Might, in this case, being 100% of the debating point. Get back to me in seven years, when youre ready to order. Olusoga, who presents the BBC documentary series A House Through Time, told presenter Lauren Laverne that racism was "just the background hum of life" when he was growing up. That hes able to write this article is because hes living in what is, by historical standards, a remarkably tolerant society. not at all to disparage your ancestors GC. Full text must be online somewhere but theres an extract at https://www.history.co.uk/shows/the-real-vikings/articles/eyewitness-to-the-vikings. That assumes an increase in demand. Reckon they found commenters guessing which parts of a hypothetical argument were meant all part of the fun, In many respects youre one of the posters here whose views on morality Im closest to our personal moralities probably being quite far apart, but I recognise mine as very much the product of my upbringing and surrounding society and know enough about other places and times to realise just how contingent that makes them. In America few were castrated, which is why there are now >40 million descendants there. His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. David will . His dad met his mom at the city's university in the 1960s. The reason why Equiano is not a national name is because slavery is not a part of the history that we teach when it should be because I don't think you can understand the 18th century in particular but also the 19th century without reference to slavery.". Ill disparage them. In the case of slavery the answer is clear. When I met her, ~1995, I started asking her questions about the war, as I thought she was a fabulous resource of information. He was Chairman of Moneysupermarket Group from 2014 to 2019 and Senior Independent Director of Close Brothers Group plc from 2006 to 2014 and is a Past President of the Chartered Management Institute. (If the likes of SMFS believe Western society will fall apart without a return to traditional Christian-inspired values, I suggest they either don a pessimists crash-helmet or just cling on and enjoy the ride to Hell in their top-gear handcart. Giles Terera, the Olivier award-winning British performer who starred in the popular theatre production Hamilton, has recently staged a play called the Meaning of Zong about the massacre of 132 enslaved Africans aboard the slave ship Zong in 1781 and the impact it had on Equiano. Black history: Should it be part of the wider curriculum? You dont have esoteric discussions with paedophiles any more than you would with serial killers. In fact he is a biased political campaigner working to attack and do as much damage to Britain as he can. @ Boganboy History is just one awful thing after another. The book accompanying. One sporting event that has captured your imagination I was fortunate enough to get tickets to see some of the basketball at the London 2012 Olympics, so my brother and I went to watch the GB vs. Spain game. For almost 60 years, there was impasse. Societies have what morals suit them. The Westman Islands of Iceland have an interesting history in terms of European slavery a major rebellion of presumably mostly Irish (Westmen) slaves was put down there in the typically brutal Scandinavian manner, hence the name, but in the 1600s the local inhabitants were themselves enslaved by Barbary pirates and taken to Algiers, from where a few were ransomed back and one wrote about the experience. The following decades were taken up with popular and political rhetoric about immigration and parliamentary acts to limit blacks coming to Britain. As would Beyonce. Guess wed have to print it. Olusoga unloads all sorts of characterizations. Intellectually more convincing anyway for practical and political purposes, demolishing a straw-man often makes a better video or audio clip while simultaneously making your opponents position sound stupid. Whitey bad, give me cash? Make sure it doesnt happen in the least costly way. It does not take people long to starve to death and slaves were paid for. The historian and producer said he wanted to. Presumably there were normal times when food was cheap that you fed your workers and didnt seek to replace them in the way Olusoga means. 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. Should black history be taught all year round? I hadnt gotten far when she stopped me cold, pointing out that her best friend, a 15 year old girl knitting beside a window in her house, was machine gunned by an American P-51 pilot. Prof Darity and Ms Mullen outline that to eliminate the existing Black-White wealth gap an allocation of between $10 trillion and $12 trillion, or about $800,000 per black household, should be paid. Indeed in many cases, whose ancestors didnt even live in France or England at the relevant time. Duke University professor, William Darity Jr, and writer, Kirsten Mullen, jointly published a report for The Roosevelt Institute, an American liberal think tank, laying out a case for slavery reparations. Those who grew rich on slavery and the slave trade were not neutral and no achievement or act of philanthropy justifies airbrushing their involvement from history. "Equiano is the most important voice that we have from the British experience of slavery and the slave trade," he said. Peter Pan & Wendy is a live-action reimagining of the J.M . No? The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Thats before you get on to the Khoisan and the Zulus, the Carthaginians and Romans, the Vikings versus pretty much anyone else who lived within raiding distance, Theres a fundamental weakness with all theories of universal law or justice, which is that across time and space, the human conception of what is right and just seems to be extremely varied and rarely (to modern Western eyes) pleasant. They are pretty much airbrushed from history, whereas the transatlantic slave trade seems to be wall-to-wall on our TV screens and in our school textbooks. Moreover its arguably unjust that only victims of still-extant states have a route to compensation whereas people from ethnic groups roughly contemporaneously massacred, enslaved and sacrificed by the Aztec Empire have nobody to sue. BLM is after political or financial advantages because of slavery. And tolerance is not a given. Its a shame Flyover Americans arent going to take it. The economics of the slave trade may have meant that it was cheaper to work someone to death rather than allowing him a comfortable old age. BurningEars August 30, 2020 at 3:07 pm Theres a flaw in arguments of the form frankly you should be glad I murdered your sister. And the third, fourth, fifth, and so on. Thousands of petitions were presented to parliament. Back in the heyday of blogging, perhaps ten years ago or so, there was a blogger calling him/herself The Heresiarch who enjoyed running against received opinions. Purely speculatively, and as a matter of prediction rather than judging whats best, its hard to imagine large-scale reparations ever being adopted in Blighty because the ratio of losers to winners with the vote (presuming eg British Asians would be ineligible for compensation) is going to remain unfavourable and the cost of reparations across the relevant parts of the old Empire (if youre compensating British Jamaicans, presumably youre going to compensate all the Jamaicans in Jamaica once youve accepted the principle) would be considerable. And the fact youre moved to tears by discovering for the first time a great-great-great-grandmother of yours was a prostitute single-mum with seven kids or a great-x5-uncle you had never heard of was imprisoned for murder, well, your utter lack of knowledge simply reveals how little youve been influenced by them, so youre hardly discovering a new facet of yourself at all. December 2020. (and white people was pretty much the British). The historian tells Michael Segalov about getting up early, reading George Orwell, taking his dog George for a walk, playing his guitar A weekly newsletter helping you fit together the pieces of the global economic slowdown. The people in Portland, Seattle and Kenosha are too decadent to fight back. The vast majority of Americans are not guilty. Abolition was the first mass philanthropic movement in Britain, and it ended the slave trade in 1807. Why are these characterizations needed? Yet American slave-produced raw cotton continued to feed the 4,500 mills of Lancashire. Like the Nigerian slavers who enslaved and sold the slaves, you mean? Black and British: A Forgotten History addresses one of the greatest silences in British historiography. This is nothing to do with slavery or as with black lives matter, blacks being shot, and everything to do with a shakedown of the white man. Between that night at the opera and 1807, nearly 800,000 Africans were enslaved. Fought to STOP southern independence. Re putting the argument for paedophilia they actually gave Gide the Nobel prize for literature didnt they? Support 100 years of independent journalism. In dealing with the black contribution to the First World War, for example, he cites popular gratitude and admiration for black Britons among them Walter Tull, who fought on the Western Front. Video, 00:02:30. The answer is money. Slavery is bad or it isnt. Sure. The point about slave descendants in Georgia being better off than descendants of slave sellers from West Africa is reasonably strong (though look back in everyones ancestry and youre likely to find, far back enough, a mix of slaves, owners and probably traders too). How could Britain, a civilised and Christian nation, indulge in rape, torture, killing and the forced labour of Africans over two centuries? Like I said before, tolerance is in the gift of the powerful. Less flippantly, Western countries are not of one mind when it comes to the age of consent sex with a 14 year-old is legal in some countries, criminal in others (yes yes, paedophilia versus ephebophilia etc, you got me).. What is their strongest argument? Instead he has become a campaigner working to discredit Britain, the country that has educated him, promoted him and brought him fame and acceptance. More than a million copies were sold in Britain cheap pirated versions reached a mass readership. Dont even get me started on the Moors, Arabs and Ottomans, As for getting rich many African tribes kept slaves and their societies did not get rich. Olusoga patterns his narrative after Fryers, starting with the North African presence in Roman Britain. Not a big fan of the odd human sacrifice Im afraid, even though I might just be of very partial Scandinavian descent myself. Rather that certain western states, still in existence therefore potentially still liable, regulated and indeed encouraged the development of both the transatlantic slave trade and the slave-labour economic systems of the colonies, at scales that were unusual in the long and varied history of slavery, and levels of brutality that stood out too. A fifty quid note in the hand of the first black bloke you encounter. I was uncomfortable using it. Women, denied a meaningful role in politics, formed their own organisations, writing tracts, pamphlets and poems, gathering signatures for petitions and fundraising: At certain times and in certain places they were the engine room of the movement.. David Olusoga, introduces his book Black and British, an exploration of the relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. But it is Olusoga who keeps insisting that its the Brits who are uniquely responsible.. Olusoga was born in Lagos to a White mother and a Nigerian father who, I hate to say nautrally, did a runner. A covering letter would be a courtesy but probably not a necessity. First launched in London in 1987, it aims to highlight and celebrate what black people have achieved in Britain throughout history. Slavery didnt last much longer for various reasons, fizzled out in a century or so, but we have the records to show it was still part of the system after twenty years of Norman rule: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-of-domesday/order.htm. But that ignores how the demand of outsiders led inevitably to far more supply being provided. They deliberately bought skewed mostly male gender balance. Fryers book was monumental, inspiring conferences, publications, the setting up of local history groups, the establishment of Black History Month, and radio and television programmes. Sooner or later, we whites are going to have to take a stand, and say we aint taking this any more. After all, adult males were all but worthless and demand for women might have been enough to drive the trade anyway. What has he got to say about that? MBE, do not entertain these people, not for one second. I have that estimate saved and ready to be critiqued as part of a larger project. Its entirely possible to think something was awful without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt or personal responsibility. I brought up paedophilia to demonstrate that there are things not worth my time. And he might not find the society withdraws it nearly as comfortable for him to live in. No member of my family ever owned slaves. Would probably have taken your suggestion as a challenge. and while the responsible state still exists, Theres a fundamental weakness with all theories of universal law or justice, which is that across time and space, the human conception of what is right and just seems to be extremely varied and rarely (to modern Western eyes) pleasant.. Or they may discover how little black lives do matter. Exactly, bis. That someone did something 200 years ago means double ought nothing.. The New Statesmans global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. David Olusoga Historian, broadcaster and film-maker. Reasonable estimates have some 50% of the inhabitants of the Sokoto Caliphate as late as the late 19th cent being slaves. Theres no point pretending Europeans who profited from either the transatlantic slave trade or the use of slave labour in the Americas were somehow doing a favour to the slaves involved, even if, as it happens but their owners could not have predicted, their surviving descendants ended up financially better off on average than the counterfactual of remaining in Africa. Definitely didnt die out with the Romans. This seems rather unlikely. Then the adult men became profitable too. I think a case could be made. Britain should be proud of helping to stop (African to America) slavery, like the Republican Party and unlike the Democrats. ", TV historian rejects 'nonsense' over keeping statues, What Black History Month is - and why it matters. It built slave forts on the African coast, some such as Bunce Island in Sierra Leone furnished with a rape house. We could just cut to the chase, and impose a reparations tax on anyone who is descended from from anyone who did something, er, wrong. Olusoga was born in Lagos to a White mother and a Nigerian father - who, I hate to say nautrally, did a runner. Fuck right off As a winning debating strategy. This is indeed tu quoque. There is plenty of slavery about we just do not call it that. That star stuff wont last. Hundreds of White women raped every day. How would Nigeria treat a foreigner like him? The evidence of this is that seasoned slaves, those exposed to the environment, sold for up to 50% more than new ones. 2023 BBC. I know. Arguably wrong in a crimes against humanity way (similar language of natural justice and universal morality indeed being used by the abolitionists and the UK itself when it tried to enforce a ban on the trade) that made it inherently illegal even when governments tried to put it on a legal footing. No one has said we should not consider someone elses viewpoint. If you had spare cash or could borrow, investment in slavery was a sure winner, never mind slave rebellions or hurricanes that destroyed cane fields. Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. So there were times when food was expensive, we can call those shortages or famines. BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3, The Meaning of Zong, Spacious open-plan family home in Muswell Hill, Five Cineworlds across south London still at risk of permanent closure, Residents who have 'suffered for years' to be asked if they want blocks knocked down, Dazzling Thamesmead light festival returns with performances, films and flash mob, Charlton murderer claims prison guards broke his arm and sues for 20k, Children and young people with eating disorders face treatment postcode lottery, Angry protests erupt over Greek rail disaster, How fake copyright complaints are muzzling journalists, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat. 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