Racism has been present for a lot of human history. The modern western version of Christian white supremacy can be traced back to the Greeks, then on to the Arabs who, inspired by the Greeks, used their conception of race to justify their already present slave trade. For the Arabs it’s wasn’t so much “we’re superior so we have a right to enslave these people” as it was “we were able to enslave these people because we are superior”. European Christians, armed with “the curse of ham” took those Greek ideals and pushed racial heirarchy and supremacy to the cultural forefront around the 15th century and it’s shaped their societies, colonies or otherwise ever since. It’s obviously evolved and changed over time but that’s the gist of it. Racism isn’t new, but European christian empires made it into the monster it is today