This text focuses on Black Africa, that is, West, Central, and Southern Africa, areas on the continent where the population predominantly has dark-pigmented skin. I am interested in racism in the context of the US, and Black Africa is strongly connected to the US through the enslavement of Black Africans that started in the US in the 1600s. Africa is a large continent, and the area encompassing Black Africa is also large and includes hundreds of cultures and languages. Yet there are cultural similarities because trade networks spread through Black Africa well before European colonisation. Nevertheless, these cultures differ, and the scope of this study cannot accommodate a detailed look into each African culture referenced. Therefore, I focus broadly on Black Africa, but the reader should keep in mind that Black Africa is not a monolithic culture but has distinct cultures and geography.

White supremacy is referenced throughout this text. I am not using the term polemically, but I am pointing to an ideological stance that most white people agree with. White supremacy simply means that you think that white people are better, more advanced, more civilised, and naturally more intelligent. (How else could you advance or create civilisation?) This does not mean that white supremacists are Nazis who want to kill or enslave nonwhites. White supremacists are often convinced their imagination is based on historical facts and often science. My overarching aim is to show how white supremacy is commonplace in the US by examining the history of Black African objects in the US, western aesthetics, art, and the US art world in the early 1900s.

The text uses a capital T in truth to signal that this refers to the philosophical concept of a universal and infinite truth that encompasses all times and places.

In this text, certain words are dealt with in non-standard ways to draw attention to the normalisation of racism and dehumanisation of Black people. Some words are used for precision over standard use. Black is capitalised throughout the text when referring to Black people.

The N-word is referenced in quoted material only and is written as Ni[…]er(s). USians is used instead of American(s) and US instead of America because referring to the United States as ‘America’ is imprecise as there are two large continents with a small strip joining them, which are all part of the Americas.