This two week experience in Belgium and Amsterdam has helped to expand my knowledge of colonial history and increase my awareness of its impacts in these two countries. As I reflect on my knowledge from before the trip started, I realize how little I was aware of on the topic of colonization in Africa. To wrap up my thoughts about what I have learned regarding modern colonialism and its relationship with our globalist capitalist system, I want to make this blog post about the topic of privilege. In times of disconnect in our society, it is important to have these difficult discussions.
What is white supremacy and how is it connected to the colonial past? We can work to decolonize in terms of unveiling history, but that can only go so far if we do not acknowledge the underlying problem of race and white privilege. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, white supremacy is the belief that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups.
While browsing through the different museums we visited, I could clearly see signs of white supremacy in the displays. Whenever there was a sign of wealth, there was a white person. I wanted to include one specific display of white supremacy that I found at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
This picture shows a portrait of Jan Pranger, a director general of the Dutch West India Company in West Africa from 1730 to 1734. The image is created with several different details to show the man’s wealth. The focus of the light in the painting is on the general while the enslaved black man is in the darkness. Pranger is shown with a commander’s baton which indicates his level of superiority. Most importantly, the portrait was created with an enslaved black man behind the director general. Immediately when seeing the painting, you can assume that the black man is of lesser importance. The director general has beautiful gold detailing on his sleeves as well as a bright red coat on, while the enslaved man has a dark navy coat on and he is in the shadow of Jan Pranger. The enslaved man is also holding a parasol, which was used to protect people from the sun. However, he was most likely holding this accessory not for his own use but for the director general’s use. This shows how much importance was put on rich white men and how everything was catered to focus on their well-being and wealth. This continues to be a conversation today as gender and race sometimes affect people’s ability to be successful in life in comparison to white males.
More information about the portrait: https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/collection/SK-A-2248
How does the colonial roots of white privilege affect our world today? I did not put this together until we started talking in class about how colonialism is still present in our world today. It is one thing to talk about colonialism in the past and how the African people were exploited by the European powers who took over their land, but it is an entirely different discussion when we talk about how minority groups today are impacted by these deeply rooted psychological principles.
When browsing for articles to expand on my understanding of white privilege, I came across one article talking about white supremacy in healthcare. Colonialism started because of the need for labor and resources, but how has it evolved since then? The COVID-19 pandemic was a major event in which colonialization’s lasting effects came to the surface. When looking at the accessibility of vaccines throughout the world, the availability in low-income countries in comparison to high-income countries is a drastic difference. The United Nations Development Program, an agency that works to eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable development goals, has created a global dashboard for vaccine equity that I have added below.
This data chart is especially important because you can clearly see the gap between rich and poor. It is obvious that low-income countries have a much harder time accessing new medicine and technology in comparison to high-income countries. This stems from the colonial past. The major world powers such as Britain, France and Germany who colonized Africa took resources from their land and from those resources were able to gain more wealth and develop further as a country while their colonies were left to self-suffice with nothing to work with. Their only choice was to earn a living by providing labor to the European powers which increased those countries’ wealth over time.
For more data on vaccine equity, check out this website: https://data.undp.org/vaccine-equity/explore-data/
From the various experiences we had on this trip, I understand how the idea of colonialism and white supremacy has continued its way throughout history into modern times. We, as a collective society, need to have these difficult conversations to acknowledge the history of colonial impact but leave this toxic way of thinking in the past. However, this needs to be done in a thoughtful and respectful manner. Some museums we saw such as the Africa Museum in Tervuren showed how not to deal with these matters. They were avoidant of accepting responsibility and tried to push topics of mistreatment under the rug. On the other hand, the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam actively worked to acknowledge the past and apologize as well as move forward in a way that will promote fair treatment to all people. It is difficult to know how to speak about what happened during colonial times, but the first step is to take responsibility and I think some of the European countries that were major players in colonialism have yet to do that.
Article on white supremacy in global healthcare:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9122008/
Article about understanding race and privilege: