In Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the idea of colonialism is constantly present. When Mr. Heidkamp showed the short documentary of European colonization of the Congo, I was shocked (I couldn't watch the part where they were cutting the boy's hands off). Even in today's history classes, despite emphasis on global understanding, the brutality of colonization is never fully embodied/understood in a unit.
By watching the documentary, I felt like I was there. I believe that it can be said that colonization can also be categorized as an early form of racism. Because the idea of the colonization was to make the native people "civilized," the native people were seen as less than human. And maybe colonization is the root of "white supremacy" and "western supremacy."
Today, high schools and colleges are putting a greater emphasis on study-abroad or helping third world countries. But what's interesting is that there is still this idea of "white supremacy." Maybe this is taking it too far, but sometimes, I find the AP classes so "western." In the AP history curriculum, the only options are European History, American History and World History. For me, this gets very frustrating because it seems that the only types of history that are truly worth learning are Euro and American. It feels like the AP just clumps together Asian, South American, and African (and other areas of studies) history into one class; despite those countries having deeper roots than Europe or America.
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