Exterminate All the Brutes

Exterminate All the Brutes is a tour de force. In a moment of intense dispute and contestation, where the clash of narratives and history are reduced to disputes over truth and feelings, disinformation, and gaslighting, Raoul Peck’s documentary series is an uncompromising commitment to evidence, science, ethics, and morality. It asks viewers to consider the continuing impact of racial hierarchies, land seizure, and the plunder and profit of cultures throughout the world: from the dehumanization and exploitation of populations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America; to the enslavement and sale of Africans; to the pillage of wealth and natural resources in the Americas and Caribbean; to the extermination of Jews in Europe; and to the displacement and appropriation of Native and Indigenous Lands in the United States. The project avoids establishing a hierarchy of atrocity and suffering, placing important historical movements, narratives, and alliances on the global stage rather than leaving them merely as isolated national or local projects. Exterminate All the Brutes is a sweeping indictment of racial capitalism, and deconstructs our dominant cultural narratives of discovery, racial hierarchies, and economic exploitation that have held sway for centuries to offer a different, more critical story about enslavement, displacement, dispossession and extraction, all in the name of freedom, superiority, and domination. At the heart of the series is the intimate and compelling personal story of Raoul Peck, his family, friendships, professional relationships, and his extraordinary body of work. This is an ambitious, artful essay, weaving together personal narratives, commentary, dramatic enactments, and rare media footage. For its courageous and unflinching look at the world historical events, practices, and consequences of colonialism, racism, and imperialism, and their enduring global consequences, Exterminate All the Brutes wins a Peabody Award.