Monday, September 20, 2010

KLG Disscussion September 20th

I am very interested in Leopold's treatment of the blacks and if it would have been different if they were of another race. While I know that his treatment of them was partially because of their skin color, Leopold was greedy and would his greed even suppress white people?

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

King Leopold's Ghost: Chapter 1

When I began reading King Leopold's Ghost, I was unaware of what it was about exactly. I never really heard about the "scramble for Africa" and why it was important. Little did I know mass murders occurred at this time because of greed. I knew a little about slave trading, but not that the slave trading was so vile. I was very unaware that anything besides what we hear about now (hunger, poverty and genocide) was present in Africa. They had a community that flourished. While much of it's success was because of slave trading (especially to the Portuguese). While I was shocked at what "the white men" did to the Africans, I was even in more shock that Africans offered up their own people in fear to the slave traders. While in later years, the people of the Congo were brutally massacred, something many fail to acknowledge, including myself. I find it almost embarrassing that I am unaware of such a huge event in world history, but the truth is, no information is made available about such events. Why is this event so unknown? Are there still events going on today as a result of the past? How did the people of the Congo deal with such a mass genocide? I look forward to answering these and many more....

Thursday, September 2, 2010

New and Old Imperialsm

I learned the difference between colonizing and imperialism and how they apply to a wide variety of countries. I also learned about the reasons behind colonizing a country. I would like to learn more about how Africa was colonized.