Chapter 18

This chapter reminds me of my research paper that I just wrote for this class. This chapter explains how Europeans thought of themselves as superior and entitled to anything they wanted. It further describes how colonial rule over different empires such as Africa, Asia, and India brought a lot of racism and inequality, but they were still very successful economically. It is very frustrated but somewhat fascinating how the Europeans were very successful with doing what was very wrong socially, politically, economically, and morally. I could not help but to think about slavery in the American South when Strayer stated that European men wanted to be called "master" and called African men "boy." It also reminded me of that when they limited the education in order to keep the natives inferior. The intro stated how the Europeans spoke to the Africans in Swahili even though some were very fluent because the Europeans want that kind of superiority over them and other natives. Even though I knew South Africa experienced the terrible effects of colonial rule, I did not realize that the Europeans settled in many countries to instill their own ways of living. With colonial rule, the Europeans wanted to bring their culture to these new empires regardless of the native culture that existed first. This is nothing new to me nor others who pay attention to history. Because of colonial rule, ideas of racism, and other kinds of superiority from the Europeans were spread throughout the world, well at least in my opinion I think so. The fact that the Europeans tried to scientifically prove that they were racially superior further proves what occurred after those years like the Holocaust with effects that society still endures today. I like how this chapter goes into great detail about what colonial rule was all about around the world and its effects. I think that this shows how far we have come, but we still need to be aware and notice some of the aftereffects that are happening today.