Katie Roche's Blog

I'm White. This is why I Think Black History Matters.

It’s October. And that means it’s Black History Month. But shouldn’t every month be black history month? And Asian history month, and Native American history month, and Australian aboriginal month? There’s no denying that history in the UK focuses too much on white people. British history concentrates on things from the British point of view. We treat the Empire as a success and its loss as representing Britain’s downfall. British history glosses over the perspectives of the people we colonised. Consequently, many British people aren’t aware of the horrors of colonialism. Indeed, a 2016 survey found that just 19% of British people thought the British Empire was something to be ashamed of.

The history of the empire is important to me because my great, great grandfather was an officer in the British army in India. While he was serving, my great grandfather was born in India (he did not serve in the army- he became a painter/decorator). My great great grandfather was a colonizer. Not a hero. I am ashamed of what my ancestors did to India. And of what so many British people did in so many other countries of the world.

I’m not a fan of arguing that everything is racist, or of judging yesterday’s people by today’s standards. But the empire was built on racist presumptions. We white people were coming to sort out the “savages” with our proper ways. We didn’t see these people as human- so we had no empathy. It didn’t matter if we took natural resources, jobs or whatever else from other countries- these people weren’t sophisticated enough to understand. It’s a lesson that must be learned if we are to avoid repeating it. Yet history taught in British schools praises the empire.

I got my introduction to pro-colonial propaganda as a small child. I attended a Church of England primary school, which had a conservative attitude. When I was in the infants, I learned about how Captain Cook “discovered” Australia. As if it hadn’t existed before. In the juniors, I learned about the Tudors. My history lessons celebrated the achievements of Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh in “discovering” the “new world”. We even learned about the “savages” who attacked these explorers. And how these colonizers did a wonderful job of bringing spices, jewels and tobacco to Britain. And how they helped make Britain a more prosperous and powerful country. Later in primary school, we did modern history. We did one lesson about Empire Days (an annual event to celebrate the Empire). We watched a video that explained in a sad tone that Britain didn’t have an empire anymore, so we didn’t have school Empire days either.

The decline of the empire was treated as a terrible shame. As such, I swallowed the narrative that the empire was a force for good. It never occurred to me to think of things from the perspective of the people who were affected by colonization. What we never learned of was how the native residents of the colonies felt. About their loss of culture. Or having their resources taken away to a foreign land with no recompense. Or being ruled by a country thousands of miles away, which had little understanding of their customs, language or other aspects of their lives. That’s not to say that nobody around me was aware of the terrors of the British empire. My mother recognized that the empire devastated many lives and spoke about it whenever the topic came up.

When I was older, I attended a more left-leaning secular secondary school. We did a module on black people of the Americas. It was an important step, but it made it seem as if black history was purely an American issue. As if Britain didn’t have much to do with slavery. The module overlooked the role of the UK in the slave trade and racial oppression. We also learned about Apartheid in South Africa in citizenship lessons. Again, it was as if racism wasn’t something that happened much in Britain. And as if it were in the distant past. Later in my secondary education, we learned about World War 1. The teacher mentioned that British textbooks never covered how members of British colonies were also fighting in the war. Or how many black and Asian soldiers lost their lives. It wasn’t much, but it was some recognition of how British history erases black people. Later that year, there was another module on modern history. We had just one lesson about the break-up of the British Empire. That was it for compulsory history lessons.

I took GCSE history (GCSEs are leaving certificates taken during the last two years of secondary school- at most schools, students have a choice what subjects to take. History was optional). The course looked at Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and the Cold War. I then did A-level history (in the UK education system, GCSEs are taken at age 16 and students who do reasonably well at GCSE may take A-levels. Students typically take A-levels in three subjects). Even when I finished my A-levels eight years ago, there still wasn’t a lot of focus on black history. In the first year, I did a module on Queen Elizabeth I. Again, it was all about how great Elizabeth I was in conquering other countries. We were told how the colony (now US state) of Virginia was named after her. We didn’t look at how the Native Americans felt about having their homeland taken over by foreigners. You’d think that before the arrival of the Europeans, America was a giant uninhabited wasteland. We had to do essays evaluating the success and failings of her government. Her colonizing was treated as a success. I was ambivalent about colonialism at this point. I knew it had done a lot of harm, but I didn’t think it was so bad. I also thought it had done a lot of good too. I didn’t think black history particularly mattered. Or see what was going on in my history lessons.

It wasn’t until I was older that I started to think more critically about the empire. I learned more about it and realized the Empire had not done much good. But it wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that I and millions of other British people had been taught to be pro-colonialism. In all honesty, I hadn’t realized the full extent of the problem with my school history lessons until I wrote this post.

It’s not just at school where black history was overlooked. I used to think my town’s local history had nothing to do with slavery. Again, I covered local history at school. And I had been to local history museums. But recently, I discovered that my hometown of Manchester had many links to the slave trade. The area is famous for its many cotton factories. I learned that the raw cotton was picked by slaves in America. Not long ago, I found out about the Manchester cotton famine. This occurred because the U.S. civil war interrupted the cotton supply. As a result, numerous factory workers lost their jobs and their homes. Many factories close to where I live were affected. There were even riots in my hometown. Despite the hardship the Civil War caused, many Mancunians were sympathetic to the plight of the slaves. Almost one in five Mancunians signed a major petition against slavery. Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to the factory workers commending them for their selflessness in their support of the slaves. Why were we never told this? In the UK, there are so many monuments, statues and blue plaques (blue plaques are a scheme to commemorate famous historical figures and events). But I have never seen one for the cotton famine (I’m not saying there isn’t one somewhere, and there is a statue of Lincoln in Manchester). This is yet another case where black history is ignored.

Colonialism has left a dark, damaging legacy for so many countries in the world. We stole resources. We destroyed cultures. We killed millions. If we were talking today about another country who acted like Britain has acted in the past, they’d be condemned in the strongest terms. The empire was good for Britain, and terrible for everyone else. It is not something to be proud of. And British history education – both in schools, and in public statues and museums and television documentaries, doesn’t talk enough about it. Sadly, we’re not at a point where we could do away with Black History Month. For that to happen, the teaching of British history needs to change dramatically.