Since the 17th century, European academics have tried to justify White supremacy and racism, promoting narratives that ‘other’ people of the Global South – presenting them as uncivilised and intellectually inferior.
For example, star of German Enlightenment philosophy Immanuel Kant argued for slavery and colonialism on the grounds of constructed racial hierarchies (though he did finally renounce these views in old age).
In the 19th century, US ethnologist George Morton tried to demonstrate that skull size correlates meaningfully with intelligence, hoping thereby to show that White people are by nature brainier than Black people.
European anthropologists and scholars, when confronted with some of the wonders of African civilisation, simply lied – pretending outside cultures (even extraterrestrial ones!) were the true originators.
In this clip, pan-African scholar PLO Lumumba dispels these myths, listing examples – from astronomy to medicine – of African civilisation that he says outshone anything the Europeans were doing at the time.
What else would you add to his list?
Sources:
https://philarchive.org/archive/KLEODW
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/walls-benin-0016222