#learning about the hand thing that happened in congo while i was in belgium irreparably changed my brain chemistry i think

[fleetsofsnow]

"There is also this to consider: The name Hitler does not offend a black South African because Hitler is not the worst thing a black South African can imagine. Every country thinks their history is the most important, and that's especially true in the West. But if black South Africans could go back in time and kill one person, Cecil Rhodes would come up before Hitler. If people in the Congo could go back in time and kill one person, Belgium's King Leopold would come way before Hitler. If Native Americans could go back in time and kill one person, it would probably be Christopher Colombus or Andrew Jackson.

I often meet people in the West who insist that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity in human history, without question. Yes, it was horrific. But I often wonder, with African atrocities like in the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don't have that Jewish people do have is documentation. The Nazis kept meticulous records, took pictures, made films. And that's really what it comes down to. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all look at that number and rightly be horrified. But when you read through the history of atrocities against Africans, there are no numbers, only guesses. It's harder to be horrified by a guess. When Portugal and Belgium were plundering Angola and the Congo, they weren't counting the black people they slaughtered. How many black people died harvesting rubber in the Congo? In the gold and diamond mines of the Transvaal?

So in Europe and America, yes, Hitler is the Greatest Madman in History. In Africa he's just another strongman from the history books." - Born A Crime by Trevor Noah

#born a crime #trevor noah #fleets of snow #no notes once again #the same thing with asian atrocities and i don't even necessarily mean white people against asian atrocities #although that was a horrible cruel thing with effects still felt today too despite being vastly less discussed #learning about the hand thing that happened in congo while i was in belgium irreparably changed my brain chemistry i think #i don't know how best to explain it but even most of the woke people in the west don't realize how little they understand #and how easily they miss and forget that cultures and places and people exist outside of their own