From “Reparations: A Christian Call for Repentance and Repair” by Duke L. Kwon and Gregory Thompson
The first of these lies is that of Black animalization. Though Whites have throughout American history understood Black people to be human, many have also believed that they were not fully so. They saw them as “animalized humans.” The origins of this view are complicated, but it seems clear that it emerged in the context of enslavement, with the identification of African Americans as domestic beasts of burden. Like animal laborers, African Americans were considered brutes whose proper use was labor in service of White interests. This perspective was justified not only by the advent of a racialized pseudoscience that emerged in the eighteenth century and remained popular until the middle of the twentieth century, but also by the support of religious leaders who offered divine approval for Black animalization. Justified by this powerful combination of science and religion, Black animalization was popularized through the highly exaggerated portrayals of African American physical features designed to demonstrate their animalistic nature and codified in laws that, for all practical purposes, gave African Americans the social status of a horse. They could be owned, used, abused, freed, and even – after a fashion – loved, but they could never be fully human.