Would the good professor really be so different if genealogical records could prove he had African ancestors who owned African slaves? Of course if a rule was instituted that only people with white skins had to pay taxes, it might happen. It is a form of self-loathing. My family did nothing. If you think 14 is the wrong decision for the boundary, a better argument is a rebuttal of the strongest case for 14 rather than a rebuttal of a straw-man version of it. (and white people was pretty much the British). Well whats the point of pretending it doesnt also induce moral disgust in me, just in case someone mistakes it for guilt, or an admission of liability? Reasonable estimates have some 50% of the inhabitants of the Sokoto Caliphate as late as the late 19th cent being slaves. 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.. Prof Olusoga is not the only person who has been drawn to Equiano's story. 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. One of the reasons why the American and Caribbean experiences were very different. at scales that were unusual in the long and varied history of slavery, and levels of brutality that stood out too.. I know. I was doing some genealogy research when I discovered my great grandfather was a well known member of the 18th Kentucky Infantry. 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. Then dont discuss it. David then moved with his mother and three siblings in the north-east of the UK. 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. Giles Terera, the Olivier award-winning British performer who starred in the popular theatre production Hamilton, has . His choice of subject and his choice of material make that very clear. 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. What difference has it made? 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. It seems absurd to me that anyone should be concerned about what happened 200 or 500 years ago. So is Richard Murphy. After all, adult males were all but worthless and demand for women might have been enough to drive the trade anyway. Obama had none. The arguments do you want to get shaken down for several trillion?. I am of Ulster Scot heritage, who were originally John Knoxs Cumberland Presbyterians, VERY MUCH against slavery. They may have been turning people they would have killed into a profitable commodity. I brought up paedophilia to demonstrate that there are things not worth my time. "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.". They deliberately bought skewed mostly male gender balance. That was when the Democrats were still Americans. Id say theres enormous dangers in treating this as if it was some public school debating society gig. A weekly newsletter helping you fit together the pieces of the global economic slowdown. Make sure it doesnt happen in the least costly way. If we went down this route thered be goodness knows how much fun and games to be had with legal claims over the treatment of Irish by Cromwell, the clearing of the Highlands and so on, before you even get on to the globe-spanning imperial stuff. He writes to inflame white guilt, so that you will ACCEPT destruction of your culture. 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. There is the Push argument and the Pull argument. Would probably have taken your suggestion as a challenge. Get back to us when youve developed your historicalguiltometer. Why are these characterizations needed? Particularly as nowadays anyone who dares even look at someone a few days below the age of consent is believed to be an incorrigible nonce who deserves hanging, castration, or castration by hanging. Support 100 years of independent journalism. I doubt that they are now firmly united in a common cause. There is no reason to single White people out for unique levels of criticism. It is a good deed that must not go unpunished. We do not know for sure. There is plenty of slavery about we just do not call it that. White people will take it. You can be redeemed, you worthless pasty people. Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion. Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. Maybe Europeans did increase demand. How does it benefit anyone to make an issue about particular events? 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. His book is a product of that childhood terror, and partly an exploration of his condition as a black Briton. In that moment, his interest in history overlapped. He presents a one sided and biased picture of slavery which takes no account of the African participation in it. I still find arguing the toss, or watching others doing so, interesting partly because it shows how the viewpoints are divergent, how many arguments are self-interested, what social, cultural and economic forces are at work behind it all. Black and British: A Forgotten History I just dont really get what Olusoga is saying. Wider imperialism reparations that include South Asia, China for the Opium Wars and so on, surely even more prohibitively costly, regardless of how effective the education system gets at making young Brits feel a vague sense of guilt about it all. Olusoga is making an appeal to white guilt. We do not know how great the demand for women was. The rest apart from Ireland (17, partly due to influence of aforementioned Patrick) set it younger. I think a case could be made. Nineteen eighty-four was a transformative year for David Olusoga. While I dont think they persuaded anyone, they did shift perspectives a bit. Note, hes a renowned economist. The stars are out as Dr Pete Olusoga explores the psychology of stage and screen with the wonderful British actor (and Coronation Street veteran), Shobna Gulati. 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). Thats why we get it. ), Who is fundamentally right about reparations for slavery? However, it applies to at least 80% of Americans. One person who had a huge impact on Britain was Olaudah Equiano, an enslaved man who bought his freedom and wrote compellingly about his experiences. Sugar was king: originally a luxury, it became one of the main sources of calories for the British poor. There is no reason to single White people out for unique levels of criticism. . not at all to disparage your ancestors GC. Definitely didnt die out with the Romans. Olusoga is just getting even because he was attacked by the right when he was a teenager. He adds: "The reason Equiano's story, Equiano's voice, is not as well known as it should be, is because we have a long habit in this country of not wanting to talk about slavery. At the moment it seems to regarded as a good thing. His dad met his mom at the city's university in the 1960s. The masses who once supported black freedom now campaigned for the Deep South. The evidence of this is that seasoned slaves, those exposed to the environment, sold for up to 50% more than new ones. 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. First launched in London in 1987, it aims to highlight and celebrate what black people have achieved in Britain throughout history. Heroes of 2020 What Marcus Rashford's campaign for hungry children tells us about . Like I said, as a mental exercise, if I do my best good faith effort to imagine an argument for reparations, I reckon it would concern harms committed by the state (which unlike the slave traders and owners, is still about today) and an argument that it breached some alleged fundamental/universal doctrine of law so that even the states efforts to put the slave industry on a legal footing were null and void. But a group of 12 disciples of Christ set out to change things. If black lives really mattered these people would be protesting the 500 shot dead so far by predominantly black men in Chicago this year. Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade is part of the national curriculum, although it is not statutory. Nevertheless, we live in a society that generally regards slavery as an absolute and eternal wrong, and a grave one at that, yet which has historically (at least certain people and places, and including the state itself) benefited from imposing slavery on others. The Royal African Company, established by Charles II in 1672, eventually enslaved and transported more Africans than any other company in British history. As he states, The oral history of 20th-century racial violence has never been collected or collated, but it is thereand it is shocking.. In 1986 I came across the book Staying Power by the British journalist Peter Fryer. 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. And that still stands even if there really are a bunch of torturing murderers out there too. Yet American slave-produced raw cotton continued to feed the 4,500 mills of Lancashire. Whitey bad, give me cash? 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. David Olusoga meets Janice Haber and her family, the descendents of Jewish . "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. He was a prominent figure in the campaign to abolish slavery. Writing in english is cultural appropriation so STFU. Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. My great grandfather fought to end slavery in a war. 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