Jump to content

Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners (9pm on BBC2)


Hipster

Recommended Posts

 

It would be nice to see things on tv about black history instead of slavery.

just instilling into the minds of our young that they are inferior

 

 

thats all it is and thats all it will EVER be

 

keeping whites on top

 

what good black history documentaries come on tv... i mean REALLY THO

 

YOULL HAVE TO TUNE INTO CHANNEL YESTERDAY FOR THAT ONE...

 

  • Downvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The presenter never said he was black

it was actually quite apt that he is of mixed heritage cos he didn't hide it an could look at the history from both sides. He actively looked up the white side of his family. This is helpful in engaging the majority audience which is white English. It is them who the database is aimed at

all of us who have english surnames already kno we come from slave stock there are no surprises for us

Once again this is why black doesn't exist

he is half nigerian half English

He also mentioned indentured servants and informed us about their lives briefly but that wasnt the focus of the program

Its up to Irish people if they want to put their history out there. Why would an English man bother?

same goes for africans an Caribbeans. I thought that teach black history in schools petition that keeps goin around is a load of bollox. Teach your children urself

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

'Black' exists here. Because my experience and that of my caribbean cousins are the same when walk out our homes.

But a 'Black' community in short doesn't exist here, but was necessary at one point (might be still).

I'm not black in Nigeria.

There's degrees in certain things, you people surely can't be absolutists.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

its fucked for carribeans/ americans 

 

basically with a western name you are the descendant of a slave 

 

thats peak when you think about it 

 

if i were you guys i would do my utmost to find ut where i am originally from and if possibly adopt that name 

 

a whole history wiped out 

  • Upvote 2
  • Downvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

aff history same way tho if u think about it...

we from african countries might not have western surnames, but alot of us have western forenames, culture, perspective for however many years etc etc

 

 

some of the shit im seein on twitter tho. white people guilt is on 1hunnid today after they watch this show yday lol

so it should be

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

theres a lot of history in a name tho 

 

imagine not knowing where you originate from thats crazy 

 

/

you guys should look up Leopold of Belgium. What the British did is nothing in comparison to him

 

he did them congolese dirty probably killed at least a 5 million 

 

it an unreported Genocide 

 

Congolese people should be paid Billions but that will never happen 

  • Upvote 1
  • Downvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

king-leopold-of-belgium-congo-genocide.j

 

Take a look at this picture. Do you know who it is?

Most people haven’t heard of him.

But you should have. When you see his face or hear his name you should get as sick in your stomach as when you read about Mussolini or Hitler or see one of their pictures. You see, he killed over 10 million people in the Congo.

His name is King Leopold II of Belgium.

He “owned” the Congo during his reign as the constitutional monarch of Belgium. After several failed colonial attempts in Asia and Africa, he settled on the Congo. He “bought” it and enslaved its people, turning the entire country into his own personal slave plantation. He disguised his business transactions as “philanthropic” and “scientific” efforts under the banner of the International African Society. He used their enslaved labor to extract Congolese resources and services. His reign was enforced through work camps, body mutilations, torture, executions, and his own private army.

Most of us aren’t taught about him in school. We don’t hear about him in the media. He’s not part of the widely-repeated narrative of oppression (which includes things like the Holocaust during World War II). He’s part of a long history of colonialism, imperialism, slavery, and genocide in Africa that would clash with the social construction of a white supremacist narrative in our schools. It doesn’t fit neatly into school curriculums in a capitalist society. Making overtly racist remarks is (sometimes) frowned upon in ‘polite’ society; but it’s quite fine not to talk about genocide in Africa perpetrated by European capitalist monarchs.1

Mark Twain wrote a satire about Leopold called “King Leopold’s Soliloquy; A Defense of His Congo Rule”, where he mocked the King’s defense of his reign of terror, largely through Leopold’s own words. It’s an easy read at 49 pages and Mark Twain is a popular author in American public schools. But like most political authors, we will often read some of their least political writings or read them without learning why the author wrote them in the first place. Orwell’s Animal Farm, for example, serves to reinforce American anti-socialist propaganda about how egalitarian societies are doomed to turn into their dystopian opposites. But Orwell was an anti-capitalist revolutionary of a different kind—a supporter of working class democracy from below—and that is never pointed out. We can read about Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, but “King Leopold’s Soliloquy” isn’t on the reading list. This isn’t by accident. Reading lists are created by boards of education in order to prepare students to follow orders and endure boredom. From the point of view of the Department of Education, Africans have no history.

When we learn about Africa, we learn about a caricatured Egypt, about the HIV epidemic (but never its causes), about the surface level effects of the slave trade, and maybe about South African Apartheid (the effects of which, we are taught, are now long, long over). We also see lots of pictures of starving children on Christian Ministry commercials, we see safaris on animal shows, and we see pictures of deserts in films and movies. But we don’t learn about the Great African War or Leopold’s Reign of Terror during the Congolese Genocide. Nor do we learn about what the United States has done in Iraq and Afghanistan, killing millions of people through bombs, sanctions, disease, and starvation. Body counts are important. And the United States Government doesn’t count Afghan, Iraqi, or Congolese people.

Though the Congolese Genocide isn’t included on Wikipedia’s “Genocides in History” page, it does mention the Congo. What’s now called the Democratic Republic of the Congo is listed in reference to the Second Congo War (also called Africa’s World War and the Great War of Africa), where both sides of the regional conflict hunted down Bambenga people—a regional ethnic group—and enslaved and cannibalized them. Cannibalism and slavery are horrendous evils which must be entered into history for sure, but I couldn’t help thinking whose interests were served when the only mention of the Congo on the page was in reference to regional incidents where a tiny minority of people in Africa were eating each other (completely devoid of the conditions which created the conflict, and the people and institutions who are responsible for those conditions). Stories which support the white supremacist narrative about the subhumanness of people in Africa are allowed to enter the records of history. The white guy who turned the Congo into his own personal part-plantation, part-concentration camp, part-Christian ministry—and killed 10 to 15 million Congolese people in the process—doesn’t make the cut.2

You see, when you kill ten million Africans, you aren’t called ‘Hitler’. That is, your name doesn’t come to symbolize the living incarnation of evil. Your name and your picture don’t produce fear, hatred, and sorrow. Your victims aren’t talked about and your name isn’t remembered.

Leopold was just one of thousands of things that helped construct white supremacy as both an ideological narrative and material reality. I don’t pretend that he was the source of all evil in the Congo. He had generals, and foot soldiers, and managers who did his bidding and enforced his laws. He was at the head of a system. But that doesn’t negate the need to talk about the individuals who are symbolic of the system. But we don’t even get that. And since it isn’t talked about, what capitalism did to Africa, all the privileges that rich white people gained from the Congolese genocide, remain hidden. The victims of imperialism are made, like they usually are, invisible.

-  -  -

* * If you liked this post, please consider visiting our Facebook page and ‘liking’ it, and following @iamwalking on Twitter. Thank you! Please visit again soon! * *

For a modern day example of the callousness of Western imperialism, read my post about the famine in Somalia “20,000 billion dollars for banks, 1 billion for millions of Africans suffering from capitalist famine“, also on this website.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

posted about him in the paragraph thread a while back 

 

 

 

 

Leopold began to carefully create a plan to convince other European powers of the legitimacy of his claim to the region, all while maintaining the guise that his work was for the benefit of the native peoples under the name of a philanthropic "Association". His desire for territory and colonial control in Africa is evident when he stated:

“ I do not want to risk...losing a fine chance to secure for ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake ”

—King Leopold II, speaking to one of his aides in London[6]

The king launched a publicity campaign in Britain, drawing attention to Portugal's slavery record to distract critics and offering to drive slave traders from the Congo basin. He also secretly told British merchant houses that if he was given formal control of the Congo for this and other humanitarian purposes, he would then give them the same most favored nation (MFN) status Portugal offered. At the same time, Leopold promised Bismarck he would not give any one nation special status, and that German traders would be as welcome as any other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#Early_European_exploration

 

Nsala_of_Wala_in_Congo_looks_at_the_seve

 

A Congolese man looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed, and allegedly cannibalized, by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company militia.[20]

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My black doesn't exist talk is not counter productive its elavated. Where does it get you to keep speakin in terms of coloue amd race. Race a concept only developed to justify "white" superiority. We need to elevate past black. Who are you actually? Does black mean anything? Not really its very shallow

And being caribbean/american is not fucked or peak. We are the descendents of the survivors. Those who made it across the middle passage and through the torture and mental and physical abuse. Theres nothing fucked about who we are and adopting some relatively random african name isnt goin to help anyone - jus look at all these silly pan africanists.

Im not sayin we should be happy to have british names but take any name you want. U see when people make up names an everyone laughs - why laugh? All names were made up at some point. Be who you want to be

On top of that in the caribbean many of us are very mixed. I thought my grandma was just a "black" woman with african heritage. Come to find recently shes only 1/4 african/maroon. So theres no point goin an tryin to look back an go o yes my family name is mensah or whatever. We could be anyone

We in the Caribbean have actually developed our own very rich culture and it is not to be dismissed simply because of how it came about

  • Upvote 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

posted about him in the paragraph thread a while back 

 

 

 

 

Leopold began to carefully create a plan to convince other European powers of the legitimacy of his claim to the region, all while maintaining the guise that his work was for the benefit of the native peoples under the name of a philanthropic "Association". His desire for territory and colonial control in Africa is evident when he stated:

“ I do not want to risk...losing a fine chance to secure for ourselves a slice of this magnificent African cake ”

—King Leopold II, speaking to one of his aides in London[6]

The king launched a publicity campaign in Britain, drawing attention to Portugal's slavery record to distract critics and offering to drive slave traders from the Congo basin. He also secretly told British merchant houses that if he was given formal control of the Congo for this and other humanitarian purposes, he would then give them the same most favored nation (MFN) status Portugal offered. At the same time, Leopold promised Bismarck he would not give any one nation special status, and that German traders would be as welcome as any other.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State#Early_European_exploration

 

Nsala_of_Wala_in_Congo_looks_at_the_seve

 

A Congolese man looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed, and allegedly cannibalized, by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company militia.[20]

 

 

fucked 

 

and yet we hear nothing about the leopold chap 

 

i stumbled upon him a couple weeks ago on some youtube documentary - i was appalled and shocked 

 

literally never heard about him whatsoever 

 

10 million human beings 

 

10 MILLION

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Who do you expect to tell you about these things? Really?

my upbringing was obviously different to a lot of people around me. I assumed people had a lot of the presumed basic knowledge i had. Before the internet there were books. Growin up my house was like a little library with a good section on African and caribbean history

do that for your youts so they dnt have to be shocked when they get to your age

  • Upvote 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My black doesn't exist talk is not counter productive its elavated. Where does it get you to keep speakin in terms of coloue amd race. Race a concept only developed to justify "white" superiority. We need to elevate past black. Who are you actually? Does black mean anything? Not really its very shallow

Can agree with this. But my angle was from the shared experience of living in the west.

Example being if you were new at work in the carib you would be the one with the glasses upstairs, here your the new black girl.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I understand but is it correct?

Why should I be denegrated to a colour which isn't even my colour when others dont have to be

what do you say of the new asian/chinese/anyonewhoisntblackorwhite?

I'm a human being. As I would be in Jamaica

describe something else about me. Use my name. Black and white are lazy and loose terminologies. And yes absolutely we have shared experiences that can put us into groups but then we get on to people like Rachel dolezal an others who could claim more legitimacy than her to the experience

i jus think we need to move away from race however difficult it is

Link to comment
Share on other sites

its f*cked for carribeans/ americans 

 

basically with a western name you are the descendant of a slave 

 

thats peak when you think about it 

 

if i were you guys i would do my utmost to find ut where i am originally from and if possibly adopt that name 

 

a whole history wiped out 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...