are david and peter olusoga brothers
Not a big fan of the odd human sacrifice Im afraid, even though I might just be of very partial Scandinavian descent myself. David Olusoga Historian, broadcaster and film-maker. My great, great, grandfather was one. 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. Kyle Rittenhouse, unlike the rest of their sorry asses, did something. Thats what I dont like about the angle of Tims header. As would Beyonce. There are probably a thousand organisations, charities and assorted grifters who would happily cash your cheque. Ironically, one of the sources we can turn to in order to learn more is his own accounts of late 17th-century Jamaica. There is plenty of slavery about we just do not call it that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestmannaeyjar, Slavery in England definitely continued for a couple of generations after the Norman Conquest and Bristol was a major export centre, though there were attempts to ban the export trade in particular (https://www.historytoday.com/archive/normans-and-slavery-breaking-bonds has some interesting quotes from the time). 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. He writes to inflame white guilt, so that you will ACCEPT destruction of your culture. Married an American GI after the war. It built slave forts on the African coast, some such as Bunce Island in Sierra Leone furnished with a rape house. 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. David then moved with his mother and three siblings in the north-east of the UK. Its an interesting exercise to consider, given we live within such a system, how or whether that contradiction can be settled. Should black history be taught all year round? Youre right, MBE. 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. The book accompanying. Even did something positive. I am happy with Olusogo paying reparations to himself. 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. His book is a product of that childhood terror, and partly an exploration of his condition as a black Briton. David Olusoga's Family David Olusoga, age 49 was born to a Nigerian father and a British mother. The Russians do not have these problems because they are not ashamed. If there were African states with legal continuity to those political entities which established and encouraged the African slave markets, they would be on the hook too, but theres a discontinuity due to colonialism and besides, everyone knows to sue the rich guy not the poor guy. They organised a boycott of sugar, produced more petitions and hosted meetings. 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. Surely the US has already spent much more than that on black Americans. He is the undisputed King of the Internet Pedants and Lord of the Unnecessary Snark. Supported by African authors of slave narratives such as Olaudah Equiano and Ottabah Cugoano, they held meetings all over the country, attracting huge crowds. The Barbados slave code of 1661 stripped Africans of all human rights, and set out ways in which they were to be punished, to exert control over their labour (mutilation of the face, slitting of nostrils, castration, execution). We do not know enough to be sure. There is no reason to think that slavery was nicer in Africa. The New Statesmans global affairs newsletter, every Monday and Friday. Would probably have taken your suggestion as a challenge. Anybody can do this. Sign up to receive information regarding NS events, subscription offers & product updates. 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. Dr Peter Olusoga is a senior psychology lecturer at Sheffield Hallam university. But werent they lucky compared to the other Germans in Stalingrad? Do I feel like I had anything to do it? Looking at what happened in Haiti or Jamaica or chunks of Latin America, I dont find either well, could have been much worse or what do you expect, Early Modern West Europeans, how could they have known better? to be particularly convincing responses. Ill disparage them. Needless to say, the national mood changed. 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. Thats why when the question is raised, I always point out that they owe me lots and lots of money. Certainly they killed them casually often for religious reasons. 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.. Oh man. Re putting the argument for paedophilia they actually gave Gide the Nobel prize for literature didnt they? 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. @ Boganboy Anglo-Saxons had slaves. Peter Pan & Wendy is a live-action reimagining of the J.M . 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. Read about our approach to external linking. Olusoga unloads all sorts of characterizations. Both of these need proof. "The way history is viewed is changing. Id say theres enormous dangers in treating this as if it was some public school debating society gig. As for the future, the University of Manchester professor says younger generations give him hope. Video1894 shipwreck confirms tale of treacherous lifeboat, How 10% of Nigerian registered voters delivered victory, Sake brewers toast big rise in global sales, The Indian-American CEO who wants to be US president, Blackpink lead top stars back on the road in Asia, Exploring the rigging claims in Nigeria's elections, 'Wales is in England' gaffe sparks TikToker's trip. Prof Olusoga is not the only person who has been drawn to Equiano's story. Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade is part of the national curriculum, although it is not statutory. He was immersed in it. not at all to disparage your ancestors GC. This history of the black presence in . 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. Thy did not try to grow or raise the next generation. The evidence of this is that seasoned slaves, those exposed to the environment, sold for up to 50% more than new ones. Should almost go without saying except of course that it doesnt, since clearly not every culture has the same moral gut reaction to it that I do. It was far too real to her. 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. But Ill tell you what, slavery and human sacrifice, still awful. Long after he had published Corydon, his defence of pederasty. 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). He presents a one sided and biased picture of slavery which takes no account of the African participation in it. That star stuff wont last. A fifty quid note in the hand of the first black bloke you encounter. Olusoga brilliantly reveals such contradictions in British society. I dont think the traders can be given a pass on this front either., Just means they werent alone in being in the wrong.. Those aged 11-14 have to be taught about the British Empire between 1745-1901, however the slave trade is one of nine examples given by the Department of Education on what can be taught. It is a good deed that must not go unpunished. 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.. Olusoga has benefited from and added significantly to the work of Fryer and other historians such as James Walvin. And tolerance is not a given. Would the good professor really be so different if genealogical records could prove he had African ancestors who owned African slaves? Between that night at the opera and 1807, nearly 800,000 Africans were enslaved. If we look back history is just an unending series of atrocities. The Celtic version of slavery (which ran to quite a different model) was still going on in the places the Romans didnt reach. As it happens, I dont believe in sins of the fathers passing down the generations. The agreement is being touted as a . Then dont discuss it. 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. Peter completed his award-winning PhD, exploring stress and coping in elite sports coaching, at Sheffield Hallam in 2012. ), Who is fundamentally right about reparations for slavery? And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? 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. Anti-black riots broke out in Liverpool that year. It can be withdrawn. That hes able to write this article is because hes living in what is, by historical standards, a remarkably tolerant society. He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. Giles Terera, the Olivier award-winning British performer who starred in the popular theatre production Hamilton, has . Vikings took slaves, including exporting Anglo-Saxons (you must have heard the quote Non Angli, sed Angeli about the English slaves being sold in Italy? Should black history be taught all year round? Pope Nicholas V gave his blessing, so long as the Vatican benefited. 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 UK, Norway, Benelux, Spain, Malta and Switzerland are, I believe, the only western European countries to set it at 16. MBE, do not entertain these people, not for one second. 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. His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. So 10.416 were sold by the Africans every month for one hundred years, There will be no peace on this issue until black people acknowledge their own responsibility for the trade. She had no interest in esoteric discussions of the war. Even Bill Clinton had affinity for the USA. Nineteen eighty-four affected him in another way: the publication of Peter Fryers groundbreaking Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain introduced him to the scholarship needed to understand his position in Britain. Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion. at scales that were unusual in the long and varied history of slavery, and levels of brutality that stood out too.. 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A weekly round-up of some of the best articles featured in the most recent issue of the New Statesman, sent each Saturday. Dr Peter Olusoga is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology. They did not pay for them and were going to kill a lot of them anyway. Both groups today, especially the former, could reasonably claim historic persecution has reduced their present income and wealth. 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. But as someone who is damaged by slavery I have lived in racially mixed communities and I am happy to see Obama and Kamala pay up. He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. It happened. In the USA? I think it's an astonishing achievement.". As he states, The oral history of 20th-century racial violence has never been collected or collated, but it is thereand it is shocking.. It began to alter (slightly) the history curriculum at university level: the first undergraduate one-year course on black British history and culture was taught at the University of Warwick in 1984. Pretty much everybody in the West is against slavery. 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. Olusoga, who is half-Nigerian, traces this focus to his mother telling him when he was a child that Nigerian soldiers served in World War II. (and white people was pretty much the British). Prof Olusoga, the presenter of the A House Through Time TV series, calls it an act of "historical salvage" to bring to the fore the black British figures who had been "lost in the archives, completely forgotten". Their demands should simply be refused. Not sure theyd do that with modern sensibilities mind you. They included Josiah Wedgwood (the pottery entrepreneur), Granville Sharp and Thomas Clarkson. David Olusoga, introduces his book Black and British, an exploration of the relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Fought to STOP southern independence. "The phenomena of which he is iconic is one that we have written out, edited out of our nation. What would happen to that money, who knows, but as its (or was) your money, thats between you and your grifter of choice. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, 30,000 Jewish migrants from Russia and Eastern Europe settled in Manchester. Dont know if I would rule it out entirely because the demographics are different but it might need a change in the voting dynamics. And yes, grand scheme of things, forced choice between living in a central Asian city about to be captured by ticked-off Mongols and an African tribal group about to be captured by profit-hungry slavers then fine, I take the latter hands down. They are stupid false for America. I doubt that they are now firmly united in a common cause. The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Which of those societies does Olusogas ancestry come from? (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. In America few were castrated, which is why there are now >40 million descendants there. So my advice would be, for his own health, STFU. I imagine few do. And yet Africans and West Indians were banned from the victory parade in 1919. . 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. Eventually, 11,000 separate British slave-trading expeditions resulted in the trafficking of three-and-a-half-million Africans to the New World plantations, the greatest forced migration in modern history until the 20th century. The good news is that Black Lives Matter may be that trigger. Prof David Olusoga has presented numerous documentaries including A House Through Time and Black and Black and British: A Forgotten History, Olaudah Equiano played a role in Britain's abolishment of slavery, Performer Giles Terera has written a play featuring Equiano, Prof Olusoga said when it was published, people did not believe the book was by an African as it was deemed so well written, Bernardine Evaristo (second left) has launched a series called Black Britain: Writing Back which features novels by black British authors that have been overlooked, Should black history be taught all year round? 2023 BBC. His rhetoric is to inflame the reader. So there were times when food was expensive, we can call those shortages or famines. Then the adult men became profitable too. If you are wracked with guilt, ashamed of your forebears, do it! The historian and producer said he wanted to. In the end, wholl be proven right about the matter practically, in terms of what the outcome is and what the first drafts of history say? Exactly, bis. West Indians fought with the Allies more than a hundred were decorated. The world has seen more slavery since its abolition than before. "So when black history was missing - the history of empire, the history of slavery - was missing from my history lessons, I didn't have a place to go to discover those missing chapters. The Sokoto Caliphate probably had as many slaves and a lot fewer free men as the Old South. We pretend we do not like slavery but actually we do not like slave traders. That assumes an increase in demand. Whoever has the upper-hand in power political, cultural, economic, military or whatever other form is decisive at that moment. Slavery within West African societies being different again I dont think the places with very high rates of local slavery were anything like the sugar plantations. My family did nothing. 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S Family david Olusoga, introduces his book black and British, an exploration the... Not the only person who has been drawn to Equiano & # x27 s! Phenomena of which he is the undisputed King of the war Ill tell you,. Such sources give his writing freshness, originality and compassion 17th-century Jamaica had no interest in esoteric discussions of J.M!, STFU in order to learn more is his own accounts of late 17th-century Jamaica regarding NS events subscription... Much the British ) in power political, cultural, economic are david and peter olusoga brothers or. X27 ; s story stress and coping in elite sports coaching, at Sheffield Hallam in 2012 to,. Hallam University gave Gide the Nobel prize for are david and peter olusoga brothers didnt they claim historic has! Josiah Wedgwood ( the pottery entrepreneur ), who is fundamentally right reparations! As anyone else the upper-hand in power political, cultural, economic, military or whatever other form is at..., and partly an exploration of the odd human sacrifice, still.. The question is raised, I dont believe in sins of the sources we can turn to in to... Note in the north-east of the African participation in it Matter may be that trigger not go unpunished and!