Whitewashing Black History Month Not long after I arrived in the US, in 2003, some white Americans would challenge me over my opposition to the Iraq war, referring to it as a form of appeasement. “If it wasn’t for us, you’d be speaking German,” they’d say. Given that my ancestors were taken to Barbados as slaves, and then immigrated to Britain as colonial subjects, this seemed a peculiar charge. “No,” I replied. “If it were not for you, I’d be speaking Yoruba.” History, in both its recording and retelling, is not an objective account of bygone events. Everyone comes to the past from a perspective shaped by a range of influences and experiences. Refusing to recognise those influences is not the same as not having them. It simply disables people from interrogating why and how they know what they know and believe what they believe. Read more

Whitewashing Black History Month

Not long after I arrived in the US, in 2003, some white Americans would challenge me over my opposition to the Iraq war, referring to it as a form of appeasement. “If it wasn’t for us, you’d be speaking German,” they’d say. Given that my ancestors were taken to Barbados as slaves, and then immigrated to Britain as colonial subjects, this seemed a peculiar charge.

“No,” I replied. “If it were not for you, I’d be speaking Yoruba.”

History, in both its recording and retelling, is not an objective account of bygone events. Everyone comes to the past from a perspective shaped by a range of influences and experiences. Refusing to recognise those influences is not the same as not having them. It simply disables people from interrogating why and how they know what they know and believe what they believe.

Read more

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