, common sense. Because if we truly think about racism from a common sense perspective and question whether it is reasonable or not, we shouldn't really need historical facts or scientific proof to convince us that racism makes no moral sense and fails the reasonableness test. However, I said that I would come back in later episodes and provide that scientific proof and those historical perspectives and stories to underscore this point and help break down your walls of ignorance about racism.

After honoring Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in episode 6, in this episode, episode 7, I'll do just that. I'll explain that racism not only makes no common sense, but no scientific sense and no historical sense either. And I'll further break down your walls of ignorance by explaining how racism also makes no sense because the concept of race itself is the greatest lie, mistruth, and fraud committed against humanity in the last 500 years. And this fraud is continuing to destroy us to this day. The concept of race as a rough division of anatomically modern human beings has a long and complicated history. The word race itself is a modern word. Hasn't been around that long in the sense that it was used for describing nations and ethnicities, ethnic groups during the 16th through the 19th century. But it acquired its modern meaning in the field of physical anthropology, only from around the mid-19th century. With the rise of modern genetics, in the modern world, the concept of distinct human races in a biological sense has become obsolete. In 2019, the American Association of Physical Anthropologists stated, "The belief in races as natural aspects of human biology and the structures of inequality, meaning racism, that emerge from such beliefs are among the most damaging elements in the human experience, both today and in the past." This statement, what I would say nuclear damage comes in the form of racism. Racism that has been leveraged to justify murder, slavery, rape, pillaging, and continued subjugation and economic and human rights disparities all over the world in the name of greed and power. Racism is defined by Google dictionary as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized. Now, can any one person be subjected to racism by this definition? Yes. You know, this is a question that I get often. "Hey, can a white person be subjected to racism?" Well, the answer is yes. But here's my view on what this definition leaves out and what I believe the definition of racism should be. It's about the institutional, systemic, and societal racism that has created the extreme disparities that people of color as a whole experience globally. And it has no equivalence whatsoever. No equivalency with the individual discrimination that a white person might experience. Racism is not about an individual. It is a pervasive belief about a group of people sharing physical traits. That they are inferior. That they are savage. That they are unintelligent. That they're dangerous. That they're less than. Based on ignorance that drives hatred, mistreatment, prejudice, and marginalization. Look, the concept of racism is bad enough, but what makes it even more insidious and evil is when one realizes that it is based on a fraud because there is no such thing as race. The concept of race was created by Europeans to justify colonialism, conquering, pillaging, and subjugation of others. Slavery. And unfortunately, genocide. Many of the world's non-white peoples have suffered from racism. But most notably, the Native American whose land was taken. Their culture destroyed. Their people subjugated and in some cases eradicated. And of course, the black Africans. More specifically, those from sub-Saharan African descent who've been cast in the racism script as the lowest of the low and have suffered hundreds of years of slavery, pillaging, rape, and colonialization. But was it always this way throughout history? How did it come to be? Did Europeans and other peoples of the world know better? And why is it important to answer this question to defeat racism for all people? I'll answer these questions over the remainder of this episode. And since it is Black History Month, I'll focus my comments mostly regarding the black African and those of African descent. Starting in the next segment.

Visit us at https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab). Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. And like us on Facebook.

DONZEL LEGGETT: Now, the term slave has its origins in the word Slav. Now, the Slavs were the people who inherited a large part of Eastern Europe. And they were taken as slaves by the Muslims of Spain, the Moors, who ruled the Iberian Peninsula for over 700 years during the 9th century CE. Now, this is ironic because many of the Moors were black and brown Africans. We'll talk more about the Moors later.

Now, slavery can broadly be described as the ownership, buying and selling of human beings for the purpose of forced and unpaid labor. So how did it come to be that the word slave today is mostly associated with black Africans of those of African descent?

Slavery was practiced for a long time in many parts of the world, including Africa. There was not a race or color of people attached to it. There was no concept of race at that time. Just different tribes enslaved each other after war, conflicts. And slaves were used as part of the military force or as part of trade. People who were white, people who were black, brown, Asian, were all subjected to slavery at one time or another. And again, slaves were used in trade. So they crossed geographies and you would see people of different shades from different tribes moving across different geographies. One of the most important geographies for trade during the pre-European colonialism times was and back to, again, BCE times or before the Common Era, was Africa, as it had many long-established, strong, powerful, and wealthy civilizations with a lot of natural resources that were very, very valuable. Life-dependent minerals like salt, rare metals like gold, and the very rare and sought-after resins, frankincense and myrrh. And also, Africa led the world in culture and science at the time. Certainly the best known of these civilizations that had many of these resources, as well as culture and science, was ancient Egypt. But there were many other empires as well, like the Ghana Empire or Wagadu, the Songhai Empire, the Kingdom of Kush, and the Kingdom of Aksum. Again, just to name a few. This was the age of Africa. But like all great empires, things come in cycles. And due to many factors such as the advancement of the Sahara Desert, making the climate much more dry, the intertribal wars over dwindling resources, food and water, and invaders, coming to take advantage of many of the natural resources, as well as the loss in human capital from the slave trade. All of these things worked together to weaken the great empires of Africa. And as Africa's cycle was coming to an end, the European cycle was starting to emerge. Establishing sustainable food resources, and organized kingdoms across Europe. Of course, the taking of explosive technology, gunpowder, from Asia and perfecting it into the gun changed everything and really ushered in the age of the European. Colonialism, specifically ignited by the rush to take the Americas, was really what created the concept of race as we know it and the evils of racism that followed. It began the nightmare for Africans. From being the most powerful and envied culture and people to the most racially demonized, despised, and looked down upon. To exploit the resources of the Americas, Europeans needed lots of labor. Of course, there were people there in the Americas already. And with the superior weapons that the Europeans had, it didn't take much effort to overtake them and enslave them. But once the natives were exposed to the cruel work conditions and the old world diseases that many of them had never been exposed to, they began to weaken and die out. Or at a minimum, their numbers were drastically reduced. Europeans needed a solution to fill this labor void. Now, they had been in contact with Africans for over a millennium. And they knew that they could buy slaves in Africa. Again, slaves were part of trade. And they were never viewed from a racial lens by the Africans or anyone else in the world at that time. The Europeans also knew that they also could have indentured servants from other parts of Europe. And they can continue to use the natives who survived. By bringing them all together, they could build a sustainable and strong labor force. But as profits grew and they needed more and more labor, they started to realize that this labor force made up of Africans, indentured servants, and some natives were drastically starting to outnumber them. And they needed a way to manage the numbers with their small amount of resources. And the concept of race and a ranking system based on color of skin became one of the easiest methods to introduce. The concept of race as a practice was evil. Dehumanizing. But ingenious. Evil because it created this genocidal dehumanization of people. But genius because it worked. And it's still working today.

But there were some who questioned whether this inferiority of other people was real, and whether subjecting them to cruelty and slavery was moral. So to justify this evil and inhuman treatment, Europeans set out to support the belief that inferiority was based on science and that subjugation was morally acceptable. Now, there were scientists that set out to prove that the white man was superior. Several theories were brought forth and scientific racism was born. Scientific racism, sometimes called biological racism, originates from the early 1600s and is a belief that there is empirical evidence that supports and justifies racism or racial inferiority and superiority. Historically, scientific racism received credence throughout the scientific community. Again, especially during the times of colonialism, imperialism, and slavery. But it is no longer considered scientific. Dividing humankind into biological distinct groups is sometimes called racialism.

Race realism, or race science by its proponents. But modern scientific consensus rejects this view as being irreconcilable with modern genetic research. However, modern genetics were not available hundreds of years ago, and thus several scientific racists divided people into five distinct groups that they then termed as races.

With white man at the top of the hierarchy, then the yellow man, or Far East Asian, then the brown man, or South Asian, the red man, from the Americas, and the black man, of Sub-Saharan Africa. Of course, with these theories, they claim that the white man was the most biologically advanced of the races, and thus is superior to everyone else. And each race subsequently is a step down from the white man or the European. With the black man in the lowest form. And biologically defined as inferior to everyone else. A savage. The lowest in terms of development. However, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach studied craniums of different groups of people from around the world. And he theorized at the time that yes, there were five races. The Caucasian or the white race. Blumenbach actually was the first to use this term for people of European, Middle Eastern and North African origin. The Mongolian or yellow race, including all East Asians and some Central Asians. The Malayan or the brown race, including Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders.

The Ethiopian or the black race, including sub-Saharan Africans. And the American or the red race, including American Indians. And these are Blumenbach's definitions from the 1700s.

Blumenbach was a monogenesis and held to the degenerative hypothesis of racial origins. This meant that he believed that all human beings belonged to essentially one original racial group that descended from Adam and Eve, who were Caucasian inhabitants of Asia, and that other races came about by degeneration from environmental factors like the sun, poor diet and that all the degenerative groups of races could be rehabilitated back to Caucasian. Ironically, he also argued that even in their degenerative form, each race still possessed the same cognitive ability as any Caucasian.

Of course, we know that degenerative hypothesis is incorrect. As modern science has proven, that the human species began in Africa, not the Middle East, in sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, geneticists have tracked back all living humans to one single female in sub-Saharan Africa. And that all differences in humanity were adaptations to environmental conditions. But not from an original Caucasian appearance that degenerated into what we all look like today. But instead from a sub-Saharan African appearance. And that we all just adapted from. Not degenerated from.

Now, it is important to note that Blumenbach did not consider his degenerative hypothesis as racist, and he sharply criticized scientific racialism. In fact, he specifically criticized scientific racists such as Samuel Thomas von Soemmerring, who falsely concluded from autopsies of Africans that the African race, in particular sub-Saharan Africans, were inferior. Blumenbach wrote three specific essays stating that non-white peoples were capable of excelling in the arts, in the sciences, in reaction to racists at the time. Blumenbach also was opposed to the practice of slavery and the belief in the inherent savagery of colored races. He was against this. Unfortunately, his attempts to discredit scientific racialism was not as influential as it needed to be. In fact, his degeneration ideas were actually adopted by scientific racialists who used them to encourage scientific racism and to justify the inhuman idea of slavery. Over time, scientific racism won out by drowning out the voices of people like Blumenbach in twisting their research and their theories to support scientific racism and the practice of slavery and subjugation of the non-white races. So scientific justification had been achieved. What about moral justification? Well, that had been achieved years before. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued a papal bull called Dum Diversas that granted Portugal and Spain full and free permission to invade, search out, capture and subjugate unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be and to reduce their persons into perpetual slavery. This was taken at the time and still is today as a full endorsement of the enslavement of the Americas. The combination of the moral justification of the church and the scientific justification from the scientific racialist set the stage for racial inferiority and racism to become the main weapons for the European powers to practice imperialism and colonialism all in the name of greed and power. This essentially wiped Native American civilizations almost completely out. Think about this. If you're an American or Brazilian or Canadian, how many of you actually know a real Native American? Well, I grew up in Key West, Florida, which is in the Florida Keys. And my family immigrated from the Bahamas in the 1800s. Now, the Bahamas were inhabited originally by the Lucayan Native American tribe and the Florida Keys by the Calusa and the Tequesta tribes when Europeans first arrived. Now, these tribes are literally extinct today. Literally extinct. I not only have never met a Calusa, I've never even seen any evidence that they even existed in Key West. They weren't even mentioned in school. And unlike some Caribbean islands like Puerto Rico, where there are some traces of Native American population DNA that still exist in today's mixed race inhabitants, I have zero Lucayan traces in my ancestry DNA map. Literally, these entire people and their legacy has been wiped off the face of the earth due to colonialism and imperialism enabled by the scientific racialism and the slavery and subjugation endorsed by Pope Nicholas V. Now, as I said, scientific racism has been discredited by modern science and the Catholic Church has done so much work to try to overcome the damage done by Pope Nicholas, including an apology to the peoples of color for slavery by, I think, Pope John Paul in the mid 1980s. But that does not erase the fact of the horrific fate suffered by Native Americans. It does not erase the horrors suffered by people of African descent. Because as colonialism and imperialism moved around the world, this racial ranking system with whites at the top and blacks at the bottom spread. Being helped by cultural classism in many places like in Asia, where dark skin historically meant that you worked outside, you had no education, you were low class. So when Europeans showed up with African slaves, treating them as less than human and introducing their racialized classes, it created a perception for the native non-whites that although they were inferior to the white people, they could accept their second-class status to whites as long as the black person was below them. But was this view of the black man being the lowest always this way? And did Europeans and other people around the world know better? The answer is no, it was not always this way. And yes, white people and others around the world knew better. And I'll provide a number of historical examples that prove this in the next segment.

The ARCC of Change podcast is brought to you by the Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition. Visit us at https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab) to learn more about ARCC and join our movement.

DONZEL LEGGETT: Remember in episode five, I explained how nine-year-old Donzel was able to prove that common sense shows that racism made no sense, that it did not pass the reasonableness test. I talked about how humans of many different colors lived together and loved together for thousands of years and had never held racist beliefs that the concept of race didn't exist. It didn't come about until the colonial period, like I just described in the previous segment, when it became advantageous for Europeans to define race as a tool in the quest for power and wealth. Common sense should have informed the people and easily rebutted the scientific racialists and even helped Blumenbach in his attempts to discredit scientific racism. But ignorance has prevailed for far too long because we've allowed those who are proponents of racism to continue to bury the truth. But the truth is there if you are simply willing to look for it. Open your eyes, open your mind, open your heart and let it in. Remember in episode 5, I recounted how again, 9-year-old Donzel rationalized that since all the stories in the Bible took place in the Middle East and Africa, a region that was a mix of people of many different ethnicities for thousands of years, including black Africans, the characters in the Bible had to include black Africans. And that it was highly probable that Jesus looked more like me than a rock star from the 70s, and that Moses looked more like an African than a European, if he were to convincingly be able to pass as Pharaoh Ramses's brother. Look, I know that there are no pictures from ancient times when these Bible stories were taking place, so no one really knows for sure. However, there is at least one story in the Bible that not only proves that black Africans were some of the characters in the Bible, but also illustrates beyond a shadow of a doubt the critical importance of black Africans in history, their status and impact they had on the survival of Judaism. And the eventual development and spread of Christianity, as well as the fact that their blackness was never anything negative or even anything to take note of. As this character's color was never mentioned or used as a descriptor at all. He's only described by his country, his tribe, and his powerful status. Remember that Egypt is in Africa. I got to say this because there are some people that try to somehow remove Egypt from Africa because they don't want Egyptians to be considered Africans. But they are Africans. No matter how much racist revisionists want to separate them and the great ancient civilizations that were created there and claim it for Europeans or Asiatics, the fact is ancient Egyptians were Africans. Egypt is in Africa. Now, clearly, Egypt is not in sub-Saharan Africa. Okay, so we know that. But all black people, like myself, we all know that not all black people look exactly the same. We come in many, many different shades of colors, from tans, light tans, all the way to very dark browns, blacks. Our facial features are different. Our noses are not all the same. Our hair texture is not even all the same. Just as Blumenbach had shown, and modern science with genetics has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, there is more genetic difference between the different peoples of Africa than there is between many of the tribes of Africa and peoples in Europe. Just because their skin was not jet black in Egypt and that their noses were not perfectly straight, okay, and some of them had straight hair, that does not mean that they were not Africans. Ramses the Great was an African. Thutmose was an African. Nefertiti was an African. All great monarchs who had a role in creating one of the greatest civilizations of all time in history. All black Africans, in my opinion. But if you don't accept that, again, let's get back to this character in the Bible. You can't deny that Pharaoh Taharqa was a black African. Pharaoh or King Taharqa appears in the Bible and he is so important that he is mentioned not just once, but twice in two different books of the Bible. He's mentioned in Isaiah and he's mentioned in Two Kings, both telling the same story. And the story that I'm talking about is sometimes referred to as the deliverance of Judah. Others call it the rescue of Jerusalem. Here is an excerpt from the book of Isaiah, chapter 37, verses 9 and 10.

Now, Sennacherib, Sennacherib was a powerful Assyrian king. You can go look him up. Received a report that Taharqa, the king of Cush, was marching out to fight against him. When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah with this word. "Say to Hezekiah, king of Judah, do not let the God you depend on deceive you when he says, 'Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria.'" Now, later in this chapter, the Bible goes on to say that the Lord sent the angels of death to kill thousands of Sennacherib's soldiers overnight, convincing the king of Assyria to flee after witnessing the power of the God of Judah. However, most experts and historians based on research and archaeology believe that the following actually happened. Around 710 BC or BCE, King Hezekiah of Judah sent word to King Taharqa of Cush that the Assyrians were coming to attack Judah and that he needed help. To give you context to who King Taharqa was, consider this. The kingdom of Cush was an ancient African kingdom in Nubia, located at the Sudanese and southern Egyptian Nile Valley. In 744 BCE, 34 years before the impending Assyrian attack on Judah, King Pi of Cush conquered mighty Egypt, their neighboring African superpower. And to most historians, the greatest civilization in the ancient world. King Pi then established the 25th dynasty of Egypt, known as the Nubian dynasty or the Black Pharaohs, and thus became both Pharaoh of Egypt and King of Kush. King Pi's son Taharqa eventually ascended to the throne several years later. Historical records validate that the 25th or Nubian dynasty was in power at the time of King Hezekiah. And the Bible's record of Taharqa being the king of Kush at that time is accurate. Remember, once Pi conquered Egypt, he became the pharaoh of Egypt and the king of Cush and passed that down to his son Taharqa several years later. So Hezekiah and Taharqa were contemporaries. And when he requested help, King Taharqa incredibly responded with all the power of Cush and Egypt combined. Experts believe that the Assyrian king, knowing the power of Taharqa's leadership and his skills in tactical battle, as they had probably fought before due to the Assyrians' aggression, decided to either flee or possibly they fought a single engagement. But the Assyrians retreated after being soundly defeated. Either way, most historians of this period believe that King Taharqa's actions literally saved Judah from what was sure to be utter destruction at the hands of one of the most lethal armies of the ancient world. And because Judaism was so new that if the state of Judah had been destroyed by the Assyrians, the religion may not have survived, thus never spawning Christianity. Though it may be very hard to believe today. Taharqa, the black pharaoh of Egypt and king of Kush saved Judaism and ensured the birth of Christianity. Ironically, the same Christianity that would be used to justify the enslavement of Africans on a catastrophic scale some 2,000 years later. King Hezekiah did not see Taharqa as an inferior black man. In fact, he didn't even see him as black. He saw him as the powerful pharaoh of Egypt, king of Cush, that could help save his country. King Sennacherib did not see Taharqa as an inferior black man. In fact, he didn't even see him as black either. He saw him as the powerful pharaoh of Egypt and king of Cush, an outstanding military leader that was a worthy adversary. There was no such thing as race or racism between them. Just people, leaders, nation states, allies. And enemies.

In the next section, we're going to go through a lightning round of other historic African figures and those of African descent who prove that the inferiority of Africans was known not to be true.

All around the world from thousands of years back through to the time of colonialism and the African slave trade and during it, which proves that the lies and brainwashing of racism and the concept of race is the greatest fraud committed in the history of the world.

Visit us at https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab) to learn more about ARCC. Donate to our cause and join the movement that will change the world.

DONZEL LEGGETT: So let's start our lightning round of historic African figures and those of African descent who prove that the inferiority of Africans was known not to be true.

With the grandmother of most modern European civilizations, the Roman Empire. And Rome's greatest and most respected enemy, Hannibal Barca of Carthage.

Now Carthage was a North African country in the general area of Tunisia. It was by all accounts the number one enemy of the Roman Empire and viewed as the enemy who came the closest to dethroning the empire. Between 183 and 181 BCE, Hannibal commanded Carthage's main forces against the Roman Republic during the Second Punic War. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest military commanders in world history. Military academies and schools all over the world continue to study Hannibal's exploits, especially his victory at Cannae. He legendarily led an army, including an elephant cavalry, over the Alps to attack the Romans on their home turf and came within a few hundred miles of the city of Rome itself. Now, there'll be many, many people who will say that, hey, Hannibal wasn't black. He's of Caucasian descent. Well, look, the fact remains that Hannibal was a North African. Now, this is a region, which I've said earlier, that historically has been intermixed with sub-Saharan Africans, Arabs, Eurasians, Berbers, and Moors. No one knows for sure what Hannibal looked like, but we do know that it would not be in the European colonists' best interest to have Hannibal appear African. If the justification for slavery is that Africans are subhuman, unintelligent, and nowhere near the mental capabilities of Europeans, common sense would say that there is a greater chance that Hannibal was at least of some sub-Saharan African descent. Then there's the Roman Empire's black governor of Britain. Quintus Lollius Urbicus was a Numidian Berber, governor of the Roman Britain region. Between the years of 139 and 142, during the reign of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. His career is set out in detail on a pair of inscriptions set up in his native Tiddis, near Cirta, which is in Algeria. Roman society, like others, I'm sure, had its prejudices. But in many ways, the Romans were much more inclusive than we are today. People of all races and cultures from the lands that were conquered by the Romans could become a Roman citizen if they pledged their allegiance to Caesar and if they worked hard, they could rise in society through merit. Citing Urbicus's career inscription, Colin Wells concluded that at no other period of history could the second or third son of a Berber landowner from a very small town in the interior enjoy a career which took him to Asia, Judea, the Danube, the Lower Rhine, and Great Britain. Culminating in a position of great power and honor in the capital of the empire to which all these regions belonged. Then there is the Roman Empire's Black St. Maurice. Venerated across northern western Europe to this day. Now St. Maurice was one of the very first martyrs of Christianity in Europe to be sainted, and he is one of the most venerated saints in Europe. The story of St. Maurice begins in Thebes, Egypt, where he was born in the 3rd century CE, or Common Era. He is described as being a black Egyptian. Now this was during the time of Roman rule in Egypt. And when Maurice grew up, he joined the legendary Roman Theban Legion. Like Governor Quintus Lollius, Maurice began to ascend despite being a black Egyptian. Maurice was an outstanding soldier and leader and was progressively promoted until it became commander of the Theban Legion, leading over 1,000 men. He was also a Christian, but moved easily through European and pagan society with no problem. In 287 CE, the Theban regiment led by Maurice were dispatched to Gaul, an area in Europe encompassing parts of what is now France, Germany, Belgium, and Switzerland, to suppress an uprising. At first, the mission went as planned. Then Maurice's regiment were ordered to kill a group of Christians. Maurice refused the order and vowed that his allegiance to Caesar did not supersede his allegiance to his God. He and his troops were disciplined with decimation, which meant execution for every 10th soldier in the legion. He was given the order again to kill Christians and refused a second time. Decimation was carried out once more. He was given the order a third time and for a third time he refused. This time it meant execution and Maurice knew it was coming. He and his entire legion were executed. The people of Northern Europe were so inspired by Maurice's faith that it bolstered the conviction of Christians and helped convert new believers as well. His likeness, a regal black African saint figure in Roman military uniform, became commonplace in homes and churches in Germany and Switzerland. The story of St. Maurice grew in popularity throughout Europe. In many churches, landmarks, cities and towns were named after him. 52 cities in France alone. The town in Switzerland where he was martyred was renamed St. Maurice. And the Abbey of St. Maurice was established there as well. Amazingly, St. Maurice, a black African, became a patron saint of several professions, locales, and kingdoms in Europe. St. Maurice was the patron saint of the German Holy Roman Emperors. And his sword was used at coronations of Germanic emperors for centuries. And some of them were actually coronated before the altar of St. Maurice at St. Peter's Basilica. So why don't you know about him? Why have you never heard of St. Maurice? Because during the years of colonialism, and the transatlantic slave trade, it was not convenient in Europe to depict black people as anything but uncivilized, barbaric, and spiritually dark people with no history. Africans had to be dehumanized to make slavery acceptable. This story not only demonstrates that Europeans across many centuries knew Africans, but saw them in leadership and commanding positions of power.

Recognized at least one of them as a savior who proved to them that something like Christianity was worth dying for. It also proved that the Catholic Church knew for well over a thousand years that Africans were not savages. Well before Pope Nicholas V allowed the subjugation, murder, and enslavement of Native Americans and Africans. Because St. Maurice, undoubtedly a sub-Saharan African, was one of the most venerated saints in the church. And he's always depicted as almost jet black in his appearance, even today in many churches across Europe. All over Northern and Western Europe, he is almost treated as deity. Churches everywhere, cities, towns named after him in France and Switzerland, as I said. But after the colonial period, there were attempts to get rid of him. But his legend and sainthood is so strong they could not. I went to Germany in 2019 and I visited a random church on a whim to see if there'd be any evidence of St. Maurice there. And wouldn't you know, I didn't just see his likeness once. I saw it over 10 times, prominently displayed in several areas of the church. Starting with a beautiful statue on the wall, just inside the entrance. And many other statues and statuettes positioned in different places in the church. And other likenesses of St. Maurice in scenes with other saints. There was no question that he was black. And the Europeans loved him and honored him. And knew better than to think that he was subhuman. That he was a savage. That he was an animal. Instead, he was a hero. A martyr. A saint to be venerated.

Visit us at https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab). Follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter. And like us on Facebook.

DONZEL LEGGETT: Let's continue our lightning round with Imperial Russia. Tsar Peter the Great, viewed as not only Russia's greatest leader, but one of the greatest leaders and military victors of all time. He adopted an African godson named Abram Gannibal around 1705. Again, it's no doubt that Gannibal was of sub-Saharan descent. He was abducted in the area in Central Africa, most probably in the zone where Cameroon is today. He was given to the Tsar as a gift, a slave boy. But the Tsar took a liking to the bright boy, freed him, and decided to raise him as his godson and a valued member of his royal family. He was educated as an engineer and military strategist and went on to become one of the most respected Russian generals of all time and one of the best engineers and noblemen of his time. Serving Tsaress Elizabeth, Tsar Peter's daughter and his adopted sister for many years, he was part of the European Circle of monarch families. He wed twice and had 10 children with his second wife who was of nobility and many of those children went on to become part of Russian nobility. Gannibal's oldest son, Ivan, became an accomplished naval officer who helped found the city of Kherson in southern Ukraine in 1779 and attained the rank of general-in-chief, the second highest military rank in Imperial Russia. Gannibal's great grandson was Alexander Pushkin, considered by many to be the greatest Russian poet of all time and the founder of modern Russian literature. And believe it or not, Meghan Markle is not the first person of African descent to be part of the British royal family, as several British aristocrats are descended from Gannibal, including George Ivar-Louis Mountbatten, 4th Marquis of Milford Haven, the second cousin of Charles, Prince of Wales, through both their fathers.

What about France? Well, there's Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the son of an African slave woman on the island of Saint-Domingue and a French nobleman. Now, unfortunately, he was sold into slavery by his father. But his father worked up the nerve and the money to repurchase his son and took him with him to France to raise him. As part of a noble family and to give him the education that he deserved. And with that, he went on to become a French general in revolutionary France, along with Toussaint Louverture and Abram Petrovich Gannibal in Imperial Russia, whom I just talked about.

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas stands as one of the highest ranking men of African descent ever to lead a European army. He was the first person of color in the French military to become a brigadier general, the first to become divisional general, and the first to become general-in-chief of a French army. Dumas and Toussaint Louverture were the two highest ranking officers of sub-Saharan African descent in the Western world until 1975 when Chappie James achieved the equivalent rank of four-star general in the United States Air Force.

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas was a French hero who served alongside Napoleon. And had a prominent statue of him that was destroyed by the Nazis during their occupation of Paris as it did not fit their false narrative of racial inferiority of Africans. The ongoing attempt, again, to bury the facts about black people. His son, Alexandre Dumas, was a world-famous French writer. His works have been translated into many languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. Many of his historical novels of high adventure were originally published as serials, including several that you probably all know. The Count of Monte Cristo, The Three Musketeers, and Twenty Years After. His novels have been adapted since the early 20th century into nearly 200 films. And Thomas-Alexandre Dumas's grandson, also named Alexandre Dumas, was also a famous French author and playwright.

What about Spain and Portugal and the Moors, who I mentioned earlier? Well, in 711 Common Era, the Moors' rule over the Iberian Peninsula began when an African army, under the leadership of Tariq ibn Ziyad, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa and invaded the Iberian Peninsula. Known as Al-Andalus, the territory became a prosperous cultural and economic center where education and the arts and sciences flourished. Moors, as a term, was coined by Christian Europeans to describe the Muslims who occupied the Iberian Peninsula, Sicily, and Malta during the Middle Ages, or generally those who came from the North African region of Mauritania. The name was later also applied to Arabs, Berbers, and was then broadened to mean those with dark skin or blacks. Moors were diverse and were of various shades of brown and black. During the 700 plus years that they ruled the Iberian Peninsula, they civilized many tribes, many European tribes on the peninsula and in the Caucasus and brought more advanced views of science, astrology, as well as university structures to Europe. One of the most famous mentions of Moors in European culture is in Shakespeare's play, The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice. Othello is a Moor who serves as a general in the Venetian army. In Shakespeare's time, the port city of Venice was ethnically diverse and the Moors represented a growing interchange between Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Now, I was asked to play the lead role of Othello in a small school rendition of the play in high school. But at the time, I really didn't know much about the Moors, and I was ignorant to the fact of who Othello was. I remember even asking my drama teacher, you know, why are you asking me to play the lead of this Shakespearean play when I thought all Shakespeare actors were in Europe and isn't he supposed to be white? And I remember my teacher saying, "No, he was a Moor. Othello was a Moor. And thus, he should be black." Moors were known to Europeans and to Shakespeare as black and brown people. Strong military and governmental leaders all throughout Europe. And they lived and loved alongside Europeans. Again, this was not new. Europeans knew well that Africa had strong empires and leaders and monarchs. And many of these monarchs were to be revered and in many cases more revered than some of the monarchs in Europe, especially during the time of Moorish rule in Europe. Not all of them liked this. Not all Europeans liked the fact that the Moors were there, especially those being ruled by the Moors in Spain and Portugal. But they were all very aware of the power, wealth, strength, and civilization of Africans. If you still don't believe me, consider Mansa Musa and the Catalan Atlas. Mansa Musa was the king of the Mali Empire from about 1312 to 1337 and he has been estimated to be the richest man in the history of the world, even through to today. Now the Mali kingdom at that time was one of the largest in the world and one of the richest in the world, if not the richest. It encompassed present day Mali, Guinea, Senegal, The Gambia, Mauritania, Niger, and Guinea-Bissau. It is said that Mansa Musa was so rich that during his pilgrimage to Mecca, his caravan included 60,000 men and 80 camels, each carrying 50 to 300 pound sacks of gold. And when he visited Cairo, Egypt, he distributed so much gold in the city that the price of gold collapsed so precipitously that their economy was in recession for 10 years or more.

To illustrate how powerful and influential Mansa Musa was, he was prominently pictured at the center of the Catalan Atlas, which was a 14th century map commissioned by King Charles V of France that detailed ports, trade routes, seafaring routes, and resources of Europe and its surrounding areas. The Catalan Atlas is special because it is one of the first world maps that incorporates the places described by Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, and missionaries and diplomats who traveled to the Far East. Mansa Musa is pictured in an oversized way to illustrate his importance.

Being bigger than anyone else as the king of Timbuktu, holding a gold nugget which he is offering to a Muslim merchant who is approaching on camel. Timbuktu, by the way, was a city of 100,000 people and so rich that even the slaves were decorated in gold. It also had one of the largest and most prestigious libraries and universities in the world at the time.

And many scholars from around the world wanted to study and teach there. Mansa Musa promoted the greatness of his empire through his actions, and this is evident in his prominent inclusion in the Catalan Atlas. So again, there is no way that Europeans did not know that their description of black Africans as being subhuman, the lowest race of human, not having made any impact on history, was dead wrong and a lie. But the truth did not support the hugely profitable inhuman practice of slavery. So all these stories and many others like them were buried to justify the fallacy of race and racism. But what about Asia and the Americas? We'll discuss them in the next segment.

Visit us at https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab) to learn more about ARCC. Donate to our cause and join the movement that will change the world.

DONZEL LEGGETT: Let's conclude our lightning round with Asia and the Americas. And let's start with Japan and the Black Samurai.

Yasuke is regarded as the first Black Samurai.

An African samurai. Yasuke was a slave-turned-samurai from Africa who lived in Japan in the 16th century. When feudal Japan's most powerful warlord, Nobunaga Oda, met Yasuke in 1581, he believed the man to be a god. Yasuke left an enduring legacy of a black warrior in feudal Japan.

What about the Lord Guardian of Prosperity in China?

East African merchant Kafur arrived in China in 1071 and was treated with the utmost respect and honor. Kafur and his party were honored as the first African foreign merchants to be received by Chinese Emperor Shenzong. The emperor gave a Chinese title to Kafur. He became known as Lord Guardian of Prosperity. The Song court regarded Kafur and his entourage as ambassadors of their country even though they were simply merchants.

And what about the African rulers and military strategists of India? Many Africans traveled to India, some as slaves, some as traders, over hundreds of years of interactions between the continent of Africa and the subcontinent of India. And some eventually settled down there and played an important role in India's history of kingdoms, conquests, and wars. Some of them, like Malik Ambar and Ahmadnagar in western India, went on to become important rulers and military strategists. Ambar was known for taking on the powerful Mughal rulers of northern India. So to keep the lie of racial difference and justification for colonialism and division, these stories were also buried and replaced by scenes of black slavery and negative stereotypes to devalue black people and create division through racialism by having the native Asians be treated as second class to Europeans, but better than black Africans. This also played again on old beliefs in many Asian countries that darker skin meant that you were of a lower class and were a manual laborer. And they turned the curiosity and the mystery about Africans into fear by saying that Africans were savages to create, again, a negative stereotype in view to divide and prevent people from uniting. The lie of race and racism was spread through Asia, overcoming the history of reverence and respect of Africans.

What about the Americas? Well, let's start with the story of the Haitian Revolution. The Haitian Revolution was the only slave uprising that led to the founding of a state which was both free from slavery and ruled by non-whites and former captives. The only one. It is now widely seen as a defining moment in the history of the Americas. Its effect on the institution of slavery was felt throughout the Americas. The end of French rule and the abolition of slavery in the former colony was followed by successful defenses of the freedoms that they won. And with the collaboration of free persons of color, their independence from white Europeans. The revolution represented the largest slave uprising since Spartacus. The largest slave uprising since Spartacus. And his uprising was an unsuccessful revolt against the Roman Republic nearly 2,000 years earlier. And it challenged the long-held European belief that alleged black inferiority and that enslaved persons lack the ability to achieve and maintain their own freedom. The rebels' organizational capability and tenacity under pressure inspired stories that shocked and frightened slave owners in the Western Hemisphere. Unfortunately, this could not be allowed to continue from the colonists' perspective. And after many attempts to overtake and retake the island, the Europeans realized that they could not do that. So they decided to put pressure on the island economically and to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of the island being a very difficult and failed state from an economic perspective. By putting in a trade embargo and not trading with the island with fair prices. Causing the island to strip itself of its own natural resources. And eventually creating an economic collapse.

Instead of celebrating the historic study of this incredible story, because even with this, with the economic collapse and the difficulties that Haiti faces today, you cannot take away the incredible nature of what they accomplished that Spartacus could not do, that they pulled off and no other nation in the history of the world has done. But it's been buried in the shame of natural disaster, poverty, economic collapse. This should be studied as one of the greatest achievements in history.

Toussaint Louverture, who I spoke of earlier as part of the French Revolutionary Army, he was a Haitian. He should be regarded as not only one of the greatest military strategists in history, but one of the greatest leaders and inspirers of all time who pulled off the unthinkable. What he did is far more impressive and improbable than what George Washington did. Yes, Great Britain was powerful, but the Americans had help from France. No imperial power was going to help the black slave revolutionaries of Haiti win over one of their imperial brethren. So why are the Haitians not celebrated around the world for their victory against all odds? Why didn't this convince the European powers that black Africans were obviously not inferior, even with less weapons, less troops, less training? They defeated the French army. Why didn't this convince them? Why is Toussaint Louverture's name not mentioned in the same vein as even Spartacus who led an unsuccessful revolt? But it should be mentioned with George Washington and it's not. Why is that? It's because of the continued lie and fraud of race and racism. What about Gaspar Yanga and Vicente Guerrero in Mexico? Gaspar Yanga was said to be of the Bran people and a member of the royal family of Gabon. He was captured and sold into slavery in Mexico where he was called Gaspar Yanga. He led a maroon colony of slaves in the highlands near Veracruz, Mexico, which was then called New Spain. And during the early period of Spanish colonial rule, he successfully resisted Spanish attack after attack after attack on his colony. The Maroons continued their raids on Spanish settlements. And finally the Spanish capitulated in 1618. They achieved in a settlement with Yanga an agreement that the colonial government allowed Yanga and his township to self-rule their own settlement. It was later called San Lorenzo de los Negros. And also San Lorenzo de Cerralvo. In the late 19th century, Yanga was named as a national hero of Mexico and el primer liberador de las Américas. In 1932, the settlement he formed, located in today's state of Veracruz, was renamed as Yanga in his honor. Why have we not heard of Yanga? Why is he not celebrated as one of the true freedom fighters in the Americas? The fraud of race and racism. A black African leading other black Africans as escaped slaves called maroons to successfully resist the Spanish and force them to resign? Again, with very little weapons, very little training. Not on the scale of Toussaint Louverture and what was done in Haiti, but this is still amazing considering the difference, again, in what they were dealing with and the odds they faced. Think of the tactical genius required. Think of the leadership and courage it took to inspire his people to keep fighting.

Then there's Vicente Guerrero. Who should be a household name across North America because he, not Barack Obama, was the first president in North America, of a North American nation, who was of African descent. The first black president in continental North America. Vicente Guerrero was one of the leading revolutionary generals of the Mexican War for Independence. He fought against Spain for independence in the 19th century and later served as the second president of Mexico. He was of Afro-Mestizo descent and he championed the cause of Mexico's common people and abolished slavery on a national level during his brief term as president. As president, Guerrero called for public schools, land title reforms, industry and trade developments, and championed the causes of the racially oppressed and economically oppressed. Unfortunately, he was viewed as a threat to the powerful and elite establishment because he could unite the poor people. He had the Aztec natives, the Africans, and the Mestizos behind him. His capture and treacherous execution in 1831 was a shock to the nation.

So why don't you know about Vicente Guerrero? Why is his name not amongst the most famous across North America? It's because of the fraud of race and racism.

Visit us at https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab) to learn more about ARCC. Donate to our cause and join the movement that will change the world.

DONZEL LEGGETT: Look, I could go on and on, but I'm going to leave some of these stories and figures to profile in later episodes. I'm going to stop here. The key message is that for thousands of years from ancient Egypt, to Northern, Western, Eastern, and Southern Europe, to India, China, and Japan, and the Americas. There have been historically significant and important Africans, yes, black Africans, leaders and contributors who have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that racism, and specifically the insidious assertion that black people are inferior, is not only false, but obviously false, and was well known to be false by those that were in power. Many of the people and stories that are profiled have been either whitewashed to literally make black hero be revised through history to seem white, like Hannibal or ancient Egyptians, or removed from history where they couldn't be whitewashed, like the 25th dynasty of ancient Egypt, the black pharaohs, the Nubian pharaohs, or buried and ignored so completely by creating walls of ignorance so thick that even though the answer is right in front of us, we can't believe it. Like me, not understanding that Othello was a Moor and that Moors were black. The fact remains that historically, black people were leaders in the world well before the concept of race was introduced and lived alongside and in many a case were above white people. And were revered until the concept of race was created to justify colonialism and slavery. Racism is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated on humanity, and sadly, it continues to cheat, defraud, and defame people to this day. Not only the people who are subjected to it, but those who believe that they are superior and benefit from it as well. Before you can become anti-racist, you must erase your ignorance about racism. You must reject the concept of race itself because it is a fraud. One of the biggest, most insidious lies ever created. I challenge you to learn about all the people I described today. And these were just the tip of the iceberg. Blumenbach was wrong about the degeneration theory, as modern science has proven with genetics through mitochondrial DNA, that all modern humans descend from a single female in sub-Saharan Africa. But just like any family, we don't all look exactly the same or sound the same. An Italian looks and sounds different from a Norwegian. And a West African Maasai tribe member looks and sounds different than a South African Zulu tribe member. A Northern Chinese looks and sounds different from a Southern Chinese. And a Native American from the Seminole tribe looks and sounds different than a Native American from the Inuit tribe. North Indians look and sound different than South Indians. Yes, people from Africa will look and sound different from people from Europe and people from Asia. And people from the Americas. But we're all humans. And the only differences are manifested through the environments in which we've lived and adapted. A little more melanin here, a change in eye shape there, longer and thicker hair here, shorter and coarse hair there. All manifestations and adaptations to the environment. Not some biological difference that means one is better than the other. It just means that one is more adapted to a certain location than the other.

If we think back to Blumenbach, where he was correct was that there is no biological difference between races. And his cranial studies showed this because there was more variation between groups of the same so-called race than between groups of different races. And modern science has proven this as well with genetics.

Their genetic differences and variations between groups of people within a same so-called race have greater variation than in many cases people within a so-called race. The science is clear. History is clear. Common sense is clear. You just need to open your eyes. Open your mind and open your heart to see the truth that's right in front of you. Race does not exist. Stop believing the lie. Stop falling victim to the insidiousness. Don't fall for the fraud. There's no such thing as race. And without race, there can be no racism.

Are there people that you are going to like more than others? Yeah, but that's because some personalities click with some and others don't. It has nothing to do with their skin color. It has nothing to do with their hair texture. It has nothing to do with their eye shape. It has nothing to do with the size of their cranium.

Break down your walls of ignorance now and start planting the seeds of anti-racism by educating yourself on what it takes to be anti-racist and help reverse 400 years of the fraud of race and racism.

Visit us at https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab) to learn more about ARCC. Donate to our cause and join the movement that will change the world.

DONZEL LEGGETT: To find The ARCC of Change podcast with Donzel Leggett and learn more about the Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition or ARCC, please visit us at https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab). You can also subscribe to The ARCC of Change with Donzel Leggett on your favorite podcast hosting sites.

I greatly look forward to our next episode, an opportunity to inspire you to become part of the movement that will change the world by eradicating racism once and for all. Until next time, stay safe and continue to ask yourself, "Am I doing enough?" And remember that none of us are doing enough as long as racism and hate still exist.

Thanks for listening and goodbye.

The ARCC of Change podcast with Donzel Leggett is brought to you by the Anti-Racism Commitment Coalition. To learn more about ARCC, donate to our cause, and join the coalition, visit https://joinarcc.org/(opens in new tab). Don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss an episode and share this podcast to help spread our mission to change the world by ending racism once and for all. Thanks for listening. Until next time, stay safe and be inspired.