To wonder why it's so controversial to talk about white behaviour throughout history?

That's a hell of an imperialist mindset you've got there. First of all, people have always shared knowledge and taught their children, even if it didn't look how we thought it should. And secondly, "imported"? More like we imposed it upon them. And secular? Do you know a single thing about the curriculum we did in fact export to the colonies? Dear me,

There's no such thing as "black or white behaviour" people don't behave a certain way because of the colour of their skin. I'm sorry OP but your openly racist and you just can't see it staring you in the face.

You can't use a stereotypical term to describe some people and then "add the term "some but not all" to excuse the racism... the second you said white behaviour you were racist. The second you said black behaviour and Asian behaviour you were racist.... the colour of peoples skin has nothing to do with their actions or behaviour.

I would suggest doing do some equality and diversity training, I did it in college and I think it should be taught in schools.

By the way the "what aboutery" your talking about is just people providing evidence, that the colonial behaviour your talking about is not "white behaviour"

We actually live in quite a diverse country. There are a range of ethnicities and cultures in the country and our classrooms

This is a recent phenomenon. And unlike American blacks, did not these families choose to be part of British culture? They should learn and respect the culture that they have chosen to live in.

These children deserve to see themselves in the syllabus and their learning

Why?

And all children benefit from hearing a range of voices and perspectives

Yes, this is nice but it should come from a foundation of English language and culture, no? Otherwise what is the point?

Because they didn’t have their own education system and imported it directly from England (or wherever). In Japan and China, there isn’t this problem so much because there was already an education system in place (and well Japan was technically a coloniser lol) and there’s plenty of written material culture and relevant authors to study.

Some of these countries did not have a written language even … what can you even expect? Or in the MENA where religious education was a norm, secular education must be imported from abroad.

Your using a stereotypical term to describe individuals. It's racist and discriminatory.

African slave trading has a very long history tied up with inter tribal warfare. To a certain extent geography determined where the ports were located - eg the Niger delta was a convenient location as you could use the river to head into the interior and the lagoons to travel up and down the coast without having to head out to sea. Ports on the west African coast were the easiest way to trade with the Mediterranean due to the difficulties in crossing the Sahara although until the C17th it was largely a seasonal trade dependent on wind direction. European traders didn't head into Africa to capture slaves they relied on the local chiefs and traders to supply them. Slave trading was seen as triply beneficial to the local chiefs as they could use it to dispose of their rivals (most of the early slaves were prisoners of war) and make money from both the sale of slaves and customs levies on the imported goods which they were exchanged for. Finally they could also buy guns etc which meant that they were better armed than their rivals inland. Conversely the European traders needed to stay on the right side of the local chiefs or they would find the ports in their territories closed to them - which happened periodically meaning that the offending trader would need to move along the coast to find someone else to do business with.

West African/European trade post the Roman Empire came to be dominated by Spain and Portugal and after the "discovery" of the Americas it was the Portuguese who first saw the commercial advantages of buying slaves in West Africa and selling them in the new colonies which were short of labour. As other European nations joined them they enhanced the extant infrastructure helping local rulers build and man huge forts and slave castles along the West African coast. British naval dominance and developing maritime and military technology meant that the British scaled this up to the truly horrific levels of the triangular trade.

Have you heard of the Barbary pirates, used to raid the West of England etc

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Barbary-Pirates-English-Slaves/

Sorry, why not?

Its only so so recent in historical terms that humans generally have decided that that enslaving your fellow man and taking their stuff is a bad thing.

And that mindset exists in theory only. There are more slaves now than at any point in history but because they're mining our raw materials, growing our food and making our consumer items we turn a blind eye to it.

The irony of speaking out against historic oppression on a smartphone while dressed in brand sportswear doesn't seem to register for many.

nominally, people of the world have officially decided that enslaving and colonising your fellow brothers and sisters is a "bad thing". but in reality, that has never stopped, right? anyone who lives in a "rich" country has the blood and tears of the poor on their hands, and that's regardless of skin colour.

I suppose compared to the native American population - as people from Africa already had been exposed to microbes and diseases that wiped out swathes of the indigenous peoples of the Americas - people from Africa were stronger and able to work more (before they died. Many places people were just worked in to the ground as it was cheaper to ship over fresh supplies than to look after your fellow human beings in a decent way).

They were also better acclimatised to work hard in the heat than say indentured workers from northern Europe.

But equally, yes, the seemingly limitless supply of slaves from central Africa (a loosely applied term just now) and the fact they were already rounded up and clear to be shipped off was a very important factor.

The truly horrible thing to consider is how easy we dismiss the suffering of other people if we feel we can justify it.
I do see what OP means when referring to «White behaviour» as the last massive empires the last 500 years have been mainly European empires with White men excelling in inflicting atrocities on others in the pursuit of financial gain.
Witness the havoc in Sudan now; still an echo from colonial times even if there are New powerstructures at play now.

It isn’t White behaviour though, as such, as others have pointed out more eloquently. It is greed and opportunity. And then belief systems implemented to justify the actions.
But the consequences of these belief systems have for the last centuries been felt most keenly by people with Brown or Black skin, and that has to be acknowledged when we discuss our histories.

History was a «gentleman’s» subject for a long while, who investigated whatever they were interested in and published what they felt was important, which was stuff about men from Europe, largely. Luckily now it is a lot more diverse, but the sort of mainstream published history is still a lot about European History from a European/Western perspective. I’m glad that’s being challenged.

If you knew anything about post colonial Uganda you would understand why that hasn't been possible. That's what happens when colonial oppressors up leave nations unstable and indebted.

Regarding the comment that legislation in former colonies had been imposed by the colonisers, well. I recall the discussion several years ago about Uganda having a law against homosexuality as being one the "bad" British had drawn up - well Uganda has been independent since at least the 1960s. I know if I had been in any of the many governments in a newly independent former colony, I'd want to look at all the laws the former colonial oppressors had forced on me.

Given that other posters have mentioned Irish taking slaves, Romans taking slaves, vikings and the Muslim empire taking slaves, I suspect that tribes, peoples and groups in Africa were indulging in slavery long before any European involvement.

The Irish have been involved in colonisation from the days of Niall of The Nine Hostages slave taking (Hello, St Patrick!), colonisation of parts of Great Britain & northern France (hence the DNA) and all the way up to Irish involvement in the British Empire which included being slave owners too.

And the Spanish Empire expansion pre-British Empire.

The Irish and Scottish expanded the British Empire further than the English did, especially in India and the American colonies.

Very, very seldom will you find a European people with zero history of colonisation and so on. It is remarkably Europe wide.

Did the slave markets always exist or were they a response to demand? I mean did it start as whites doing raids from the sea and then develop into trade, the costal groups going to the interior to catch slaves, rather then be themselves taken?

@Skycrawler

I agree and it certainly wasn't peachy for the working classes in that time. They were also exploited.

I think whataboutery is perfectly valid in these discussions

was the Balkans conflict "white behaviour"?
Is the Russian/Ukraine war "white behaviour"?
Is the Somali civil war "black behaviour"?

THIS.

I firmly disagree it's a need to be validated. I certainly am embarassed that it took me until i was 17 to e.g. understand Pakistan's history and even later to understand the Palestinian conflict which is linked to British history. My heritage also has never been taught as far as I can see.

The history of the Commonwealth /British Empire absolutely matters and is impacting British people's lives today, for good and bad (as said by another poster). "Not feeling the need to know much about xxx Commonwealth country" is a sad indictment on British society today and no excuse at all- why wouldn't you want to learn another aspect of British history? Ignorance should not be treated so lightly.

For example there is a huge risk of someone being rejected for a job because the hiring manager could not imagine they spoke excellent English (alongside other languages), would be interested in xxx, and had equivalent qualifications to a person born and bred in England. This happened to my mother several decades ago, when there were plenty of vacancies in England.

I myself have received many an ignorant comment from university peers and colleagues and experienced e.g. being left out purposefully on a conversation on childhoods such as "you wouldn't know xxx" "you wouldn't understand xxx". I may not, or I may surprise you. It's the constant presumptions and ignorance which thousands and thousands of people face on a daily basis.

In summary, not knowing is damaging. If people know about America and the slave trade, World War 1 and 2, and the Holocaust then at the very least they should be educated on the Commonwealth /British Empire.

Of course history of an area affects the people who live in that area or came from that area. And if that history is of being colonised especially recently of course it has effects, massive effects.

Most land (and so privilege and wealth) in the Uk is still owned by the descendants of the Norman colonisers from 1066. You’re still more likely to go to Oxbridge if you have a Norman-decent surname than an Anglo-Saxon one. Northern England deprivation compared to the south also possibly results from this time leading to a lot of our current political issues. Should I register my protest with the French or with the Scandinavians?

Historical Brits behaved like all people up to about 200 years ago had always behaved, using any advantages they had to exploit everyone else. Historical Britain benefited from the advantages of Industrial Revolution happening here first and a lot of naval innovation to exploit a lot of areas and people. They were no different in their morals - thinking exploiting other humans for profit and nicking their stuff to get rich than any other humans at or up to that point. It’s not just whataboutary (sp) to say the that everyone was doing it because for the ENTIRE OF RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY until then that is what every powerful nation did. History is the rise and fall of colonial expansionist empires on all continents and across all races.

Its only so so recent in historical terms that humans generally have decided that that enslaving your fellow man and taking their stuff is a bad thing. Why this has happened is what to me is interesting.

I think some of this was mythological, though they do seem to have been very resilient health wise.

I think the huge size of the African slave markets was a bigger deal. There was simply nothing like it in Europe or the Americas.

Where are you thinking of, specifically? I do not think that is a very large number.

In any case, it really has zero to do with the point that it is normal, and completely fine, if a country's media etc reflects the people who live there.

I believe you are thinking about the Haitian uprising.

You are right though - typically any group that exploits a less powerful group creates spurious justifications for why they are inferior. It could be centered around their religion, diet, physical appearance, whatever. These can become widely held cultural beliefs.

Early in the history of the Americas there were both white and black enslaved people, but as you say, it was seen as advantageous to divide these groups. European slaves were becoming rare and difficult to justify because those countries forming into nation-states and were passing laws to protect their citizens more and more, so were not really a viable source anyway. But they could become an underclass that could be set against, rather than seeing themselves in solidarity with, the African slave population.

The idea of universal human rights was really just emerging in this period, you tend to see people accorded rights that were beginning to be defined and granted by the emerging nation states, who could protect their citizens. (That's a bit simplistic of course, there were rights of some kinds before that, but it was a very in development thing.)

Of course not all the former colonies will be on the same path, some will have moved forward more than others. But you are wrong if you think all have been able to develop their own media, curriculum, political and legal systems. A great many are still using British curriculum from the 1960s for example. Whether or not that is our "fault" or not is debatable, but it is true and it is a direct result of colonization.