A Medieval Anti-Racist

Episode 2.6 of the Genealogies of Modernity podcast is live! This episode asks: what if racism shared an origin with opposition to racism? What if the condemnation of injustice gave rise to both an early form of anti-racism and to the racial hierarchies that haunt the modern era?

Rolena Adorno, David Orique, and María Cristina Ríos Espinosa tell the story of how Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican missionary to New Spain, came to racial consciousness in the presence of slavery. His intellectual rebellion spurred slavery’s apologists to more strident and sinister modes of defense—but also laid a lasting Christian groundwork for the fight against racial injustice.