Youtube History Propaganda Channel (James Atlas)?
This Youtube Channel I came across has two videos, both of which come across to me as selective history used to fuel a racial ideology (white supremacy), but I am no expert in history. The first video is "debunking" the myth of Mansa Musa being the richest man alive, and the second is the "debunking" of the systemic atrocities committed during King Leopold II's Congo.
https://www.youtube.com/@JamesAtlasYT
The Mansa Musa video popped up on my feed and at first I took it seriously, but there was some language used that was clearly ideologically fueled, reducing West Africa pre-colonialism to "primitives." Which, given, they were likely not technologically advanced to the point of Europe or China, but that among other comments was a huge red flag.
Then I saw the Congo video, his most recent, and was like "Hold up. This dude's channel has got to be straight up propaganda." In the first few minutes of the Congo video he claims that the vast majority of historical rhetoric surrounding Leopold's Congo and the mass killings there (in the millions) are almost entirely a fabrication. In both of these videos he repeatedly claims that these narratives are retroactively constructed for anti-white purposes and as are allowed because people are apologetic to black people in today's culture.
Now obviously to me it seems like he is at least twisting the narrative to push some agenda. What's really concerning is that these videos have hundreds of thousands of views and that I can't really find comments disputing his claims or narratives. Now I'm guessing none of you want to watch hours' long video essays that are twisted in this fashion, so maybe just a general question on the historical consensuses surrounding Mansa Musa and Leopold's Congo? With the latter at least I feel like there's extensive scholarship so I find it hard to believe that the popular historical narrative is warped or divorced from the reality. Also, I'm just left scratching my head thinking how can these kinds of echo chambers be combatted? Like a lot of people probably watched this video and thought they were learning an uncomfortable truth that went against the countervailing narrative, that they were learning real history; these videos will likely validate someone's suppressed or consciously accepted white supremacy, or frustrations with anti-colonialist scholarship. I dunno. What do you think?