Documentary Description
A documentary which is exploring the impact of racism on a global
scale, as part of the season of programmes marking the 200th anniversary
of the abolition of slavery. Beginning by assessing the implications
of the relationship between Europe, Africa and the Americas in the
15th century, it considers how racist ideas and practices developed in
key religious and secular institutions, and how they showed up in
writings by European philosophers Aristotle and Immanuel Kant.
Looking at Scientific Racism, invented during the 19th century, an
ideology that drew on now discredited practices such as phrenology and
provided an ideological justification for racism and slavery. These
theories ultimately led to eugenics and Nazi racial policies of the
master race. Some upsetting scenes.
The third and final episode of Racism: A History examines
the impact of racism in the 20th Century. By 1900, European colonial
expansion had reached deep into the heart of Africa. Under the rule of
King Leopold II, The Belgian Congo was turned into a vast rubber
plantation. Men, women and children who failed to gather their latex
quotas would have their limbs dismembered. The country became the scene
of one of the century’s greatest racial genocides, as an estimated 10
million Africans perished under colonial rule. Contains scenes which
some viewers may find disturbing.
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