How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney should be required reading for every Westerner. I hear this argument so often that it clearly points to a lack of education on the matter.

This is the morally repugnant and despicable (yet malevolently "clever") nature of colonialism - it intentionally used beaureaucracy and macro economics to make its victims appear as if they consented to their own dehumanization and exploitation.

European colonists actively undermined African textile and iron smelting industries.

They intentionally created the conditions where slave raiding and military expansion became necessary for economic success.

Therefore, for centuries, the productive minds and bodies of young Africans were sold into servitude, removing any potential for innovation or development. For centuries.

The spoils of which went where? To Europeans and their descendants. A global imbalance that persists even to this day.

To turn around and say: Well, you brought this upon yourself is so morally tone deaf it brings to question whether humankind is even capable of humanity given the scale of the crime that was committed.

I urge everyone to please read outside of your niche interests and learn more about the world so that this type of misinformation doesn't continue to disseminate.

I don't care where you're from, you were raised on some type of propaganda one way another. The only way out of the box is to read, expose yourself to and listen to the perspective of others. Otherwise your worldview will always be what it must not be - incomplete.

If you want to be pedantic, the euro slavers upped the demand. Yes, local populations had slaves, they did not do it to the level that the white slavers did.

I dunno, the US should pay reparations to Iraq for their false invasion over WMDs, but instead, any oil money Iraq makes is held in US banks and only accessible via US government approval.

The government that allowed/encouraged the injustices hasn't died yet.