What black history were you taught at school?

[8ball]

never mind ancient egypt, churches up and down the land perpetuate the notion that jesus was a pale-skinned european

Yeah, I don't go into churches much, but was in a local church a few weeks back and it was only in some pics painted by local schoolchildren that Jesus looked like a middle-Eastern person.
Not that you typically get pics of him everywhere in churches, but the guy on the big cross and a couple of books and things had Euro-Jesus on them.

At least it wasn't Scandi-Jesus.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Jesus is a curious one, because obviously we only know the ethnicity of one of his parents.

Who knows what the fuck you look like if you're the son of a god. Fucker might have been purple for all we know.

 

[8ball]

Jesus is a curious one, because obviously we only know the ethnicity of one of his parents.

Who knows what the fuck you look like if you're the son of a god. Fucker might have been purple for all we know.

It says something somewhere in the Bible about how there was nothing remarkable about Jesus in terms of his appearance (I believe the original text is a little less flattering than that), so no reason not to go with the likely appearance of his contemporaries.

 

[Lord Camomile]

It says something somewhere in the Bible about how there was nothing remarkable about Jesus in terms of his appearance (I believe the original text is a little less flattering than that), so no reason not to go with the likely appearance of his contemporaries.

Famously reliable narrators in the Bible

 

[8ball]

Famously reliable narrators in the Bible

I think if he was purple that might have made it into the cut.

 

[Pickman's model]

Famously reliable narrators in the Bible

there's quite a bit which is reliable in the bible if you excise the bits about god/s, stuff about the geography of the holy land palestine

 

[Saul Goodman]

To paraphrase poe, there are some histories the government will not allow to be taught

Can you imagine it!
"And this is how we starved the people of Ireland to death, children"

 

[Pickman's model]

Can you imagine it!
"And this is how we starved the people of Ireland to death, children"

Quite

 

[dylanredefined]

Not a thing tbh we had two black pupils in my school so doubt it would have been seen as relevant.

 

[8ball]

Not a thing tbh we had two black pupils in my school so doubt it would have been seen as relevant.

Unlike some random spat between some Royals in 1540 or whatever...

 

[GarveyLives]

It is time for Black History Bufoonery & Entertainment Month again ...

​

 

[GarveyLives]

NASUWT-The Teachers’ Union have now passed a resolution stating that 'Black' history should be fully embedded and taught across the curriculum in schools, which could result in children in the UK being taught that Africans existed prior to the Transatlantic trade in them as forms of chattel:

Black history 'should be taught across all subjects in UK schools'

 

[Shechemite]

Don’t remember anything pre-year 7.
Remember doing stuff about age of exploration/save tradeBritish empire in year 7 and 8 albeit with a grim ‘pros and cons’ of empire. Watched clips from ‘Dances with wolves’ in a couple of year 7 lesson. Watched bits of L’amistad in year 8. After year 8 I was in er alternative places of education.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Couple of poems in English but no history aside from summing up slavery and the triangle.

 

[tony.c]

I can't remember anything, except Vikings in primary school and Tudor kings aand queens in secondary school - I failed History GCE O-level.

 

[maomao]

We did fuck all apart from the two world wars. Couple of months on the Russian revolution in last year of GCSEs but apart from that it was five years of trenches and Hitler.

 

[Sprocket.]

Absolutely nothing about Black history. We had little more than Tudors, Armada, Trafalgar, Waterloo and a tiny bit on Germany at secondary school. Though one of the alleged history teachers organised a trip to watch Zulu and later Waterloo at the local cinema.

 

[danny la rouge]

I was at high school in the late 70s - early 80s. I learned about the American civil rights movement in modern studies. Learned more outside of school than in school, though, initially from music and television.

 

[Elpenor]

I can’t remember anything specifically black and I studied up to A Level. Non-white would have been Mughal India (though I think I didn’t study that we must have done a different module) and Communist China.

I did however study Tudors, Stuart’s, Nazis, crime and punishment through time, the industrial revolution and 19th century British and European history. And more Nazis.

 

[miss direct]

Nothing. I did stop studying history when I was 13 (disgraceful that this is/was an option).

 

[Doodler]

None until History A-level with the Scramble for Africa.

 

[8ball]

None until History A-level with the Scramble for Africa.

How was that covered? Without basically calling it “Those Europeans, They Were Right Shits The Lot Of ‘Em?”.

 

[Doodler]

How was that covered? Without basically calling it “Those Europeans, They Were Right Shits The Lot Of ‘Em?”.

This was quite a long time ago so I don't remember much from it. The set textbook had an old newspaper cartoon on its cover showing a python, with the head of King Leopold of Belgium, wrapping itself round a terrified African man. I think there was some patriotic chauvinism in the teaching: the Belgians and the Germans were the real bastards, while the French got all excited and colonised bits which didn't have much in the way of natural resources. So the British were supposedly the best or the least bad.

 

[Artaxerxes]

None until History A-level with the Scramble for Africa.

I think we covered a bit of that but it was mostly about explorers rather than any actual perspectives on colonialism or perspectives from natives.

 

[8ball]

This was quite a long time ago so I don't remember much from it. The set textbook had an old newspaper cartoon on its cover showing a python, with the head of King Leopold of Belgium, wrapping itself round a terrified African man. I think there was some patriotic chauvinism in the teaching: the Belgians and the Germans were the real bastards, while the French got all excited and colonised bits which didn't have much in the way of natural resources. So the British were supposedly the best or the least bad.

Yeah, makes sense that’s how they’d do it. I got out of school history as soon as I could. I think they deliberately taught it with that result in mind.

 

[GarveyLives]

The University of Chichester are doing their bit to reduce the amount of material on African history that is available to study in schools (and elsewhere) with the planned redundancy of Professor Hakim Adi, BA Hons., PhD (London), Professor of the History of Africa and the African Diaspora:

Outrage over UK university’s plan to cut African history course and its professor

Legal action considered after university sack popular history professor

Acclaimed historian Hakim Adi up for prize weeks after being made redundant in cost-cutting measures

​

 

[Raheem]

We were taught about the slavery triangle. I don't remember how much time it took up. Weirdly (or maybe not), I think the British Empire was entirely or almost avoided as a topic.

 

[Elpenor]

The man is not the history though perhaps the man teaches the relevant course

 

[eatmorecheese]

Not a thing, beyond a little bit of MLK in an RE lesson once and some passing references to slavery. Any references to Empire focused on India, railways and trade and how it ended benignly.

Knowledge came from my Dad. Family moved to East Africa, I read his books on Nkrumah and Nyerere, visited Arab slave forts when about 13 years old. Most of my reading came at Uni on social imperialism and 'development', but that was by choice.

A vital and generally neglected field of history when I was young is becoming a contested culture war arena, which continues to depress and anger me.

 

[Plumdaff]

Happy to say that my daughter's first history topic at secondary school - alongside learning about different types of sources - is Black History and the history of multicultural Cardiff. Massive improvement from my school days.