To understand the complex history of how the theory and ideology of racism was invented as a psuedo-science, at a college level (or for advanced high school, IB Diploma Program or A-levels students) the following triad of resources has proven to work quite well:
Studying the History of Racism with the “Exterminate All the Brutes” Trilogy
To introduce the history of racism, in the context of studying Apartheid in South Africa or Segregation in the USA for instance, but also European colonial imperialism in general, I’d follow the genealogy of a famous HBO documentary from 2021, Exterminate All the Brutes.
To make this short documentary series, director Raoul Peck worked with Sven Lindqvist, a Swedish anthropologist, and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortis, a US American historian, and borrowed the title from Lindqvist’s book Exterminate all the Brutes (whereas Dunbar-Ortis’s most famous book is An Indigenous History of the United States).
Step 1.
I’d start with a 6-minute interview to Peck, writing a quick introductory paragraph reflecting on what the intentions of the author are, and the possible relevance of these kinds of discussions.
Step 2.
Lindqvist’s book title is actually originally taken from a quote of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, an 1899 novel set in colonized Congo.
In the book, Conrad imagines the main character to tell the story of his travels to Belgian-colonized Congo, and his encounter with Kurtz, a European administering parts of the colony, in the interior, up the river Congo, in the heart of “darkness”, from a European perspective. Conrad, a Polish-British writer, had actually himself traveled to Congo, and this is a way for him to recount what he saw.
Please read the attached short excerpt from Conrad’s book. Why does Conrad say that “all of Europe helped produce Kurz”? Was it just Belgium who colonized Africa? Write a paragraph connecting your answers also to what you already know about South Africa. Where does “exterminate all the brutes” come from, as an idea, in Kurt’s quote?
Step 3.
I’d then read the attached 5 pages out of Lindqvist’s book Exterminate All the Brutes (New Press, 1992), about the invention of racism as a pseudo-scientific theory in XIX century biology. Are human “races” a fact of biology? How did European colonial empires use the theories on racism developed by these pseudo-scientists? I’d here write a third paragraph reflecting this also to what we already know about slavery and the trans-Atlantic context.
Step 4, or 1 again.
I’d finally get back to the Raoul Peck’s documentary series itself, Exterminate All the Brutes (HBO, 2021) if one can find it / access it. A separate guide to the documentary will be linked here as soon as possible.
In a concluding paragraph, I’d then summarize what we learnt that we didn’t know already, and bring in my own reaction to the topic of racism, and what I’d expect to learn studying the history of Apartheid in South Africa and Segregation in the United States.
Europe is Not a Continent 