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David Starkey. He's finished isn't he?

128 replies

KaptainKaveman · 03/07/2020 13:38

At least I hope so.

OP posts:
jobhunter7 · 05/07/2020 15:12

That was the most overtly racist thing I've ever heard

I’ve heard much worse...

The whole interview was interesting albeit disturbing.

I thought the whole interview was interesting too...

David Olusoga’s described his comments as ‘disgusting’ which seems a perfectly correct use of the word.

I have thought both David’s have made brilliant history documentaries (just my opinion of course). Perhaps the BBC or C4 could get them to make one together about this subject. And tackle together such things as:

Belgium's killing of up to 10 million people in the Congo Free State

Perhaps one of them may want to give profits to:

www.antislavery.org/take-action/campaigns/

for example… or another cause they deem worthy...

anon444877 · 05/07/2020 15:29

I’d have thought it entirely possible go to have an interesting academic discussion across historians or multi disciplinary in whether slavery was genocide as this thread has shown, but for the way Starkey expressed himself in that interview, absolutely racist and be deserved the sackings.

DGRossetti · 05/07/2020 15:29

Meanwhile, it seems for a jape Boris and Gove were "sold as slaves" in their Bullingdon days.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/05/gove-and-johnson-sold-as-slaves-at-oxford-student-charity-event

anon444877 · 05/07/2020 15:34

Not that I’m defending it but my school used to do a charity ‘slave auction’ back in the 1990s.

DGRossetti · 05/07/2020 15:37

@anon444877

Not that I’m defending it but my school used to do a charity ‘slave auction’ back in the 1990s.
It would be interesting to know if anyone back then put their hands up and said "Er, guys, don't you think this is a bit ... off ?" ?
RedRumTheHorse · 05/07/2020 15:39

[quote DGRossetti]Meanwhile, it seems for a jape Boris and Gove were "sold as slaves" in their Bullingdon days.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/05/gove-and-johnson-sold-as-slaves-at-oxford-student-charity-event[/quote]
That was in 1987. It's whether they still hold those views now as more mature adults who currently hold political positions with lots of power I'm interested in. Other adults in the public eye have shown they have changed their discriminatory views for the better as they have got older and had more life experience.

In the case of Starkey with the large number of diverse people he's interacted and worked with since 2011, it appears his racist and sexist thinking has never changed.

DGRossetti · 05/07/2020 15:46

That was in 1987. It's whether they still hold those views now as more mature adults who currently hold political positions with lots of power I'm interested in.

Quite true. "Watermelon smiles" and "picannies" being a tiny clue in that direction, as far as I'm concerned ...

anon444877 · 05/07/2020 16:00

I can only hope someone questioned the slave auction at the time, I don’t recall anyone doing so though, come to think of it, we didn’t cover the slave trade in gcse or a level history so maybe there wasn’t the awareness there then.

jobhunter7 · 05/07/2020 16:07

@anon444877

Were you supposed to be portraying slaves of the transatlantic slave trade?

anon444877 · 05/07/2020 16:12

No it was a charity thing where you bought someone to do your chores for 24 hours. My point was that as @RedRumTheHorse said more eloquently, acceptability has changed over the last 30 odd years although I agree there are clues that Starkey, Johnson etc haven’t changed theirs.

jobhunter7 · 05/07/2020 16:17

@anon4448777

I tend to think of Boris as more of a buffoon than anything...

anon444877 · 05/07/2020 16:26

I’m having to re examine other parts of my history - I used to enjoy Starkey’s provocation about the monarchy but admit I’ve seen nothing of his since about 2005.

Buffoon definitely @jobhunter7

jobhunter7 · 05/07/2020 16:39

@anon444877

I think he resigned from Cambridge at least. I can see what he said should be questioned. But I am not sure you should be sacked within days for saying something others perceive as 'racist', which may not necessarily be so. He is from an older generation than me and I really do think if they could make something positive out of this and maybe get him and say David Olusoga to do a documentary together, that would be much better than to dismiss him...

JoyFreeCake · 05/07/2020 16:43

Is it reasonable to expect David Olusoga to want to work with somebody who refers to "so many damn blacks"?

jobhunter7 · 05/07/2020 16:47

That would be up to David Olusoga.

JoyFreeCake · 05/07/2020 16:55

Indeed it would. That's why I said "is it reasonable to expect him to want to" — acknowledging that the decision would lie with him (and Starkey) while pointing out nobody else has the right to expect it.

PlanDeRaccordement · 05/07/2020 17:13

David Starkey was racist not by saying slavery is not genocide but by explaining the reason it wasn’t genocide was and you know what he said.

Anyway, in the case of slavery, the objective is not to kill the humans taken captive but to keep them alive for economic exploitation. In the case of the transatlantic slave trade, yes some did not survive the ocean voyage but I did read a history book regarding transports of convicts to the Americas and Australia and that they suffered similar mortality rates on the sea voyage over. There was no intent to kill people by shipping them across oceans, there was a mindset that the weak were going to die and that every voyage always had deaths on it from disease.

The Holocaust started as slavery. The Jews were initially forcibly placed in work camps and ghettos for exploitation and subjugation. The work camps were public work and agrarian, the ghettos they’d march groups to work without pay in military materiel and munitions factories. It wasn’t until the final solution days that the intent shifted that the work camps were converted to death camps, and the ghettos cleared out, transporting the remaining population to the death camps.

The same with the Japanese use of European prisoners in Indonesia. Started out as work camps, but then some particular areas crossed the line into genocide. Take for example the Burmese camps that built the railway of death. The prisoners were deliberately worked with not enough food to eat until they died. They were given no shelter, no clothing, no medical attention other than what they could make for themselves out of jungle plants.

So, it is important to recognise that slavery is often a gateway or enabler to later incidents of genocide. And I do think a large part of the trans Atlantic slave trade did in fact lead to genocide as while some destination plantations ranged from humane to brutal work camps, many many other plantations were most definitely death camps. The fact that many S American ports had to import millions more slaves than the N American ports due to the death rate of the slaves being over 90% is clear evidence that genocide was happening in many areas. Too often, we visualise the trans atlantic slave trade with the narrow focus on a Virginia tobacco or cotton plantation when most slaves did not experience that ending to their sea voyage. Many ended up worked to death in the jungles of S America.

KaptainKaveman · 05/07/2020 17:25

Anyway, I'm glad that it seems the answer to my original OP is yes, the racist twat is finished for good.

OP posts:
jobhunter7 · 05/07/2020 17:33

It's only been a week...

DGRossetti · 05/07/2020 17:56

The fact the Nazis and Japanese couldn't win a war with "free" slave labour should be a clear lesson to all about the economics of slavery.

Sadly, I suspect there are those that walk among us that believe it's only "because they didn't do it right" ....

Lweji · 06/07/2020 06:52

He is from an older generation than me and I really do think if they could make something positive out of this and maybe get him and say David Olusoga to do a documentary together, that would be much better than to dismiss him...

Are you saying he should be rewarded and educated? HmmShock

He knows better. He's had plenty of time and opportunity to change whatever views he grew up with.
Most of us are perfectly capable of evaluating and rejecting or accepting whatever isms we grew up with.
If he hasn't so far, then he won't.

Lweji · 06/07/2020 06:56

I tend to think of Boris as more of a buffoon than anything...

And that's where people go wrong.
He is also a buffoon.
And a charming one, which people seem to like for some reason.

labyrinthloafer · 06/07/2020 07:10

get him and David Olusoga together

Why is it David Olusoga's problem?

candycane222 · 06/07/2020 08:09

Agree Lweji & Labyrinth. Obscuity is by far the most fitting outcome. Anything else would be promoting the sort of false balance that got him (and lots of other nasty reactionaries and contrarians) too much exposure in the first place.

candycane222 · 06/07/2020 08:10

Obscurity - duh!