Curse of Ham the street; this, said Eleazar, "did not take to mind the commandment to honour one's father." Another interpretation was that Noah's "youngest son" could not be Ham, who was the middle son: "for this reason they say that this youngest son was in fact Canaan." In the past, some people have claimed the "curse of Ham" as a biblical justification for imposing slavery or racism on black people, although this concept is essentially an ideologically driven misconception. Regarding this matter, the Christian leader Martin Luther King Jr. called such attempt "a blasphemy" that "is against everything that the Christian religion
Canaan (son of Ham) Semitic name for this region. The etymology is uncertain. One explanation is that it has an original meaning of "lowlands", from a Semitic root "to be low, humble, depressed", in contrast with Aram, "highlands". An alternative suggestion derives the term from Hurrian "Kinahhu", purportedly referring to the colour purple, so that "Canaan" and "Phoenicia" would be synonyms ("Land of Purple"), but it is just as common to assume that "Kinahhu" was simply the Hurrian rendition of the Semitic . Canaan (son of Ham) Canaan ( "Kena‘an"), according to the "Book of Genesis" in the Hebrew Bible, was a son of