An often glossed over and prettily wrapped part of history can be found when examining the colonial era. This was a time of imperial racing to see who could develop the most civilizations and obtain the most land worldwide. What is ignored though is the truth of what colonialism did to the nations and the reality of its impacts on the world as a whole. Colonialism is responsible for the unequal biases toward race, gender, social class, among and within nations. Further, colonialism set into motion exploitation of nations of the global south for the benefit of nations of the global north, and even upon decolonization, with the optimistic idea of independence, imperial powers set up a system to where the decolonized nations were still dependent on them and continued the abuse of the global south nations and their resources for the economic gain, and that system sticks with us to this day. This paper will explore the impact then and now of colonialism on poverty and development in the world. To begin, colonialism created a standard that informed the genesis of different social hierarchies. This happened mainly, because colonizers set their way of living and their societies as the standard of which to reach to be developed and/or successful. For example, with colonialism came the standard of dress, which Jean Comaroff discusses, and was used to separate the cultured from the uncultured societies. European colonizers went into Africa, claimed land as their own, and then told