Dont know if I would rule it out entirely because the demographics are different but it might need a change in the voting dynamics. 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. Of course if a rule was instituted that only people with white skins had to pay taxes, it might happen. The thing we British are ancestrally responsible for is beginning and continuing to pursue the extinction of the sordid business of slavery. many African tribes kept slaves. No. "They do not want British history to be a catalogue of heroes and victories and glorious chapters," he says. I can then give him the details of other descendants, he can apologise to and compensate. Separated from home and family and landed in the West Indies (countless numbers dying of suffocation during the journey, given that the people traffickers were packing the holds to maximise profits), the Africans had no recourse to the law, much less the conscience of their captors. Then the second. But you need a different approach if you dont think great-grandkids of the Confederacy are still fair game.) The evidence of this is that seasoned slaves, those exposed to the environment, sold for up to 50% more than new ones. That needs to change, The autonomous future is nearly here with Wejo, The need to grow Londons EV infrastructure at speed and scale, From royal trumpeter to chief diver, Miranda Kaufmann uncovers the Africans of Tudor Britain, The big consultancy con, with Mariana Mazzucato, The rise and fall of Nicola Sturgeon Audio Long Reads, Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance, HR, Training and Organisational Development, Information and Communications Technology, Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives, Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities, Science and Technical Research and Development. I am of Ulster Scot heritage, who were originally John Knoxs Cumberland Presbyterians, VERY MUCH against slavery. Prof Olusoga is not the only person who has been drawn to Equiano's story. It has been reissued by publishing house Hodder and Prof Olusoga has written the foreword. He seems to be an interesting social historian and his TV series on the occupants of a single house over the centuries is very good, although I suspect a lot of the research is done by others, I look forward to an even handed expose of the entire slave trade from birth to capture, imprisonment, sale, transportation, arrival, sale, treatment and life while enslaved as well as the UKs role in stopping it, But it wont be on the BBC, and he wont be writing it I fear, @smfs What difference has it made? David Olusoga, introduces his book Black and British, an exploration of the relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Video, 1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, BBC Radio 3 - Drama on 3: The Meaning of Zong, BBC Bitesize: The Zong 1781-1783 - The triangular trade, during a debate on Black History and Cultural Diversity in the Curriculum, Harry and Meghan told to 'vacate' Frogmore Cottage, Explosive found in check-in luggage at US airport, Fungus case forces Jack Daniels to halt construction, Rare Jurassic-era bug found at Arkansas Walmart, China and Belarus call for peace in Ukraine, Fire knocks out half of Argentina's power grid, Havana Syndrome unlikely to have hostile cause - US, Starbucks illegally fired workers over union - judge. 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. Very often shaped by the political, technological and economic forces of the times if the Western way of life had remained utterly dependent on Roman-style slavery, Im not sure wed ever have abolished it even amongst our own inhabitants. Like I need to hand my cash to the next lass of Rus descent I see, lest she remind me of some unlucky slave-girl that may or may not have perished at the hands of my maybe-ancestors? Olusoga patterns his narrative after Fryers, starting with the North African presence in Roman Britain. (and white people was pretty much the British). Olusoga brilliantly reveals such contradictions in British society. John Mandeville, whose travelogue (circa 1356) was one of the most widely translated books of the later Middle Ages, presented Africans as naked savages living amid heaps of gold to which they gave no value. He previously worked at JP Morgan for 18 years in a number of senior roles and was . Although the bottom line is that no Black person remembers slavery. I personally dont find that as convincing as the case that slaves themselves deserved compensation, and while there were strong political and practical reasons owners were compensated upon abolition but not their former slaves, it doesnt leave a great moral taste in the mouth that twas so. We do not know how great the demand for women was. Whitey bad, give me cash? My great, great, grandfather was one. Instead he has become a campaigner working to discredit Britain, the country that has educated him, promoted him and brought him fame and acceptance. I know. David Olusoga meets Janice Haber and her family, the descendents of Jewish . Indeed, third-century York may have been more ethnically and racially diverse than present-day York. 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. @ Boganboy But morals are very transient things. I was doing some genealogy research when I discovered my great grandfather was a well known member of the 18th Kentucky Infantry. Various among the societies that were agglomerated into Nigeria were more or less involved in that slave trade from the supply end. Prof Olusoga is not the only person who has been drawn to Equiano's story. Id say the same to the Black Lives Matter people. His black half can get the half-payment direct from his white half. "This is a richer history as well as a necessary history; this is a more vivid history as well as a history that tells the back stories of more people in this country than the traditional narratives we've had.". TV historian David Olusoga claims it is "palpable nonsense" to say that removing controversial statues "somehow impoverishes history". 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. Black and British: A Forgotten History addresses one of the greatest silences in British historiography. Well one economist has worked out the amount to be paid (although not on a damages basis, when one imagines blacks might end up paying whites, but on a close the wealth gap basis): A renowned economist has said that $12 trillion should be afforded to black Americans in reparation for slavery to help the close wealth gap. The rest apart from Ireland (17, partly due to influence of aforementioned Patrick) set it younger. There is no reason to think that slavery was nicer in Africa. West Indians fought with the Allies more than a hundred were decorated. Equiano is also mentioned in Incomparable World, a novel by SI Martin, which was selected by Booker award-winning author Bernardine Evaristo for her Black Britain: Writing Back series. That hes able to write this article is because hes living in what is, by historical standards, a remarkably tolerant society. A weekly newsletter helping you fit together the pieces of the global economic slowdown. Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. Video, 00:02:30. The strongest case I can see against reparations is not fundamentally a legal one but perhaps one degree abstracted the law if we can litigate that, we can litigate a heck of a lot of stuff from centuries past, tie our legal systems up in knots with no obvious limits in sight. And I dont think this is what reparations campaigners are calling for either, as I understand it their argument includes systematic legacy issues not just the period of slavery itself, so the harm relates more directly to them not just their ancestors. Shouldnt Olusoga be writing in Ubangi bantu-language? 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. Which of those societies does Olusogas ancestry come from? P rofessor David Olusoga is reviewing a disorientating year from a familiar place: his white-painted study, the one with the guitars hanging from its walls. 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. ), Who is fundamentally right about reparations for slavery? The publication in 1852 of Uncle Toms Cabin, by the American abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, swelled national sympathy for the plight of black slaves. I suspect that whether records could prove it or not, its overwhelmingly likely to be true, especially since high-status individuals tend to make a bigger contribution to the gene pool. Theres a flaw in arguments of the form frankly you should be glad I murdered your sister, since had I not done so, its quite possible though we cannot be sure that someone else would have tortured her then murdered her, which is even worse, so whos the real criminal? Which is that I still murdered your sister. His book is a product of that childhood terror, and partly an exploration of his condition as a black Briton. 7 years was the average working lifespan so it is said. 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. And this of course neatly addresses MBEs arguments. 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. 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. 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 . 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. White communities suffer huge losses from Black crime. Sugar plantations were bad. "The phenomena of which he is iconic is one that we have written out, edited out of our nation. Heroes of 2020 What Marcus Rashford's campaign for hungry children tells us about . Olusoga has benefited from and added significantly to the work of Fryer and other historians such as James Walvin. 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. 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.. It wasnt always so & it may not be in the future. But slaves were more valuable, so the British fought the Spanish for a share in the trade and eventually came to dominate it. What do you think their stongest argument is? Peter completed his award-winning PhD, exploring stress and coping in elite sports coaching, at Sheffield Hallam in 2012. To me personally, this is the thing. Good point, I wonder how he squares the obviously comfortable living he has writing, opining and broadcasting about slavery with his principles. First launched in London in 1987, it aims to highlight and celebrate what black people have achieved in Britain throughout history. Even Bill Clinton had affinity for the USA. And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? Under English law, damages are assessed as being that amount needed to restore them to the position they would have been, had the event claimed against not occurred. The vast majority of Americans are not guilty. It can be withdrawn. Societies have had a long history of treating minorities harshly. Yet theyre so many centuries and generations removed from the crime, everybody involved with the decision-making is long-dead and while the responsible state still exists, in practice compensation comes from taxes paid by citizens who had no part in it all. "The way history is viewed is changing. Now Im trying to imagine just what the strongest case for reparations might be, but even in this thought experiment its hard to see what the eligibility criteria for receiving payment should be, what sum should be due, how much proof is required of eligibility not everyone will have a good set of family records etc. Obama had none. History is just one awful thing after another. That may have caused more violence. Cest de la trs bonne dialectique conomique. I assume he is not very bright and Race Hustling is very lucrative. You dont have esoteric discussions with paedophiles any more than you would with serial killers. Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. 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. My family did nothing. They may not be happy about Dresden or Hiroshima but their lives are much better. His choice of subject and his choice of material make that very clear. No other race / culture was willing and able to do that. Hundreds of White women raped every day. Not to say it was nice. And Britain worked for the whole of the 19th century to put down slavery in Africa. That someone did something 200 years ago means double ought nothing. 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. Would, say, Huguenot-descended South Africans suing France over the 1572 St. Bartholomews Day massacre, or Cornish people suing HMG for the suppression of the 1497 Rebellion, deserve compensation? I generally reckon cant blame me, my distant relative was on your side arguments are pretty weak since relying on a doctrine of virtues of the fathers risks implicitly accepting sins of the fathers. No doubt life expectancy of a slave was shorter than that for a free man. 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. Once insignificant villages, great cities such as Liverpool, Bristol and Glasgow sprang up on the profits of slavery. He is the undisputed King of the Internet Pedants and Lord of the Unnecessary Snark. Might, in this case, being 100% of the debating point. The problem with slavery is that it left us with their descendents and weak minded White populations. After all, adult males were all but worthless and demand for women might have been enough to drive the trade anyway. . I am happy with Olusogo paying reparations to himself. Your email address will not be published. (Im just presenting the case here in reality there are obviously some big questions about the logic of Nuremberg etc, just as there are questions about how judges in Common Law occasionally summon up things as if they had always and forever been a part of the Law, albeit previously unrecorded, rather than something the judge just made up.). In fact he is a biased political campaigner working to attack and do as much damage to Britain as he can. There is plenty of slavery about we just do not call it that. I learned the hard way. I have that estimate saved and ready to be critiqued as part of a larger project. Thats what I dont like about the angle of Tims header. Maybe heard of Saint Balthild, seventh-century English lass sold into slavery, exported to the Continent, served in a palace and ended up marrying the Frankish King?). Ironically, one of the sources we can turn to in order to learn more is his own accounts of late 17th-century Jamaica. 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. 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. The race obsessed Department of Education goes to considerable lengths to distinguish Caribbeans and West Africans. Would also apply even if down a different family line there had been beneficiaries of the slave trade. Nobody will stop you, honest. The agreement is being touted as a . That was when the Democrats were still Americans. Viking Dublin was a major slave-trading centre (English, Irish, Scots, anyone else they could get their hands on). Have you ever read the account by Ibn Fadlan of a Viking funeral in Russia? (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. 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. Everyone was. Grew up in Quedlinburg. Now they do. it was cheaper, at times, to starve people and then replace them Why are these characterizations needed? White people are unique in ending slavery across the world*. Because it isnt about who you are, its about who your ancestors were. Or anything to do with slavery. You can pay all the reparation for historical slavery related wrongs, real or imaginary, you want. Then a young teenager, he was driven out of his council home, together with his grandmother, mother, two sisters and younger brother, by a sustained campaign of nightly stoning of their windows. 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. 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.. H istorian and broadcaster David Olusoga has been the face of a decolonial turn in British broadcasting that, in recent years, with series including the Bafta-winning Britain's Forgotten Slave. "They're not looking to history only to make them feel good and give them comfort, but they're looking to history to tell them things about truths about their society that we have traditionally edited out of British history.". Its an interesting exercise to consider, given we live within such a system, how or whether that contradiction can be settled. Whoever has the upper-hand in power political, cultural, economic, military or whatever other form is decisive at that moment. Anybody can do this. The best and brightest minds in the UK defended Stalins slavery. 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