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Lack of ‘Exposure’ Creates Vacuum for Some Barbadians in the Black History Debate

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Submitted as a comment by Lyall to the Open Letter to Prime Minster Mottley and Minister King

Captain Hutt taught me History at HC. I was therefore someone who learnt that history from the viewpoint of the English teacher class, by rote. For many years I had no need to check the truth or otherwise of what I had been taught, as History played a miniscule part in my life until the Sir George William’s / Concordia University fire in Montreal and the activities that led up to it. I later on visited Ghana where I saw first hand the places and trails where my African ancestors were caught and enslaved and then shipped under unspeakable conditions along the Middle Passage to Barbados. I also spent some time in Hull, England, another hub of the Slave trade, where racism was palpable even just 20 years ago.

These experiences forced me to progressively reevaluate Black History and, after an initial cognitive dissonance, accept that chattel slavery and its fruit and most of its manifestations is responsible for much of what is wrong in many aspects of life and governance of present day Barbados.

I think that my experiences also allow me to understand the standpoint of many of my acquaintances, friends and colleagues, of my age, who have had the benefit of seeing both sides of white/black relationships in Metropolitan countries. I see the postings of several BU posters who appear to be resident in Canada, the US and perhaps England, which show that exposure to life in metropolitan countries, forces an understanding of the black side of history that is largely missing from those who lack such experience and have remained in Barbados and who must depend on local sources to inform their views. Lack of such exposure in the Bajan who has largely stayed on this rock tends to lead to such persons staying with what what they have been taught by rote several years ago.

There is another type of BU commenter. The commenter who always espouses the decadent views of the Bajan white class, whether they themselves are black or white. Some of these BU commenters are totally predictable in the stances they take. Some even totally mimic Trump or Rush Limbaugh. You know who I mean.

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173 responses to “Lack of ‘Exposure’ Creates Vacuum for Some Barbadians in the Black History Debate”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    https://youtu.be/Mw32OxBahnA

  2. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    “which show that exposure to life in metropolitan countries, forces an understanding of the black side of history that is largely missing from those who lack such experience and have remained in Barbados and who must depend on local sources to inform their views.”

    Surely with communications being what there are today can one be confident in making the following assertion ” local sources to inform their views”?

    “There is another type of BU commenter. The commenter who always espouses the decadent views of the Bajan white class, whether they themselves are black or white. Some of these BU commenters are totally predictable in the stances they take. Some even totally mimic Trump or Rush Limbaugh. You know who I mean.”

    Because persons express different views from you ? You have accused persons of being predictable. Surely ,the converse case can be made about you also. You seem to patronize persons by seeking to downplay their ability to reach independent conclusions for themselves, by making accusations of mimicry (of Trump and Limbaugh). It would appear that persons who do not agree with you are moronic in outlook. One could accuse you of being self-righteous (based on your use of English)

  3. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    Brainwash education “to make you the fool” and boy did it work to refined perfection for decades and decades…and is only now being seen for what it really is, but not by the masses as a collective, many more should be seeing this, but they were successfully blinded..

  4. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    Correction :”Surely ,the converse case ” Should read : SURELY THE SAME CASE CAN BE MADE ABOUT YOU.

  5. TLSN Avatar
    TLSN

    The majority of tourists who visit Barbados know only of its sea and sand. Unaware that the country was built on the foundation of slavery.

    I have recently researched an island a million times more famous and exotic in peoples’ imagination than Barbados. The island is called Zanzibar and is often referred to as the “spice island”; an island with a rich cosmopolitan history.

    In 1963, a revolution took place which led to the genocide of thousands of its Arab citizens by black Africans; and the harassment and the brutalisation of its citizens of Indian and South Asian descent. Again, remarkably, very few tourists or people have any knowledge of this atrocity.

    I have read a number of comments on BU over the years that have singled out the same minority groups listed in the previous paragraph who have systematically, over the years, mistreated and abused the majority black population right here in Barbados. I looked at other black majority countries who have a similar mix of this population and the findings are alarming.

    The genocide of a large number of Arabs in Zanzibar was due to their incredible cruelty and domination of their fellow blacks. The other groups were little better than their Arab brothers, however their lives were generally spared.

    We in Barbados do not have a shared history in terms of longevity – dating back hundreds and hundreds of years – with Arabs and those of Indian and South Asian descent. Carry out your research and look at the example of Zanzibar to see what our future could possibly resemble.

    Freedom Crier should tone down her rhetoric and look at the fate of her fellow Arabs in Zanzibar who had to pay a heavy price for their brutalisation of their African brothers.

    As for those Bajans who are of Indian and South Asian descent, they would do well to watch a fascinating first hand account from a “Khojan” refugee who witnessed the unfolding of the Zanzibar revolution.

  6. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    It is amazing. We are in the middle of a health/medical crisis, CoVid; which will lead inevitably to an economic crisis; which will be followed by a food crisis; and out of left field came a social/political/racial/police brutality crisis, George Floyd’s murder.
    At a time when the debate on BU should step up and become more analytical, we drift once more in to a discursive cul de sac of nothingness.

  7. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    If your teachers and textbooks tell the story through the eyes of an Englishman, the majority of students will see it from that perspective. Period.

    Then you get on with the business of living, fighting for survival with that load of bullshit in your mind keeping you back.

    Unless there is some impactful experience to cause you to take the time to think, your perspective is unlikely to change.

    This is so for the vast majority of people that I meet.

    Emigration would definitely be a catalyst for deep thinking as you try to orient to a new culture.

    Lucky for me i come from a family of rebels on my mother’s side. We self – liberated generations ago when my mother refused to ask God to save the queen at primary school, was soundly beaten by the outraged black slave of a teacher. The teaching staff was soundly warned by her father of the consequences of any repeat of such actions and since everybody knew we were mad people my mother never was asked to sing that shite song again.

    My grandfather left Barbados to travel only as far as his fishing boat could carry him. Never left Barbados’ waters.

  8. TLSN Avatar
    TLSN

    @ Blogmaster,
    Please check your spam.

  9. TheOGazerts Avatar
    TheOGazerts

    Allow me to focus on two of your sentences and to misquote a part of your text
    “Captain Hutt taught me History at HC. I was therefore someone who learnt that history from the viewpoint of the English teacher class, by rote.”

    I believe that you are not being clear here. Not only were we learning by rote, but we “Little Englanders” were learning English history. Our local history was ignored and we were taught a foreign history. Did you delight in learning of the military victories of the English as I once did?

    “For many years I had no need to check the truth or otherwise of what I had been taught, as History played a miniscule part in my life”

    I wish to assert that it was minuscule because we were unaware of our true history. Our mis-education and the ‘false memories implanted by the Captain Hutts made the interaction minuscule and non-existent. The victors were teaching us the history of “Little England”. Stockholm syndrome on a national scale.

    The ugly parts of our history were blocked from our minds; traces of slavery are almost erased from the Barbadian landscape; the brutish behavior of slave owners was not taught in our schools; we could recite dates and battles in Europe, talk of the Magna Carta and the magnificence of the English mind and spirit and be oblivious of the enslavement of our parents; we learnt of Columbus and the empathy of kindhearted Las Casas for the Natives; we can speak of Wilberforce and 1833 but asked up what happened in Barbados between 1625 and 1833 and what happened after 1833.

    Some seeing this gap and our minuscule interaction with our own history would now feed us with Quaker tales.

  10. David Avatar
    David

    @Lyall, Crusoe et al

    If you have time have a view of the presentation in the first comment. What are your thoughts? The presenter makes a huge attempt to focus on the systemic matter at hand.

  11. TheOgazerts Avatar
    TheOgazerts

    @Hal
    Some of us can walk and chew gum at the same time.

  12. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    Robert;

    I did’nt fashion a cap for you to try its fit !

    I know that you have spent a significant amount of time in the USA. My metropolitan cap therefore fits you snugly. In addition, your writings demonstrate that you have a deep interest in ongoing happenings of importance to race relations in England as well as the USA. Therefore my cap for locally tethered persons does not fit you.

    Why would you counter intuitively appear to seek to cast yourself in or at least champion the role of someone who doesn’t read and who has not left the rock for any significant time or who is part of a long tradition of behaviours born of the world view of our dominant minority ?

    Re. being predictable. I plead guilty to that sin of which 99% of the posters on BU are also guilty.

  13. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    David. I’ll look at it later today.

  14. Wily Coyote Avatar
    Wily Coyote

    @HAL

    “At a time when the debate on BU should step up and become more analytical, we drift once more in to a discursive cul de sac of nothingness.”

    Chickens and the coup are not easy to separate. The ostrich syndrome. Monkey see monkey do. The list is endless, however Bajans cannot get out of the SAME OLD SAME OLD rut. Having this philosophy since independence is what has lead BARBADOS down the FAILED STATE path, it must be something in their slave DNA, no other rationalization can explain the phenomenon.

  15. Wily Coyote Avatar
    Wily Coyote

    In the “OLD” days, when Wily was in his teens, 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s jourlalism was a respected profession, then along came the INTERNET and SOCIAL MEDIA and FOX/CNN and professionalism was a thing of the past. Then came a red neck to head the USA, Lies prevailed, so much for professional journalism and INTEGRITY.

    WILY’s happy he’s on the way out, however he has empathy for his descendants in that they are poorly prepared for the FUTURE.

  16. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Wily

    I do not want to start a debate, but journalism is an occupation, not a profession.

  17. Wily Coyote Avatar
    Wily Coyote

    @HAL

    Wily was waiting for this corre tion as he’s aware of your point of view, no matter what you call it, it was once respected

  18. John Avatar
    John

    I later on visited Ghana where I saw first hand the places and trails where my African ancestors were caught and enslaved and then shipped under unspeakable conditions along the Middle Passage to Barbados.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Guess you were not exposed to the millennia of the existence of the Trans Saharan slave trade.

    The vacuum you live in created by your lack of exposure has created a vacuous space in your brain.

    Go look at the Trans Saharan Trade and learn some more before you make a bigger fool of yourself.

    You missed the trails across the Saharan Desert where your ancestors also trod.

    Ghana supplied slaves who built the Pyramids of Egypt, provided labour to the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, the Roman Empire etc etc etc.

    It was funny to watch the Democrats, Pelosi et al, with their Kente cloths of the Ashanti who controlled Ghana and were the biggest slave traders in West Africa from long before the Portuguese discovered how to get to there.

    If you want to talk about lack of exposure and vacuous brains, it isn’t only Black Barbadians, it seems to be a common affliction.

    Typical mortality rates on the Trans Saharan Route was ~ 90% compared with ~ 10 % on the Trans Atlantic Route.

    For male slaves at least in the era that the Arabs controlled the trade the mortality was even higher.

    Castration and penectomies were common.

    Mostly female slaves were taken in that era and for the purpose of being concubines.

    I suspect Islam spread through armies bred from these females.

    Males were useless.

  19. John Avatar
    John

    Captain Hutt taught me History at HC. I was therefore someone who learnt that history from the viewpoint of the English teacher class, by rote.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Unfortunately you never moved beyond this.

    You never got the part about learning how to learn.

    I did …. clear as a bell!!

    All of what I described in that last comment from the basic factual data provided by Captain Hutt.

    Most of it was never covered by Captain Hutt.

    It doesn’t matter what a teacher’s view point is if you leave with the ability to learn how to learn.

    Once you master the basic facts by rote, the same principles can be used to add to those facts and broaden your horizons.

  20. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Watched the video. Fell asleep because until the point that i did so i had heard nothing i haven’ t already figured out. The exploitation of labour is what makes capital rich. Duh! How many times have i argued that with Looney Tunes?

    Will try again to pick up where i dozed off. Maybe something i haven’t thought of will arise.

    Here goes!

  21. John Avatar
    John

    All of what I described in that last comment from the basic factual data provided by Captain Hutt.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    All of what I described in that last comment …. IS BASED ON REASONING ARISING…. from the basic factual data provided by Captain Hutt.

  22. John Avatar
    John

    Both of us passed through Captain Hutt.

    You survived unscathed, I learnt how to learn.

  23. Hal Austin Avatar
    Hal Austin

    @ Wily

    It is a trade that attracts many honourable men and women.

  24. Enuff Avatar
    Enuff

    The irony of the ever present school tie in a debate about racism and privilege in Barbados. I shall continue to be silent.

  25. TheOgazerts Avatar
    TheOgazerts

    I think you missed the point.
    This is not a ‘school’ thing but a comment on the history we were taught in school.

  26. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    John re. your 8:55 am post.

    Wow!

    Seems, by the unaccustomed vigor and venom in your response, that I somehow exposed a raw nerve there.

    But really, the trans saharan slave trade is of minimal relevance to this particular discussion even though there are tenuous linkages that could inform other discussions. For now, It is a red herring or straw man that fits into your usual strategy to obfuscate BU discussions.

  27. GP Avatar
    GP

    LYALL
    MAY I ASK A FEW QUESTIONS?

    DID WE NOT LEARN OUR RACISM WELL IN BARBADOS?.

    WAS NOT THE METHOD OF TREATING BLACK FOLK TRANSPORTED FROM BARBADOS AND TAUGHT TO THE AMERICAN SLAVE OWNERS?

    WAS THERE NOT EVEN BLACK ON BLACK RACISM PRACTICED IN BARBADOS WHICH OCCASIONED THE FORMATION OF THE EMPIRE CRICKET CLUB FOR “THE LESS ACCEPTED BLACKS OF THE TIME” WHO COULD NOT GET INTO SPARTAN CRICKET CLUB?

    DID NOT LANCE BYNOE SEE THE NEED TO DEVELOP THE SPORT OF ROAD TENNIS BECAUSE BLACKS WERE NOT ADMITTED TO CERTAIN LAWN TENIS CLUBS?

    IS IT NOT TRUE THAT BLACKS COULD NOT LOITER IN CERTAIN DSUBURBAN AREAS AFTER 6 PM UP TO ABOUT 70 YEARS AGO? DID NOT BLACK LIVES MATTER THEN? IF NOT WHY NOT?

    WHY THEREFORE DO YOU THINK THAT LOCAL FOLK NEED TO TRAVEL FAR AND WIDE AND TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH TO KNOW ABOUT RACISM.?

    WAS NOT OBSERVATION OF LIFE ON THE ISLAND A SUITABLE HISTORY TEXT FROM WHICH TO IMBIBE THESE THINGS?

    Re There is another type of BU commenter. The commenter who always espouses the decadent views of the Bajan white class, whether they themselves are black or white. Some of these BU commenters are totally predictable in the stances they take. Some even totally mimic Trump or Rush Limbaugh. You know who I mean.

    Who decides what is decadent? Under what perameters or rubrics?

    What makes the Bajan white class more decadent than others? Is this not a situation where an intelligent educated person is exhibiting bias and partisanship that you detest here on BU?

    WHY IS IT THAT BECAUSE BU FOLK IN GENERAL HATE TRUMP FOR WHAT EVER REASON, THAT WUNNAH THINK THAT THIS IS WRONG OR EVEN UNGODLY?

    Is this not a situation where an intelligent educated person is exhibiting bias and partisanship that you detest here on BU?

    LYALL AGAIN RE YOUR RESPONSE TO LUCAS

    Why would you counter intuitively appear to seek to cast yourself in or at least champion the role of someone who doesn’t read and who has not left the rock for any significant time or who is part of a long tradition of behaviours born of the world view of our dominant minority ?

    HOW DO YOU KNOW WHO READS AND WHO DOES NOT?
    HOW DO YOU KNOW OF ANY ONE’S TRAVEL HISTORY?

    Is this not a situation where an intelligent educated person is exhibiting bias and partisanship that you detest here on BU?

    RE Some seeing this gap and our minuscule interaction with our own history would now feed us with Quaker tales.

    IN RESPONSE TO THIS MORONIC MOUTHING I ASK WERE QUAKERS NOT PART OF OUR HISTORY TOO?
    CERTAINLY THIS PART OF OUR HISTORY WAS NOT TAUGHT BY CAPTAIN HUTT ACCORDING TO THE PREVAILING SYLLABUS IN THAT DAY, BUT THE FACT THAT QUAKERS WERE PART OF OUR HISTORY ALSO IS VERY EVIDENT IN SEVERAL PARTS OF THE ISLAND?

  28. Enuff Avatar
    Enuff

    TheoGaz
    I missed no point!

  29. Donna Avatar
    Donna

    Everybody fought in those days and everybody held prisoners.

    The problem is that these are supposed to be different days and many are still steeped in discrimination on the basis of race.

    I don’t focus on the past. It is the present that bothers me. Human beings who claim to be more civilized than others need to prove it! Instead the brutes have resurged and have taken over the government. This may however be a blessing in disguise because the underbelly becoming exposed to the sunlight has caused a realization that this is not how most people want to live. And they will eventually chase the brutes into the caves where they belong. There they will stay for a long time while the world moves on without them

  30. John Avatar
    John

    Some of these BU commenters are totally predictable in the stances they take. Some even totally mimic Trump or Rush Limbaugh. You know who I mean.

    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Does this mean I am free to have some fun with Trump?

  31. John Avatar
    John

    … Rush too!!

  32. GP Avatar
    GP

    RE
    It doesn’t matter what a teacher’s view point is if you leave with the ability to learn how to learn.
    Once you master the basic facts by rote, the same principles can be used to add to those facts and broaden your horizons.
    Both of us passed through Captain Hutt.
    You survived unscathed, I learnt how to learn.
    THIS IS VERY TRUE JOHN. I CAN RELATE TO THIS

    ENOUGH OF THIS LEARNING BY ROTE RUBBISH
    ALL LEARNING STARTS BY ROTE LEARNING
    A B C IF YOU WILL READ
    1 2 3 IF YOU WILL COUNT
    DOH REY ME IF YOU WILL DO MUSIC SERIOUSLY
    A MASTERY OF BONDING IF YOU WILL MASTER CHEMISTRY

    WHAT YOU HAVE SAID REMINDS ME OF PHILLIPIANS 3:13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

    HAVING HAD OUR TIME BEING BORED TO DEATH BY CAPTAIN HUTT AND HIS ONE WORD TESTS IN WHICH MOST INVARIABLY CHEATED WHEN EXERCISE BOOKS WERE EXCHANGED, SOME OF US WENT ON TO LEARN!
    I CANT THINK OF ANYTHING I LEARNED FROM CAPTAIN HUTT, EXCEPT THAT HE HAD A GREAT LOVE FOR BARBADOS

  33. Freedom Crier Avatar
    Freedom Crier

    RE…Freedom Crier should tone down her rhetoric and look at the fate of her fellow Arabs in Zanzibar…

    Revolutions from the Time they begun take on a life of their own, it Usually ends up with Nuff Killing but what you are Suggesting is a Revolution Based on Race for No Reason other than Race. When the African Nation of Ruanda Slaughtered One Tribe against another, it was only because they were of a Different Tribe and we have learned that in order to Kill your Fellow Human Being you must Dehumanize him first. One Tribe called the Other One Cockroaches, so it’s okay to Kill a Cockroach. They Have many people of different races who have Hatred in their Hearts and make those who are Different to them, Less than Human, so you can Justify that you are only Killing a “Cockroach”.

    We live Now in an Inn-Connected World but we Still have those with Hatred in their Hearts that want to Start Skirmishes based on Race. Race doesn’t Enslave you, it is the Ideology that Promotes keeping others in Servitude that Enslaves you.

    As for you Threatening Freedoms Life and Wanting me to Shut Up or Else, Slavery has been Abolished nearly 200 years ago. They are Bigger Fish Frying Now and it’s Not about Race. But in your WARPED mind you only see Race…THE FIGHT IN THIS DAY AND AGE, IS IF WE RETAIN FREEDOM OR IF WE SUBMIT TO TYRANNY. Anything Else is to Distract you from the Real Fight… So your words are a Distraction to you from Seeing the Big Picture…It’s Not about Black or White because over the Centuries they are Very Few 100% Africans in Barbados and Very Few 100% Whites in Barbados.

    Your Race Talk is a Distraction…the Real Fight is if we are going to Allow, Freedom and Goodness to Prevail or Tyranny and Destitution. One Encourages the Human to Aspire and the Other Pushes Down on his Aspiration.

    Democracy or a Republic falls when they No Longer Believe in Freedom and the Rule of law…These Societies Commit Suicide!

    We have All Experienced Oppression in our Lives, from the Child Point of View they may feel that their Parents are Oppressing them, by not letting them do whatever they want. When that Child grows, they may understand more wisely and this is Repeated Continuously.

    FREEDOM WOULD ADVISE YOU TO GROW UP AND NOT BE LIKE THE PETULANT CHILD AND THEN YOU MAY SEE THAT THEY ARE GRATER DANGERS AHEAD THAN YOUR CHILDISH POINT OF VIEW FACING US!

    The Greater Treats that are Under the Radar are Not your Concerns of Slavery that have ended 200 years ago but of the Impending Serfdoms being Exercised by the Chinese Covertly by the Encirclement of America by the Chinese Ports in the Caribbean.

    If you Cannot See that Race is being Used to Create Discord (Physio-Ops War) being Played to Soften the Population in their Resolve to Protect themselves, while Squabbling among each other from the Impending Move of you Losing your Freedoms Totally.

    AND YOU WANT ME TO WORRY ABOUT YOUR LITTLE THREAT WHEN YOU DO NOT EVEN REALISE THAT YOU WILL BE SWOLLED BY THE SHARK!

    YOU DO NOT EVEN KNOW THAT YOU ARE BEING USED! When Harriet Tubman said “I have freed a Thousand Slaves and could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were Slaves SHE WAS were Referring to those like you.

    CHINA HAS FINANCED NEW PORTS IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, ANTIGUA AND THE BAHAMAS, IT IS ALLEGED THAT THE BARBADOS PORT HAS ALSO BEEN SOLD TO THE CHINESE.

    WHEN YOU CONTROL PORTS YOU CONTROL THE ISLAND COUNTRIES-ECONOMIES!!

    https://i.cbc.ca/1.5375707.1574885863!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_1180/beltandroadgraphiccaribbean.jpg

  34. David Avatar
    David

    History is better served by putting the Men in Stone in museums

    Changing attitudes towards racial injustice will affect who we consider tolerable and who intolerable to memorialise Simon Schama Ingram Pinn’s illustration of Simon Schama’s story about slavery © Ingram Pinn/

    Ingram Pinn’s illustration of Simon Schama’s story about slavery

    Statues are not history; rather, its opposite. History is argument; statues brook none. The whole honour of history lies in its contrarian irrepressibility; its brief to puncture the pieties of power, should they belie the truth. Those horrified by the de-pedestalisations of recent days — the Black Lives Matter protests have led to the felling of statues from the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol to the brutal colonialist Leopold II in Belgian cities — claim that such acts “erase” history. But the contrary is true. It is more usually statues, lording it over civic space, which shut off debate through their invitation to reverence.

    It’s often only when statues are threatened that they are noticed. How many visitors to the London Docklands Museum paused before the portly statue, taken down on Tuesday, of Robert Milligan, owner of 526 humans, to launch a discussion over the indispensability of slavery to the mercantile fortunes of West India Dock? How many American Rhodes scholars are aware that the benefaction which paid for them to study at Oxford was the expression of Cecil Rhodes’s mission to reverse independence; that their presence in the university was part of his plan to reunite America with Britain, thus sealing the imperial supremacy of the white Anglo-Saxon race?

    The spell cast by the 19-foot-tall seated Abraham Lincoln in Washington depends not only on knowledge of his murder but also on the eloquence of the Gettysburg Address

    The spell cast by the 19-foot-tall seated Abraham Lincoln in Washington depends not only on knowledge of his murder but also on the eloquence of the Gettysburg Address The spell cast by the 19-foot-tall seated Abraham Lincoln in Washington depends not only on knowledge of his murder but also on the eloquence of the Gettysburg Address © Patrick Semansky/AP

    Most statuary is self-defeating by virtue of its obligations to dignity and flattery. Aspiring to convey immortality, it ends up delivering stony lifelessness. The exceptions are those which rely on foreknowledge of tragic endings. The spell cast by the 19-foot-tall seated Abraham Lincoln in Washington depends not only on knowledge of his murder but also on the eloquence of the Gettysburg Address engraved on the memorial’s walls. Lincoln is enthroned, but the president’s majesty is that of the incarnation of the sovereignty of the people, that word thrice repeated, like a tolling bell, in the speech’s closing sentence.

    For all its pretensions to perpetuity, statuary is vulnerable to unpredictable shifts in public opinion. We speak of the toppling of tyrants precisely because our mind’s eye sees the tumbling of their statues: surrogate dismemberment acted out on their sculpted alter egos. When the statue of Feliks Dzerzhinsky in Moscow was taken down in 1991, it was the acme of optimism about Russia’s redemption into freedom. The founder of the Soviet Cheka (later the KGB) had adamantly gazed over Lubyanka Square in Moscow, the headquarters of the secret police as well as their prison. Unsurprisingly, the most powerful veteran of the KGB, Russian president Vladimir Putin, has since made noises about restoring the statue.

    But then statues are revelations — not about the historical figures they represent, but about the mindset of those who commissioned them. The equestrian statue of Charles I standing at the top of Whitehall was made for the private garden of the Lord High Treasurer. Come the civil war, a hunt went on to secure the statue so that any royalist mischief would be pre-empted by its destruction. Hidden in Covent Garden, it was sold at the Restoration by its concealer for a hefty sum so that Charles II could re-erect it a few hundred yards from the site of his father’s beheading. At the other end of Whitehall, Oliver Cromwell, designed for the tercentenary of his birth in 1899, ran into opposition from Irish Home Rule MPs. The Liberals, out of power and eager to bring the evangelical vote back to the fold, allied with Unionists to promote the statue. Lord Rosebery, whose anonymous funding made it happen, stretched history by claiming Cromwell as the bringer of toleration to England. And there he stands, wartless, Bible in one hand, sword in the other, before the parliament whose sovereignty he was never shy of brushing aside.

    It’s to be expected, then, that the dramatic and belated change in attitudes towards racial injustice we are now witnessing will have an effect on who can be considered tolerable and who intolerable to memorialise. In Virginia, the statue of Robert E Lee will be removed from its site in Richmond, the erstwhile capital of the Confederacy. Lee, whose myth of Christian gallantry is at the heart of “Lost Cause” historiography, was an especially brutal slave owner, given to brining the lashes laid on the backs of runaways. Wading into a controversy to rename military forts bearing the names of Confederate officers, President Donald Trump has vowed to resist the move, claiming they have been integral to America’s history of “Winning, Victory and Freedom”. This last would have been a surprise to the enslaved, whose perpetuated servitude was the true cause of the South.

    Let them disappear, then, but not into canals, ponds or rubbish dumps, since arbitrary acts of destruction shut down debate quite as much as uncritical reverence. Better, surely, to relocate them to museums where, properly curated, they can trigger genuine debate and historical education. One thing that the pandemic caesura has wrought is a confrontation with big historical matters: who are we as a nation, what we have been, and where we are going? If the Men in Stone (and they are overwhelmingly men) can deepen that understanding they will have served their purpose better than ever they did up on their pigeon-stained plinths.

    https://www.ft.com/content/1117dfb6-8e51-46ec-a74b-59973a96a85a

  35. John Avatar
    John

    The moment when the light went on for me was in third form.

    Until then I was middle of the form, average.

    Heads Marshall was responsible.

    Latin.

    Vocabs, declensions, conjugations by rote, open book tests then one day books closed and you are on your own.

    I was terrified but all the rote learning saw me through and I realized before the time was up “I got this” and “I got this easy”!!!

    Just applied the principles to all my other subjects and the confidence levels rose.

    Never mastered English Language or Literature at school, too fuzzy!!

    Didn’t cheat in Captain Hutt’s tests, just did the work and slogged through.

    Couldn’t say I loved History back then but was too engrossed and having fun in applying the simple methods that I acquired from Heads Marshall.

    Those methods were immediately applicable to Captain Hutt’s teaching and they worked.

    Did average at O Level in History but aced every test Captain Hutt gave on my own ticket, no cheating.

    Essays I am only now beginning to master.

    STEM naturally become simpler using the method I learnt in third form when put under pressure.

  36. de pedantic Dribbler Avatar
    de pedantic Dribbler

    @Enuff, you create an entirely false and illogical status with ur “The irony of the ever present school tie in a debate about racism…”.

    Apparently u have not been following the debate from the other blog and across blogs… the Kolig dynamic is IRRELEVANT…. what they describe was true undoubtedly at QRC in TnT, KC in Jam, or with other students in the region tutored by expat teachers … with similiar bias/intents… It is all about an inherent racism in teaching, historical recounting and life generally.

    When I got to secondary school WI history (that book by Parry et al) was a staple but …. like @LyallS I too took some stuff for granted: I ‘blitheringly’ assumed that my older bros and cousins (literal) had been well exposed to WI history and literature (eg. ‘House of Mr Biswas’) as I was…. apparently not!

    And again like @LyallS it was only much later in life that I understood that VS Naipaul projected a racist agenda … It didn’t dampen my love/appreciation of his book but certainly had me reflecting on it with a broader (more enlightened) perspective….

    All of that had not a jot to do with any ‘school tie’… Just as this debate doesn’t.

    And @Willy, REALLY re “In the “OLD” days, when Wily was in his teens, 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, 50’s jourlalism was a respected profession, then along came the INTERNET…”.

    I wouldn’t dispute that the Net and Social Media has exploded opinion journalism which lacks professional standards of accuracy but your post COMPLETELY dismisses the absolutely tawdry, scandal rag era of journalism of your more youthful days.

    That is scandalous in itself.

    Are you telling the blog that opinion influencers – who were then the major publishers – did NOT often offer biased, half truths to justify conservative or liberal or fascist ideas!

    Were they not “red-necks” leading nations all across Europe or LatAm during your day and before !

    The internet offers a quicker and more pervasive ability to spread false data… That’s real… But at no juncture of our history has journalism been any less or more lacking ‘integrity’ as it is today… We simply can flesh out the lies and misrepresentations much easier… which ideally should ‘better’ prepare us for the future!

  37. John Avatar
    John

    When Joseph arrived in Egypt there were already Pyramids in existence.

  38. Tron Avatar
    Tron

    The racism in Barbados is overwhelming. Whites dominate not only the private sector, but also the civil service, the judiciary and all public life. They provide almost all the votes at the ballot box. Everywhere you look, only whites. Even the bright light of the sun is white. Wasn’t it the whites who signed that idiotic CS loan and the Cahill contract in Barbados name either? Didn’t they want independence in 1966 to do their own thing?

    The blacks, on the other hand, are a totally oppressed minority in Barbados. Just look at the line of national heroes. Only a few black people have a university degree, so we have very few lawyers on the island. The whites have also forbidden the blacks to set up businesses, so they are almost all just workers or civil servants. Blacks are also not allowed to run real estate projects, speculate with stocks and invest in other assets. The result is that not a single black person lives in the gated communities and villas in Barbados. The series of examples could be continued almost endlessly. But I think it is obvious what a great injustice there is in Barbados.

  39. Antonio Pilgrim Avatar
    Antonio Pilgrim

    Like Theogazerts, lyallsmall and others, I had to endure Captain Maurice Hutt For History most of my school life. In fact Capt. Hutt was also my House Master. I recall as we were preparing for O level history, being told by Hutt that we were to answer only the questions on the English and European sections of the exam. I remember answering the required questions on the English History section and being unable to answer a single question on the European section, peeked at the Caribbean history section. To my delight, there were at least two questions there that I felt confident enough to answer. I wrote an essay on Hurricane Janet (recalling information gathered from my parents), and on ‘A Caribbean Hero’ – Sir Garfield Sobers. Received a grade 2 in History that year. Regrettably 6th form history followed a similar format to that of O level……no west Indian or Caribbean history being taught.

  40. lyallsmall Avatar
    lyallsmall

    GP, re. your above post in which you made the following points:-

    DID WE NOT LEARN OUR RACISM WELL IN BARBADOS? WAS NOT THE METHOD OF TREATING BLACK FOLK TRANSPORTED FROM BARBADOS AND TAUGHT TO THE AMERICAN SLAVE OWNERS? WAS THERE NOT EVEN BLACK ON BLACK RACISM PRACTICED IN BARBADOS WHICH OCCASIONED THE FORMATION OF THE EMPIRE CRICKET CLUB FOR “THE LESS ACCEPTED BLACKS OF THE TIME” WHO COULD NOT GET INTO SPARTAN CRICKET CLUB? DID NOT LANCE BYNOE SEE THE NEED TO DEVELOP THE SPORT OF ROAD TENNIS BECAUSE BLACKS WERE NOT ADMITTED TO CERTAIN LAWN TENIS CLUBS? IS IT NOT TRUE THAT BLACKS COULD NOT LOITER IN CERTAIN SUBURBAN AREAS AFTER 6 PM UP TO ABOUT 70 YEARS AGO? DID NOT BLACK LIVES MATTER THEN? IF NOT WHY NOT?

    ME: Yes to all the above.

    WHY THEREFORE DO YOU THINK THAT LOCAL FOLK NEED TO TRAVEL FAR AND WIDE AND TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH TO KNOW ABOUT RACISM? WAS NOT OBSERVATION OF LIFE ON THE ISLAND A SUITABLE HISTORY TEXT FROM WHICH TO IMBIBE THESE THINGS?

    ME: We tend to forget or downplay these instances of local racism. They are not a dominant part of the local conversation afaik. Do you have any idea of how many or few ordinary youngsters can answer those questions you posed above?

    Re ME quoted by GP: There is another type of BU commenter. The commenter who always espouses the decadent views of the Bajan white class, whether they themselves are black or white. Some of these BU commenters are totally predictable in the stances they take. Some even totally mimic Trump or Rush Limbaugh,. You know who I mean.

    GP: ; Who decides what is decadent? Under what perameters or rubrics? What makes the Bajan white class more decadent than others? Is this not a situation where an intelligent educated person is exhibiting bias and partisanship that you detest here on BU?

    Me: I might be wrong, but the white Bajan class has moved from overt dominance in almost every sphere in the Barbados landscape to almost invisibility, but monied invisibility, nowadays. That was imho, strategic and an example of a type of decadence where it only needs to pull the strings of control but takes little direct part in much of our lives.

    GP: WHY IS IT THAT BECAUSE BU FOLK IN GENERAL HATE TRUMP FOR WHAT EVER REASON, THAT WUNNAH THINK THAT THIS IS WRONG OR EVEN UNGODLY? Is this not a situation where an intelligent educated person is exhibiting bias and partisanship that you detest here on BU?

    ME: It is a bias that I can freely admit. I think that Trump is a very special, perhaps almost unique, human being. I think he has been placed on Earth to do a particular job and he is fulfilling that calling with protection and guidance that we cannot even dream of. I think that failing to recognize the danger he poses to us all is a big mistake.

    GP: LYALL AGAIN RE YOUR RESPONSE TO LUCAS; quoting me: “Why would you counter intuitively appear to seek to cast yourself in or at least champion the role of someone who doesn’t read and who has not left the rock for any significant time or who is part of a long tradition of behaviours born of the world view of our dominant minority ?” HOW DO YOU KNOW WHO READS AND WHO DOES NOT? HOW DO YOU KNOW OF ANY ONE’S TRAVEL HISTORY? Is this not a situation where an intelligent educated person is exhibiting bias and partisanship that you detest here on BU?

    ME: I know Robert. Robert knows me.

    GP: quoting someone else RE Some seeing this gap and our minuscule interaction with our own history would now feed us with Quaker tales.

    ME; Not me bosey!

  41. 555dubstreet Avatar
    555dubstreet

    Racism is what gave USA Trump and UK Johnson and Brexit.
    Don’t call it a revival or comeback as it never went away.
    Trump and Johnson were both against Obama from day one and felt outraged he did not know his allocated place in life to serve in subordination to white leaders in white countries and they ran on racist populist bandwagon campaigns to win their elections.

    Argument in UK is currently about Churchill’s racism but deep debate get’s shutdown. Deeper debate is to identify and admit his racism such as Palestinians and Africans being inferior to whites speech*, but to take it one step further and identify the racist policies implemented around the world when he was in power.

    Racism built British Empire and eventually was the reason for it’s collapse, when indigenous people or people of colour in forced migration of slavery who were mistreated and treated inferior fought back against the power.

    English people from far right are protecting the statues today but are same racists that for voted Brexit and incumbent Tory Government.

    (*) In 1937, Churchill told the Palestine Royal Commission: “I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

  42. Miller Avatar
    Miller

    @ robert lucas June 13, 2020 6:24 AM
    “which show that exposure to life in metropolitan countries, forces an understanding of the black side of history that is largely missing from those who lack such experience and have remained in Barbados and who must depend on local sources to inform their views.”
    Surely with communications being what there are today can one be confident in making the following assertion ” local sources to inform their views”?
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    Well, why not highlight the fact that Britain has always been a ‘nation of immigrants’?

    From the invading Romans of Boadicea times to the Vikings to the Normans to the Jews to the Moors to the Huguenots to even to the relatively new wave of the family of Nigel Farage the modern-day poster boy of anti-immigration.

    Immigration is as old as civilization. What the modern immigrants are doing and how they are being treated by their host countries is similar to what happened
    thousands of years ago in Egypt as anecdotally told in the Judeo-Christian bible.

    What about Joseph of the multi-coloured coat who became the equivalent of the PM in Egypt?

    Didn’t Joseph flee to Egypt with his wife and her God-begotten son Jesus to seek refuge?

  43. John Avatar
    John

  44. Hants Avatar
    Hants

    ” John Knoxville unmasked.”

  45. John Avatar
    John

    I was never masked.

    Anyone who knows me always knew who it was.

    I ensured that from 2007/8.

  46. robert lucas Avatar
    robert lucas

    Looked avidly forward to Captain Maurice Hutt’s articles on Ornithology and the different ecosystems of Barbados in the Sunday’s Advocate in those days. Found them to be very interesting and to this day still have an interest in the subject. area.

  47. WURA-War-on-U Avatar
    WURA-War-on-U

    None of it is going away. Intelligent people will not see an opportunity of a lifetime and let it disappear, only dumb people would..

    https://www.facebook.com/NationBarbados/videos/845552932619043/?t=1

  48. GP Avatar
    GP

    re Looked avidly forward to Captain Maurice Hutt’s articles on Ornithology and the different ecosystems of Barbados in the Sunday’s Advocate in those days. Found them to be very interesting and to this day still have an interest in the subject. area.

    CAPTAIN HUTT HAD A GREAT LOVE FOR THE FAUNA & FLORA OF BARBADOS
    AS A LAD I OFTEN SAW IN THE SWAMP– WHUCH WAS FOR ME A SHORT CUT FROM WORTHING TO PLAT TABLE TENNIS AT THE POLICE STATION AND DURING THE DRY SEASON TO GO TO CHURCH AT ST LAWRENCE

  49. John Avatar
    John

    Not too many people in his league!!

    https://sora.unm.edu/sites/default/files/journals/on/v015n03/p0429-p0432.pdf

  50. John Avatar
    John

    I remember hearing he took members of the Barbados Regiment on a cross country through the Scotland District and despite his limp ran them ragged.

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