Black History Month

[diggedy derek]

That BT Boxing clip is an absolute car crash – not so much Steve Bunce, although he should know better than to be the main voice, but the way it's presented/set up.

[MsD]

Nice article here on Diane Abbott https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk...tish-politics/

As I've literally been fighting racism since before many OTF members were born (took a punch to the face from an NF supporter in 1978), I'm participating in and promoting several events run by the CLP I'm still a member of, including a virtual rally: The Arc of Justice: How Black activists shaped the social justice movementled by Marsha de Cordova, and a talk on Black History with Diane Abbott (my MP for 20 years) and my friends Patrick Vernon and Sem Moema.

[Nefertiti2]

Guillotine needed

https://twitter.com/swgannon/status/1315203359931011072?s=21

[DCI Harry Batt]

Oh no! Culture will become politicised! That would be a terrible thing, and totally new, as culture has heretofore been entirely unpolitical, of course.

[DCI Harry Batt]

They may well actually still be despicable people

Indeed, they may well be.

[MsD]

Still tickets available for this online event:

https://www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2020/10...-Black-Britons

[MsD]

This is good, with John Amaechi.

Damn, will be back with link.

[MsD]

https://youtu.be/NyY7GRyq1NI

We’re going on holiday together next year. *

*joke

[Tactical Genius]

Yesterday was the 33rd Anniversary of the assassination of one of the greatest leaders in African history.
His achievements:

In 4 years, built 358 schools, roads, railways without foreign aid
Increased literacy rate by 68%
Banned forced marriages
Gave poor people land
Vaccinated 2.8 million kids
Planted 12 million trees
Drove out French imperialism & withdrew Burkina Faso from IMF and World Bank.

Rest in Peace and Power Thomas Isidore Sankara
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sankara

[Tactical Genius]

One for my fellow historian Satchmo Distel.

my young son and daughter have been learning about the Seminole/Gullah wars recently and i have found it quite fascinating, especially the character John horse..

It is interesting as it ties in the American Revolution, the acquisition of Florida, the war of 1812 and the motivation behind the trail of tears.

Additionally, the Seminole Wars provides the legal justification behind the emancipation proclamation (Jesup's Proclamation).

Is this taught in the US educational system?
http://www.johnhorse.com/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Seminoles

[ursus arctos]

I'm very interested in Satchmo's answer given his location and position, but I can tell you it was barely mentioned when I was doing my degree in what was widely considered the best American History department in the world.

The way in which state and local history here has been manipulated beyond recognition to serve the interests of those in power is both a huge subject and a massive problem.

[Satchmo Distel]

Not to my knowledge. I don't think it's even taught in university history departments. My own history colleagues are right-wing or centrists; the two leftists both fled to jobs in other states. None are black. I think any history in which blacks are discussed as active agents of change has been segregated off into Black Studies, and mainstream history is white history in the sense that nobody before MLK is discussed and blacks are only passive slaves or labour migrants.

Reconstruction AFAIK is still widely distorted as an affront to the South. I doubt it would be taught correctly in schools.

The Seminoles are seen as exotic folk who have their own villages on the edge of The Everglades. None of our freshmen would know what the Trail of Tears was unless they had family connections to surviving communities. Yet we have places with Seminole names like Immokalee, and obvious bits of cultural appropriation in jewelry and dress.

[Nefertiti2]

Excellent talk by David Olusoga for the British Library


Britain as an Imperial Power

[Sam]

Anyway, since this thread is about black history month, i though i would provides some interesting stuff.

This is an excellent series I watched during the pandemic. History of Africa with Zinab Badawi.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETnI...skZRhQsAspIQCp

Didn't see this thread earlier, but a post on Music the other day which referenced this (and your recommendation of it) has led me to seek it out to say thanks for this, TG. Watched episode 1 this evening and we'll be going through the rest of it for sure.

[Tactical Genius]

Excellent talk by David Olusoga for the British Library


Britain as an Imperial Power

Thanks Nef,

Not seen it yet but Olusoga is very good

[Nefertiti2]

Yes he’s excellent. Very good on Scotland and the connections with slavery. Highland Toffee and the names of the Wailers and what should be the impossibility of discussing British History without talking about slavery and Empire. From the men in chains growing the cotton for the Lancashire mills of the industrial Revolution to Nigerian palm oil for soap Empire and slavery is in every nook and cranny of British life.
he also talks about how he smiles when he does TV so as not to come over as an angry black man.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

Yes that Olusoga interview is very good.

[Tactical Genius]

Didn't see this thread earlier, but a post on Music the other day which referenced this (and your recommendation of it) has led me to seek it out to say thanks for this, TG. Watched episode 1 this evening and we'll be going through the rest of it for sure.

Glad you like, I would again strongly urge you to seek out on netflix "Journey of an African colony" a trailer can be found below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3XnAuVqtp0

This is specifically about Nigeria, but could have been any country in Africa or even Asia as the Colonial Powers used the same template.
Another thing not taught in the UK is how recently Africa was formally Colonised. There is a conception in the UK the Europeans turned up in Africa in 1600, conquered the natives, divided up the continent and then carted off the Slaves to the new world.
This isn't really the case and you would be hard pressed to find a major European victory against an African country in open battle pre 1850.

[Tactical Genius]

Yes he’s excellent. Very good on Scotland and the connections with slavery. Highland Toffee and the names of the Wailers and what should be the impossibility of discussing British History without talking about slavery and Empire.

I am driving down to London later today so will probably listen to it then.

From the men in chains growing the cotton for the Lancashire mills of the industrial Revolution to Nigerian palm oil for soap

This is a good point. Many modern West Africans mistakenly assume they were never slaves as they remained on the continent. But the Rubber, Palm Oil (mainly to grease the machines) and Chocolate plantations of the coastal areas in the mid to late 1800's tell another story (Belgium Congo was only one example)

he also talks about how he smiles when he does TV so as not to come over as an angry black man.

That's really interesting as it has been noted the black people who are on UK TV talking about these things tend to be lighter skinned (Afua Hirsh, Akala, Olusoga) I guess an angry light-skinned black is more palatable than a dark skinned one.

[Sam]

Glad you like, I would again strongly urge you to seek out on netflix "Journey of an African colony" a trailer can be found below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3XnAuVqtp0

This is specifically about Nigeria, but could have been any country in Africa or even Asia as the Colonial Powers used the same template.
Another thing not taught in the UK is how recently Africa was formally Colonised. There is a conception in the UK the Europeans turned up in Africa in 1600, conquered the natives, divided up the continent and then carted off the Slaves to the new world.
This isn't really the case and you would be hard pressed to find a major European victory against an African country in open battle pre 1850.

Thanks for the reminder on this. I've just added it to my list. Had made a mental note last night to search for it, but I'd forgotten in part because we didn't use Netflix all day today!

[Nefertiti2]

In a speech to the House of Commons Jeremy Corbyn revealed quite how well informed he is about Black Liberation movements.

Meanwhile the Conservative Party.

https://twitter.com/DJLdistraction/status/1318663248233771011?s=20

[MsD]

There's some interesting material here on black people in the USSR.

https://srbpodcast.org/?s=black&fbcl...EH1HktAKdOwxaY

[Tactical Genius]

An excellent interview of a Black Woman born in Germany in 1925 who lived in the country throughout the rise of Hitler as well as spending most of WWII in Hamburg. She then married an American and moved to America which seemed (to her at least) even more racist and dangerous than Nazi Germany.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bwz7kQtPPW0&t

[Tactical Genius]

In the 1930's the Smithsonian/Library of Congress interviewed a number of ex-slaves who talked about their lives and experiences in their own voices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZfcc21c6Uo

Longer interview with one of the slaves in the above montage. His grandfather was owned by Thomas Jefferson. For those who say slavery happened a long time ago this recording was in 1949, in the lifetime of most of our parents...........
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_Hughes.

[Nefertiti2]

Interview with Paul Gilroy

In the United Kingdom, we have had the most right-wing government probably since the 1920s, yet it is entirely populated by and habituated to the presence of diversity. There are Black and brown people who have extreme far-right politics who are part of this particular moment. That might be thought of as a slightly complicating factor in identifying the modern-day political geography of anxieties, fears, and resentments. If we look back a few years to the Brexit vote and the breakdown of the Leave vote by ethnicity, or whatever you want to call it, of course there was a white majority who voted to leave, but I think I’m right in saying that a quarter of Black people, or people classified as Black, in the UK voted to leave the EU; mixed people about a third, I think; those classified as South Asian about a third; and Chinese about a third.

Those sorts of numbers, and the numbers of Black and brown people not only inside the Conservative Party but who vote Conservative, suggests that there have been some fundamental realignments taking place. People who look at what’s happening in Britain and want to impose some sort of dualistic analytic which sees uniformly oppressed Black people victimized by the uniform power of whiteness have to go back to do a bit more thinking about what’s actually happening here.

the English pathology of racism is quite specific. There’s a peculiar deficit that the English suffer from—they don’t know, culturally speaking, who they are, and that makes them very anxious. It gives rise to the idea that if you can purify your polity and get rid of all those contaminating alien bits that come in from the outside and that don’t really belong, you’ll be okay.

There’s a hidden tradition of these things in England, from the early years of the 20th century through to, and beyond, Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party’s debate in the post-1945 phase over whether to use the slogan “Keep Britain White” as part of their election pitch. This has accelerated during my life, and Thatcherism represented its self-conscious political expression. It has a particularly vicious edge to it in England, that idea of purging all that has intruded, but this is also found in other places in Europe where fascist movements are reborn and resurgent.