If you can appreciate the passion behind the occasional strong language, have a read, and a good think. If you do, pray as well. We know that the legacy of slavery affects everyone, but maybe MJR needs to be widening its focus to include those who are further away from recognising this to be the case, and stand to lose by doing so. White people.
This powerful article by Ijeoma Oluo is titled: "White People: I Don’t Want You To Understand Me Better, I Want You To Understand Yourselves." Though a reflection on US society, its basic argument rings true for the UK as well: that the "dominant culture does not have to see itself to survive because culture will shift to fit its needs. This shift is cheaper and easier when you don’t look too closely at how it’s being accomplished..." Ignorance of their own culture and history on the part of white people is a requirement to ensure things continue as they are. Black people can see what white people cannot, namely: "how much of the legacy of slavery and brutality [is] still lodged deep in your bones."
If you can appreciate the passion behind the occasional strong language, have a read, and a good think. If you do, pray as well. We know that the legacy of slavery affects everyone, but maybe MJR needs to be widening its focus to include those who are further away from recognising this to be the case, and stand to lose by doing so. White people. Yesterday's Observer Editorial, was entitled: "The Observer's view on Britain's role in the slave trade". It begins: "Nearly two centuries after slavery was abolished, this country has still not fully acknowledged the shameful part it played. We must delay no longer."
Compared with the US experience, our British slaves were thousands of miles away, meaning the terrible cost of the wealth they generated, and which we still benefit from, has been all too easily forgotten. But the legacy is still there to be recognised, here in Britain, abroad in our former colonies where the scars are deep, and globally. Devoid of the historical context of our role in slavery "our international responsibilities cannot be understood ... They are derived not just from the deep injustice of the structural inequalities that divide global north from global south but from the fact that in the past Britain has helped create those very inequalities." Read the full article |
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