Curse of Ham



The Curse of Ham (also known as Noah's Curse or the Noachid Curse) refers to an incident in the Bible, in the book of Genesis, regarding Noah (after the Great Flood) and his sons, Shem, Japheth and Ham.

Quoting the good book
Here is the text from Genesis, :

Some Biblical scholars believe this anecdote was added to the scriptures as a rationalisation justifying the Israelite conquest and enslavement of the Canaanites later in the Old Testament. Ironically, one of Ham's grandsons, Nimrod, becomes the worlds' first Empire-builder, starting with the Tower of Babel, which undermines the curse in terms of Africans since Nimrod's father was Cush.

Racist
That the act of manumission confers no other right but that of freedom from the dominion of the master, and the limited liberty of locomotion; that it does not and cannot confer citizenship, nor any of the powers, civil or political, incident to citizenship; that the social and civil degradation, resulting from the taint of blood, adheres to the descendants of Ham in this country, like the poisoned The Canaanites, descended from Ham via his son Canaan, have historically been regarded as the ethnic ancestors of the black peoples of Africa. Although Genesis does not identify Ham's skin colour, some ancient Jewish writings, including part of the Talmud, state that either Ham or Canaan had his faced "blackened" by God as part of curse, in punishment for Ham seeing Noah's nakedness and not covering him, or, in some variations, for copulating while aboard the Ark.

This idea became more widespread in Europe during colonialism, as an argument for the inferiority of the black race, whose dark skin was believed to be an outward sign of the curse, and to sanction some instances of slavery. The belief was at its most popular during the 18th and 19th centuries, to justify the Atlantic slave trade and plantation slavery in the British sugar islands and American South. Noah's decree that Canaan should be the slave of Shem was seen as God's command that Africans should be the slaves to white Christians.

Although overwhelmingly discredited and largely forgotten, racial arguments based on the Curse of Ham are still clung to by some white supremacists, including blogger Alan O'Reilly and some members of Stormfront. During 2008, various ultra-conservative and racist blogs and websites invoked the Curse of Ham as an argument against Barack Obama's campaign for the United States Presidency. Apparently white supremacists can't think any better than the Bronze Age herders who wrote that part of the Bible; nor do they see the irony in using a Jewish text to justify their racism.

Rationalist
The fully functioning rational mind raises a few questions about the Curse:


 * Why weren't any of Ham's other sons (Cush, Mizraim or Phut) cursed as well as Canaan? )
 * Why was Canaan being punished for Ham's misdeeds, when Deuteronomy and Ezekiel clearly state that children should not be punished for parents' misdeeds?
 * Shem and Japheth acted as equal partners in covering their father, but Japheth's reward is far greater.
 * The whole idea that every black person in the world is permanently cursed because some far-distant and almost certainly mythical ancestor saw his father drunk and naked, aside from being appallingly racist, just doesn't make a whole lot of sense at all.
 * Why punish Ham and Canaan at all for Ham accidentally getting an eyeful of wrinkly old man parts? It can be fairly certain that getting a gander at his father's rattle-and-flute was the furthest thing from his mind that day.