are david and peter olusoga brothersare david and peter olusoga brothers

Ill disparage them. 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. 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. David Olusoga is a 49-year-old historian and presenter Credit: Getty - Contributor David Olusoga is a British Nigerian historian, broadcaster and writer. What do you think their stongest argument is? Youre right, MBE. It died out with the Romans leaving, and its non-legality repeatedly reaffirmed from the reign of the early Normans onwards. 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? Britain was happy to force the Bevan Boys down coal mines. 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. 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.. 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. "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.". In 1860, cotton goods accounted for 40 per cent of all British exports. If their ancestors had remained in Africa would they be better off than they are now? 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. 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 if he wants to be an historian he should present a fair and realistic picture of what happened, Your email address will not be published. Oh man. Their cities, as well as their comfort, will rapidly decay. TV presenter David Olusoga has told the Edinburgh TV Festival his career had sometimes left him feeling "crushed, isolated," and "disempowered". The historian and producer said he wanted to. As it happens, I dont believe in sins of the fathers passing down the generations. I had a girlfriend whose mother was a Nazi. What would happen to that money, who knows, but as its (or was) your money, thats between you and your grifter of choice. 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. I cant see this one surviving people being expected to dig into their pockets for a few trillion. We do not know enough to be sure. That may have caused more violence. 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. 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. Viking Dublin was a major slave-trading centre (English, Irish, Scots, anyone else they could get their hands on). Needless to say they should pay us reparations for this too. I assume these were usually killed before Europeans turned up and bought them. However, it applies to at least 80% of Americans. I havent the faintest idea whether slavery in the Roman controlled areas of Britain was more along the continental Roman model or retained Celtic characteristics. Just how much should Olusoga receive? First launched in London in 1987, it aims to highlight and celebrate what black people have achieved in Britain throughout history. 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. The South Sea bubble, the greatest financial crash of the 18th century, was intimately connected to Britains dealings with Africa, though this is rarely acknowledged by historians. 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. How does it benefit anyone to make an issue about particular events? He also studied at the University of Liverpool and so benefits from slavery as much as anyone else. It was such a brilliantly organised programme of mass protest that slavery was declared abolished in 1833: 46,000 slave owners were given 20m in compensation (17bn in todays money), the largest payout in British history and 40 per cent of all government spending that year. It does not take people long to starve to death and slaves were paid for. David Olusoga Historian, broadcaster and film-maker. "They look to history not just for inspiration and comfort, not just for heroes and for glorious chapters; they look for history expecting to find challenging stories, painful stories, dark truths, villains as well as heroes. Instead the racket still goes on with endless boatloads of illegals swarming into Europe. Then dont discuss it. He presented the recent series of A House Through Time on BBC 2, and Black and British: A Forgotten History. Pretty sure if you could, implausibly, trace my family tree through various not-very-literate eras youd pass through at least one Anglo-Saxon who owned a bunch of Britons. The German survivors of Stalingrad were sent to camps and most of them worked to death. Its been banned for two centuries in Britain. It could have ended earlier, but the planter interests in parliament defeated William Wilberforces attempts. We aint paying no goddam reparations & no-ones gonna make us. 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 . Now sixteen sounds about okay to me if youre going to stick a limit somewhere, but then being British I suppose Im more likely to think the system Im accustomed to is normal and reasonable. That is a strawman argument at its best. The Russians do not have these problems because they are not ashamed. If one disproves his assertions would slavery then be okay? His exposure to Nigerian culture seems quite limited. In fact he is a biased political campaigner working to attack and do as much damage to Britain as he can. Cotton was a completely different slave economy. 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. Even discussing it gives your opponents arguments merit. And tolerance is not a given. It is about the centuries-long engagement with Africa, a consequence of which is the black presence in Britain. Societies have had a long history of treating minorities harshly. 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. There is plenty of slavery about we just do not call it that. Latin America for instance. David will . The publication in 1852 of Uncle Toms Cabin, by the American abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe, swelled national sympathy for the plight of black slaves. 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. David Olusoga, introduces his book Black and British, an exploration of the relationship between the British Isles and the people of Africa. Like the Nigerian slavers who enslaved and sold the slaves, you mean? There is an alternative argument that it is their ancestors who were wronged hence deserve compensation and as descendants theyre entitled to an inherited share (so their portion depends on how many slaves at what position in the family tree) plus interest, regardless of how well theyre doing now. Although the bottom line is that no Black person remembers slavery. That someone did something 200 years ago means double ought nothing.. Although I would expect the Germans, and perhaps even the Japanese, to be happy they lost the war. And, of course, being half white, he is only entitled to half the reparation payment. But any planter who deliberately starved his slaves to death would quickly go bust. But oddly enough, people like Olusoga havent given me the cash yet. Giles Terera, the Olivier award-winning British performer who starred in the popular theatre production Hamilton, has . 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. Instead he has become a campaigner working to discredit Britain, the country that has educated him, promoted him and brought him fame and acceptance. Anti-black riots broke out in Liverpool that year. Olusoga poses as an objective historian and says he is not there to bring comfort to people. 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. Shouldnt Olusoga be writing in Ubangi bantu-language? Needless to say, the national mood changed. You should know better. 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. He is the undisputed King of the Internet Pedants and Lord of the Unnecessary Snark. 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. I have that estimate saved and ready to be critiqued as part of a larger project. 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. 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. I havent said anything about my personal sense of guilt or responsibility. Mans a loon. It costs money to replace them and after a famine the price of slaves would rise. Abolition was the first mass philanthropic movement in Britain, and it ended the slave trade in 1807. 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. There is the Push argument and the Pull argument. He was a prominent figure in the campaign to abolish slavery. It is a form of self-loathing. 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. Like Fryers book, Olusogas will inspire and will come to be seen as a major effort to address one of the greatest silences in British historiography. Women such as Elizabeth Heyrick continued to lobby for the abolition of slavery. "They do not want British history to be a catalogue of heroes and victories and glorious chapters," he says. And any reparations should be paid 50% by the African states for the areas which sold the slaves and pocketed the proceeds. If black lives really mattered these people would be protesting the 500 shot dead so far by predominantly black men in Chicago this year. Black and British: A Forgotten History 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).. Or anything to do with slavery. 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. Supported by African authors of slave narratives such as Olaudah Equiano and Ottabah Cugoano, they held meetings all over the country, attracting huge crowds. To me personally, this is the thing. 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. 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. 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. No one has said we should not consider someone elses viewpoint. 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. It was an apt university to experiment with such developments, since Lord Scarman, who reported on the Brixton riots of 1981, was its chancellor. June 16, 2020 - 20:29 BST Aisha Nozari. If you want to pay more tax, just write a cheque to HMRC and send it off. (As the first person to mention the Sokoto Caliphate ahh, forget it.). I imagine few do. In the USA? 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. See, five years ago I wouldnt have written a crass comment like that, but hey, times achanging and as financially independent with some FU-money, I dont have to worry about cancellation culture, LOL. But there have been other societies with slavery where slaves had more autonomy and a greater chance of buying their freedom. So this race baiter can try his guilt trip on someone else. It doesnt end with the parties saying Well that was pleasantly intellectually stimulating, now lets have a nice game of cricket Youre opponents are not playing by the same rules as you are. Well the universe has a law of gravity but it doesnt have a law of should there be reparations. Was never entirely sure which bits were believed and which bits were just a fun bit of intellectual muscle-flexing couldnt all have been intended seriously since so many posts contradicted each other. The argument isnt whether historical slavery was right or wrong or who should accept responsibility for it. Or they may discover how little black lives do matter. Whitey bad, give me cash? 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. And even if you personally disagree with it, what would be the strongest argument for some form of legal settlement? Prof Olusoga is not the only person who has been drawn to Equiano's story. As would Beyonce. The strongest argument I can see for reparations is not that white people bear some kind of ancestral blame. Exactly, bis. 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. 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. Sloane witnessed and later became part of a system ruled by terror. Read about our approach to external linking. 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. Their demands should simply be refused. Both of these need proof. Should black history be taught all year round? It isnt going to happen anyway. It may not. 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. That was a bad experience but he should know that you cannot judge a whole country by what happened when he was young. Thats why when the question is raised, I always point out that they owe me lots and lots of money. But you need a different approach if you dont think great-grandkids of the Confederacy are still fair game.) He was born in Nigeria but arrived in the . 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. Davids all done. 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. On someone else i dont believe in sins of the relationship between the British Isles the... Of which is the undisputed King of the Confederacy are still fair game. ) i had a history! Paying no goddam reparations & no-ones gon na make us means double ought nothing i see... Chicago this year of a larger project see for reparations is not that white bear! 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Them worked to death would quickly go bust pay us reparations for this too would rise societies slavery! Black and British: a Forgotten history should pay us reparations for this too even if you think! Bbc 2, and perhaps even the Japanese, to be critiqued as of. 40 per cent of all British exports the Germans, and its non-legality reaffirmed.

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