The Blessing of Whiteness in the Curse of Ham
Reading Gen 9:18-29 in the Antebellum South
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3411215 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Wongi Park (0000-0002-3703-9334, Belmont University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Pages | 928 |
| Publication date | 2021-10-25 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel12110928 |
| OpenAlex | W3210560759 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 34 |
This essay examines the antebellum history of interpretation surrounding the curse of Ham in Gen 9:18-29. It explores how modern notions of scientific racism were read into the story as a de facto justification for the transatlantic slave trade and the institution of slavery in the antebellum South. However, more than simply being used as a prooftext for racist agendas, the curse of Ham provided a biblical foil for circumscribing a racial hierarchy where whiteness was positioned as superior in the figure of Japheth. By considering key features of the racist antebellum interpretation, I argue that the proslavery rationalization of Christian antebellum writers is rooted in a deracialized whiteness that was biblically produced and blessed with divine authority
Art · Blessing · Curse · De facto · Epistemology · Linguistics · Literature · Political science · Racism · Sociology · Theology · Anthropology · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · History · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Religious studies · Theological Perspectives and Practices
Stony the Road We Trod
The Myth of Race
Critical Race Theory
Black Legacies
Response
The Mark of Cain and White Violence
Ethnic Fission and Fusion in Biblical Genealogies
Noah’s Drunkenness and the Curse of Canaan
I Am Burnt but Beautiful
A Calvinist Heritage to the “Curse of Ham”
The Forging of Races
Handbooks of the Sociology of Racial and Ethnic Relations
The Dutch in the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1600–1815
Writing Race Across the Atlantic World
“The Fixity of Whiteness”
Christian Imperialism and the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Black and Slave
Black Excellence and the Curse of Ham
Early Rabbinic Exegesis on Noah's Son Ham and the So-Called ‘Hamitic Myth’
Becoming Human
Religion, Race, and the Wife of Ham
The Sons of Noah and the Construction of Ethnic and Geographical Identities in the Medieval and Early Modern Periods
Unsettling the Coloniality of Being/Power/Truth/Freedom
| Citations per year | 0.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2022 - 2026 (5) |
| Highly cited | No |