Blog # 15: Racist Rastafarians?

Learning about the rastafarian movement has taught me how little I knew about this movement, and many things I wouldn't have guessed about it. The most surprising, I think, is the question of whether the rastafaris are racist against whites. In the video we watched, the signs clearly demonstrated white as evil or bad, but does that correspond to skin color? And in the book, there are many places where 'babylonian oppressors' can be directly translated to white men.

In the video, the signs that referred to black as good and white as evil seemed a clear image of racism, but that doesn't seem to come up in any of the beliefs of the rastafarians. It may just be a perception of convenience that we see this as racism, because they are fighting against centuries of racism against themselves. I don't think that these signs specifically indicate any prejudices, although they may be an indicator of an underlying or unofficial belief that they hold.

In the book, they mention several times how the rastafaris are fighting against white oppressors, or the people who enslaved their ancestors. They still feel a very distinct connection to the pain their ancestors suffered, and place the blame for that suffering on the supporters of the government, or the descendents of the enslavers, which may be interpreted as all white people. Also, the book states one definition of Babylon as "the whole complex of institutions which conspire to keep the black man enslaved in the Western world and which attempt to subjugate coloured people throughout the world." (p. 45) I think this, and the fact that one of the main goals of the movement is (or was) to return to Africa, directly excludes and possibly targets all people of a pale skin color. It may not be purposeful or complete racism, but some of their beliefs do seem to encourage that point of view.