On White Privilege and Black History

 

Black History Month, White Privilege and Kemi Badenoch

 

 

 

In the middle of Black History Month, the UK government sent a black minister, Kemi Badenoch, to tell the House of Commons that 'Teaching white privilege as uncontested fact is illegal'.   

 

Yet past and present racism continue to run deep in the country, as well as in the entire world...

 

As a journalist, I've worked on African affairs since 2006, joining Velvet Film, a company set up between Haiti, New York and Paris to produce films on Haitan and African history. 

That gave films like 'Lumumba', 'Sometimes in April' on the Rwanda genocide, and more recently 'I Am Not Your Negro' on James Baldwin, winner of the BAFTA for best documentary film on 2018... 

 

In the meantimes, I joined the BBC African news section in 2009 and became a correspondent in East Africa a year later. I have since reported in 14 African countries, in the Caribbean and in Europe about racism and colonial history.

 

2020 has so far been a watershed year for minorities' rights and especially for Black Lives Matter, at the price of extreme suffering. 

Teaching the reality of 'black' history, of colonialism history, of displacement and slavery should not, and never, just like the criticism on extreme capitalism, be reduced to teaching secondary subjectivities or subjective points of views. 

These are facts, based on events documented by historians and to these days by sociologists, journalists and activists.

 

I've covered anti-racist protests since the toppling of the Colston Statue here in Bristol, spoken to activists like educator Aisha Thomas recently and filmmaker Michael Jenkins, listened to historians Olivette Otiele and David Olusoga, started writing a book on Black art and Caribbean / African artists living or invited in the UK. 

 Details here: https://arnolfini.org.uk/africa-at-arnolfini/?fbclid=IwAR3iuErzpTJiAzAIW4RTBzfelYCttiSHyoczsyMo2skmHQcWJy3WVH5a4-A 

 

I felt the country had made so much progress in the past few years, since my first book on Bristol's music scene, a scene deeply inspired by reggae and soul music, by artists from the Caribbean and Africa. 

 See details here: https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/music/massive-attack-the-birth-of-the-bristol-sound   

 

But this debate in Parliament, just like the attempt to forbid teachers to address critical thinking that came out last month, are dangerous paths to revisionism.