when it comes to africa for example i was taught that they're poor cause their land isn't harvestable or some bullshit like that, and then i find out as an adult it's actually cause western countries fucked the shit out of them and huh that makes a lot more sense
In high school and college I was basically taught that colonialism did most of it. However, it wasn't until I took a class on globalization in college that I learned about the World Bank, the IMF, and all that absolutely fucking insidious shit. I had already considered myself a leftist at that point but I knew that if I hadn't, that class would've radicalized me not even half way through the course, because that's where I finally really began to understand neo-imperialism/neo-colonialism.