To begin a classroom discussion about the myth (or curse) of Ham, undergraduates can consider what they know about stories and histories and what they understand as truth. In the case of Ham, the claim is for an explanatory truth: why it’s reasonable, even righteous, to enslave other people. A premodern critical race perspective on such a claim looks to where the idea comes from, what it has influenced, and how it has evolved. The myth of Ham can help students consider the origins of culturally determined truths.

Starting with student experience

Students are often more engaged when they start with their own experiences. As societies change so do people’s understanding about the meaning of events in the past. On an individual level, students might share ideas about a historical event that they understand differently now than what they remember learning in elementary school. Example: causes of the U.S. Civil War.

Destabilizing history

Sometimes history is used as a substitute for causality: because this happened, things are the way that they are. Students can consider how the lens of premodern critical race scholarship on the myth of Ham turns this idea around. 

• Which came first: slavery, or the idea that slavery is divinely sanctioned?
• How does tracing the origins of the myth of Ham provide evidence that stories about the past don’t just change—that they are purposefully retold in ways that suit the needs of the storyteller? 
• Do students see history(ies) as fundamentally unstable and multi-vocal? How do the variations in the stories about Ham and the curse expand student thinking about how truth, or beliefs, evolve over time?

Racialization as marking

Thinking about racialization means wondering about how the “marking” of a person (or a kind of person) would cause people to judge an individual or group. 

• What is a somatic normative? 
• Do students see modern variations in social attitudes toward eye or nose shapes?
• Is there a standard of beauty? Standards about tattoos? Or suntans? 

History as a record of idea shifting

Students can think about history as a record of people’s changing ideas, not just events that happen to groups. A discussion related to the myth of Ham could include:

• What kinds of new knowledge about the world probably caused new perspectives on food, dress, or language?
• How might changing perspectives on the world cause individuals to seek scriptural passages that would explain why some groups had more power than others? 

How do we counter historical narratives?

Because the myth of Ham has been “wielded to justify by divine decree the colonization, enslavement, and oppression of Black Africans,” what do students think they could or should do (as writers, or activists, or in other roles) to counteract this racist rationalization? Is there a Throughline to today’s influencers and the impact of social media?