By Hua Hsu, The New Yorker — In June, 1948, the H.M.T. Empire Windrush docked in the Port of Tilbury, near London. Among its passengers were approximately eight hundred West Indian workers, mostly from Jamaica, who had come in response to England’s postwar labor shortage. Some planned to earn money and return home; others wondered what it would be like to stay. There was a lot of work to be…
Reparative justice, whereby communities are compensated for losses caused by the slavery or the Holocaust, is morally fair. By Julian Baggini, The Guardian — Justice requires a good memory, one that is both accurate and not self-servingly selective. But whether it is well-served by a long memory is more contentious. We know that many still pay the price for sins previous generations never paid for. But most agree with the…
Scotland should take responsibility for the major and highly lucrative role it played in the transatlantic slave trade. By Elliot Ross, Al Jazeera — The late Jamaican-British intellectual Stuart Hall liked to describe the entanglement of the United Kingdom with the peoples of Africa and the Caribbean with the provocation: “I am the sugar at the bottom of the English cup of tea. I am the sweet tooth, the sugar plantations that rotted…
The Jamaica Gleaner — Vice Chancellor of The University of the West Indies (UWI) Sir Hilary Beckles has reported that The University of Glasgow in the United Kingdom (UK) is planning to pay reparations for £200 million (approximately J$34 billion) taken from the Caribbean. According to Beckles, who recently returned from the UK, “The University of Glasgow has recognised that Jamaican slave owners had adopted the University of Glasgow as…
“The modern capitalist world would not exist without colonialism and the drain,” says Indian economist Utsa Patnaik By Sean Bell, Common Space — BRITAIN impoverished India over the course of its colonial rule by a staggering £9.2 trillion, laying the groundwork for modern international capitalism and holding back present-day India’s ability to escape poverty, a leading Indian economist has claimed. Utsa Patnaik, Professor Emeritus at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for Economic…
By Deana Heath, The Conversation — Jeremy Corbyn has recently proposed that British school children should be taught about the history of the realities of British imperialism and colonialism. This would include the history of people of colour as components of, and contributors to, the British nation-state – rather than simply as enslaved victims of it. As Corbyn rightly noted: “Black history is British history” – and hence its study should be…
Universities in the UK which benefited in previous centuries from the slave trade should contribute to a £100m fund to support ethnic minority students, says a university leader. By Sean Coughlan, BBC News — Geoff Thompson, chair of governors of the University of East London, says it would be “ethical and right” for universities to contribute. He says it would help young people who otherwise could not afford to graduate. Last…
A joint statement from the CARICOM Reparations Commission (CRC) and the Centre for Reparation Research (CRR) — In a recent column published in the Jamaica Observer newspaper, UK Minister Lord Tariq Ahmad, said it was his honour, as minister of state for the Caribbean and the Commonwealth, “to join in celebrating the achievements of the Windrush generation, the role they play in UK-Caribbean relations and in making our country the…
By Kehinde Andrews, Black Perspectives — In 1967, the Afro-Caribbean Self-Help Organisation (ACSHO), based in Birmingham, started one of the first Black supplementary schools in the UK, sparking off a movement that transformed how mainstream schools treated their Black children. Supplementary schools refer to voluntary education programs run by concerned parents, teachers, and community members because of the racism faced in the school system.
By Kaila Philo, The New Republic — Seventy years ago today—June 22, 1948—a passenger ship carrying 492 Jamaican immigrants arrived in Essex, London. The Empire Windrush was the first of many ships to come, as the British government recruited migrants from the Caribbean Commonwealth to help rebuild the economy after World War II. These arrivals came to be known as the Windrush generation. “It is unclear how many people belong to the Windrush generation,…
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