5 quotes from David Olusoga: 'On a peninsula protruding into one of the great highways of the Atlantic slave trade, a few hundred refugees from British slavery in North America were attempting to recreate the social structures of Northern Europe in the Middle Ages.', 'Time and again events and phenomena that we think we know and understand contain within them lost or camouflaged connections to . 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. Some other buyer would have taken them if they werent shipped out, and Western (or Arab) traders were just changing the ownership and location, the sins of the slave-raiders being theirs alone to bear. 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. But that ignores how the demand of outsiders led inevitably to far more supply being provided. 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. The publication in 1852 of Uncle Toms Cabin, by the American abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, swelled national sympathy for the plight of black slaves. You dont have esoteric discussions with paedophiles any more than you would with serial killers. This history of the black presence in . Get back to us when youve developed your historicalguiltometer. One in which enslaved people suffered and even died from malnutrition, as the economics of the slave trade meant that it was cheaper, at times, to starve people and then replace them than it was to provide them with food. "I don't know why this generation has a different relationship with the past, goes to the past, expecting and looking for different things to earlier generations, but that's really is my observation about them," he says adding the internet has played a huge part. When the American Civil War interrupted the supply of cotton, hundreds of thousands of British workers were made destitute, dependent on soup kitchens, and the British economy was dealt a thunderous blow, all because an ocean away the forced labour of four million enslaved black Americans had been disrupted. You should know better. By this logic, we ought to sue the African American community. Away from the creative arts, the Equiano Project aims to promote race equality and he was mentioned in Parliament during a debate on Black History and Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum. We are told that an estimated 12.5 million slaves were shipped from Africa to the West Indies and elsewhere in the 18th century. Slaves were crowded in a new environment with new diseases. Ive always agreed that the Africans should pay reparations to the rest of us for dumping all those people they wanted to get rid of on us. 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. She had no interest in esoteric discussions of the war. Surely the US has already spent much more than that on black Americans. They did not care much for adult males. Later his parents separated from each other when he was just two years old. Different people can argue the toss from different viewpoints and perspectives but in many ways their arguments pass each other like ships in the night, because they havent all got nobodys got an absolute frame of reference to judge things with respect to. The historian and producer said he wanted to. . His autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, details how he was sold into slavery aged 11, his experience of travelling the world as slave to a Royal Navy officer - who renamed him Gustavus Vassa - and how he bought his freedom from his final master, an English merchant in Montserrat. Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. In 1986 I came across the book Staying Power by the British journalist Peter Fryer. In the system that made Sloane wealthy, black women sought out herbs, plant species that he carefully identified and categorised, and used them to induce abortions, determined as many were not to bring into the world children who would be born items of property and destined to live short, brutalised lives. If someone from Portugal or France wants to explain why their country has done a better job of getting the balance right, Im open to hearing it. David Olusoga, introduces his book Black and British, an exploration of the relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Although the bottom line is that no Black person remembers slavery. Some were sold to other African tribes and the rest kept as slaves. Do I feel like I had anything to do it? Required fields are marked *. Not sure theyd do that with modern sensibilities mind you. Thats why we get it. It's all down to people in their 20s, those at school and in their teens, who have a relationship with history which, says Prof Olusoga, is profoundly different from that of their parents and grandparents. And he might not find the society withdraws it nearly as comfortable for him to live in. Forbes magazine's extraordinarily arrogant contributor Tim Worstall Jeremy Corbyn. It happened. It may have made sense for the SS to starve labourers to death. BLM is after political or financial advantages because of slavery. Get back to us when your sin/privilege is expunged. 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.. "We are on a journey in this country and other countries are on similar journeys to try and reconnect to parts of our history that had traditionally been edited out," adds Prof Olusoga. And, of course, being half white, he is only entitled to half the reparation payment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxc5ENT8ajg, https://www.history.co.uk/shows/the-real-vikings/articles/eyewitness-to-the-vikings, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestmannaeyjar, https://www.historytoday.com/archive/normans-and-slavery-breaking-bonds, https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/domesday/world-of-domesday/order.htm, Apparently Essay Mills Must Be Made Illegal, Why Oxfam Can Go Boil Their Heads Over Vaccine Patents, The real point about climate change is how cheap the solution is, The excellent Tim Worstall- The Register, Tim Worstall is a darn good economist- Don Boudreaux, Tim Worstall, you pendant- Polly Toynbee, .more sensible than most right wing nutjob bloggersBob Piper. Im not even saying thats a convincing argument, it has some very serious weak points, just that I reckon its a stronger one than a general appeal about current inequality. At the moment it seems to regarded as a good thing. Even discussing it gives your opponents arguments merit. My great, great, grandfather was one. Or they may discover how little black lives do matter. Olusogas stated purpose is to argue that black British history is not about migration and settlement, whether of black servants in the 18th century or black workers in the Windrush era. They may not be happy about Dresden or Hiroshima but their lives are much better. He is the undisputed King of the Internet Pedants and Lord of the Unnecessary Snark. But those were in those long-lost days when democrats and republicans could talk to each other and agree to disagree while both leaving the conversation a little the wiser.. MyBurningEars August 30, 2020 at 3:31 pm Deliberately shipping that many people that far in order to participate in a newly-created society whose economic system was designed, pretty much from the ground up, around slave labour?, True that unlike certain other examples of slavery, you werent likely to be killed as part of a religious sacrifice or as part of your owners funeral., But there have been other societies with slavery where slaves had more autonomy and a greater chance of buying their freedom.. If slavery really mattered theyd be campaigning for reparations from the blacks and arabs/moslems who were doing it long before the white man arrived in Africa and was far more devastating. It is a political campaign, not a contribution to academic history. If more African-Americans started to vote Republican and the Democrats felt they needed something radical to boost their offer, and had enough support from liberal whites and other groups to risk further losses among blue-collar whites, for example. Olusoga unloads all sorts of characterizations. So wherever the wealth came from, it wasnt just slavery (or even mainly), Olusogas an alright presenter but a class A race hustler, Edward Lud August 30, 2020 at 9:12 am 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.. I have that estimate saved and ready to be critiqued as part of a larger project. The Benin Dialogue Group announced it had brokered an agreement that will see "some of the most iconic" of the bronzes returned to Benin City, Nigeria, where they will be housed in the soon-to-be-built Benin Royal Museum. But its still awful, even on a historical scale.. The Coldest Case in Laramie: yet another bleak true crime podcast, From Sophie Mackintosh to Stephen Moss: new books reviewed in short, Universal Credit falls short of covering the bare essentials. If Olusoga is looking for apologies or compensation for slavery, I am quite prepared to meet him, accept his apology, togehr with cash, cheque or even a postal order. Their demands should simply be refused. Fair point. He updates Fryer, citing radioisotope analysis of skeletons and craniometrics, which support written documentation of Aurelian Moors guarding Hadrians Wall and settling in places such as Yorkshire. He presented the recent series of A House Through Time on BBC 2, and Black and British: A Forgotten History. (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. 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. So this race baiter can try his guilt trip on someone else. If the alternative was that they were killed? His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. The world has seen more slavery since its abolition than before. I know there are posters on here who see stepping into their opponents perspective as a dangerous and pointless endeavour that gives undue worth to a viewpoint they despise, but purely as a mental exercise theres usually something to be said for examining your opponents strongest argument instead of their weakest. "He was the voice of somebody who wasn't speaking about the past as a historian, but was living it. Its entirely possible to think something was awful without feeling the slightest twinge of guilt or personal responsibility. not at all to disparage your ancestors GC. When Olusoga recalled the experience before television cameras last year, he wept. They did not pay for them and were going to kill a lot of them anyway. I have done nothing. "Equiano is the most important voice that we have from the British experience of slavery and the slave trade," he said. . He writes to inflame white guilt, so that you will ACCEPT destruction of your culture. Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates. The agreement is being touted as a . He might not find the society withdraws it nearly as comfortable for him to live in kept as slaves your... Kept as slaves rest kept as slaves when he was just two years old House Time! New diseases you would with serial killers had no interest in esoteric discussions paedophiles! 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