Britain's politics of race

[mikesiva]

Dr Michael Siva, a historian, described mock slave auctions as “problematic”.

“Schools staging slave auctions are very problematic because slavery itself was a brutal institution. Schools need to approach the subject of sugar, slavery and the slave trade as a genocide, much like the Holocaust,” he told HuffPost UK.

“Staging a slave auction trivialises the brutality suffered by African slaves on British West Indian plantations. These Africans were ripped away from their families, and they were displayed, naked and oiled up, for the British sugar planters to inspect. These inspections were intrusive, and often involved the planters feeling the private parts of the displayed African, and using other methods to check their fitness for the upcoming brutal work on the plantations.

“Charities that encourage the practice of slave auctions as fundraisers are obviously not aware of the brutal history of slavery itself. Until the British Empire, and in particular sugar and slavery in the West Indian colonies, is made compulsory in the history curriculum of British schools, then the widespread British ignorance of the brutality of British slavery will persist.”

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[MarcusGarveyLives]

Britain's 'mock slave auctions' & 'pride' in empire - a sample:

October 2012: Queen Elizabeths Girls School, Barnet - Ligali Slave Trade Learning Resource Complaint to Kate Webster - 25 October 2012

July 2014: The British Empire is 'something to be proud of'

October 2017: Anger after primary school in Manor Park asks pupils to dress as slaves for Black History Month

August 2018: REVEALED: The outcome of police probe into ‘mock slave auction’ at Bath school

August 2018: White school kids who tied up black pupil and called him n***** in 'mock slave auction' will NOT face criminal charges

November 2019: ‘Shameful’: Slave auction re-enactment held at UK university conference dinner

March 2020: UK more nostalgic for empire than other ex-colonial powers

Yesterday: Education Secretary Gavin Williamson rejects calls to ‘decolonise’ history curriculum, saying Britons should be ‘proud of our history’