IOTL's Scramble for Africa, we saw the industrialised Great Powers invade, occupy, colonise and eventually annex the continent in its entirety between them. Can anyone think of a feasible scenario in which we would see African industrialised Great Powers engaging in an analogous 'scramble' to snatch up colonial territories across a pre-industrial Western World- or perhaps even the world in its entirety? And in such a timeline, what sort of a world do you feel might result from this African colonialism in the long run?
In my opinion, the least ASB way to do this would be to have a POD as far back as possible- for example, if African founder crops such as Sorghum or African Rice were harnessed as a potential food source, cultivated and domesticated far earlier than IOTL- leading to a far more advanced Africa in relation to the rest of the world. Admittedly, back as far as the Mid-Paleolithic is a pretty long way to try and push the advent of agriculture, but if this critical turning point in human history were to take place prior to The Great Migration, or in its early days, when the rest of the world outside Africa would have still been populated by other hominid species, then I can see a very interesting timeline potentially beginning to unfold.
Rather than IOTL, where other established hominids such as Neanderthals, heidelbergensis & floresiensis met their end after human hunter-gatherers moved in on their territory and out-competed them, would making first contact with human farming communities (as with several isolated tribes and cultures IOTL) have made all the difference, allowing them to endure? Would they have all persisted with hunter-gathering, or would some have picked up agriculture from us? In the long run would they still be wiped out in a bona-fide genocide, accepted into human societies, or (most likely in my opinion, given the history of social development IOTL) enslaved?
And with the racists having actual substance to back up their claims of supposed supremacy, would the other varieties of mankind have a realistic chance of earning their freedom or equality, even by the time we get to the post-industrial era? Would they be able to bring about the end of the post-colonial era, with some semblance of equality under self-rule, through waging insurrection...?
"...Throw off the shackles of black oppression! The white slaves will overthrow their dark masters! Join us in waging war against the brutal cruelty of the Imperialist African nations who still claim our homeland as their own, and someday, someday soon, the people of Europe WILL finally be free...!" European Liberation Army (Neandertal Terror Cell) propaganda broadcast