Starting #ExterminateAllTheBrutes... had no idea the UN hired Haitian nationals to help manage the transition from Belgian rule of the Congo. All the family footage Raoul Peck has is

Ugh. That photo of the Belgian colonists on “the hunt”...

The Virginia Company of London (f. 1606)...

So many European cities are still littered with the old HQ buildings of enslavement corporations.

Hitler + Krupp, Porsche (Volkswagen), Kissel and Werlin (Daimler-Benz AG), Henry Ford... Naz*s in Madison Square Garden... The levels of trans-Atlantic industrial complicity in the Third Reich’s rise is astounding.

This part of the film reminds me of Katznelson’s argument about corporatism and American interest in the Third Reich’s national socialism as a potential model out of the Depression. Then, I remember Wilkerson’s point that Jim Crow inspired the Naz*s.... Back & forth & back again.

Pt. I was great. Classic Peck. Worth a rewatch. He’s drawing really striking parallels between past and present. The archives are so rich, too. Some of the film and photos are truly unbelievable, but, sadly, reality.

Pt. II -- "Who the F*** is Columbus" (brilliant title) -- is searing. The most incredible breakdown of scientific racism's emergence and European justification of the forcible movement of 10+ million souls from Africa after Las Casas.

Peck points at the core myth of Western civilization's justification for colonization and genocide via the Triangle Trade: that "the Other" is only seen through "discovery."

The Haitian Revolution has been written out of history because it threatened white supremacy. The Revolution inspired movements throughout the Americas to subvert colonization in the early 19th century. Napoleon's attempt to countermand it directly led to the Louisiana Purchase.

Ugh. Andrew Jackson.

Josh Hartnett is doing... a lot of work here.

The magical realism in this is so good. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is here just as much as Julius S. Scott.