How the Black History Month racket is worked in Britain, by falsification of history on an industrial scale

Since 1987, efforts to distort British history have become an increasingly serious enterprise for some people

When, in the autumn of 1987, Britain’s first Black History Month was organised, it was immediately apparent that there was a problem. This was that before the late 1940s, there hadn’t really been anything much in the way of black British history, because hardly any black people had ever lived in the country. It was quite a different situation in the United States, of course, where the idea of Black History Month had originated. In that country, there had been a large population of black people for centuries.  The solution was obvious. If black British history did not exist, then it would have to be invented. Not only that, efforts would need to be made not only to persuade the gullible and credulous that there had been a substantial community of sub-Saharan Africans in Britain for thousands of years, but also that this imaginary population had had a significant and positive effect upon that country. This proved easier to accomplish than might at first be thought, because few people wish to be accused of racism and, after all, it does no harm if black people wish to pretend that this or that historical personage had really been black. For these reasons, few people felt inclined to contradict the increasingly mad claims which were made, as the black British history project gathered strength, year by years. After all, it was seen a harmless enough game for black people to play.

     This was how the idea of Britain’s supposed black history began, and so successful was the enterprise that very little effort is now needed to maintain the illusion and keep the audience satisfied. Each year, the claims become ever more fantastic, but in the years following the death of George Floyd in America, people felt even less willing to challenge the narrative which was being presented. I thought that it might be instructive to look at a specific instance of how this racket is worked, by looking at a typical example which was written a year after George Floyd’s death, when white, liberal enthusiasm for the Black Lives Matter movement was still at fever-pitch. I give a link to this, which was published by the Open University, at the foot of this article.

     One problem about the piece at which we are looking is that it is not written in English. The words are certainly English, but the very opening sentence is impossible to understand. It reads as follows;

      Encounters with historical events in genres that function as discursive

     actions within particular social, political and cultural frameworks influence

     how people engage with the past in which identities are created and

     sustained.

It would be interesting if to see if anybody reading this is able to parse this sentence and discover what the subject and object are. Even better, would be to see it translated into English, for as it currently stands, it is wholly incoherent and conveys literally no meaning at all.

     The title of this article is Deconstructing the Moors: black presence in the United Kingdom before and during the Tudor period, but in fact we are told literally nothing at all about this topic. The subtitle tells us that the author, ‘delves into the largely unknown history of black settlers in the UK before and during the sixteenth century’. Let us keep our minds fixed firmly on the alleged subject of this short essay, which is black settlers in the United Kingdom, up to to and including the sixteenth century.  The first half of the text is about the Berber Moors, who were not black and did not settle in Britain. They may well, as is claimed, have made many advances in mathematics and science, but they have nothing at all to do with black British history. We are then given some information about the Roman emperor, Septimius Severus. He was not black, although he was born in a Roman colony in North Africa, on a part of the Mediterranean coast which is now Libya. His mother was a Roman and his father Phoenician, that is to say his origin was in that part of the Mediterranean we now know as Lebanon. So while it is true that Severus lived for a while in Britain, he was not black and has no relevance to the matter in hand, that of black settlers in he United Kingdom.

     So far, it will be observed, there has not been a single measure of any black settler in Britain before the sixteenth century. The next paragraph is promising though, because the author mentions a genuine black African, a diver called Jacque Francis. She refers to him as a slave, which is incorrect, but he was certainly black. He worked for a Venetian who specialised in underwater salvage operation and Jacque Francis was part of the team had been hired to try and raise Henry VIII’s warship, the Mary Rose, which had sunk on its maiden voyage. Francis stayed in England and worked for a while, before returning to Venice with his master. So, although black, he could not in any sense be described as a settler in the UK.

      Jacque Francis is used for the second part of the black history swindle, which is trying to demonstrate that black people invented this or that thing for which white people are usually given credit. We read the following;

     Moreover, it uncovers the later transference and adoption of the

     traditional African sport and pastime, the art of swimming and diving. This

     legacy has been absorbed into British society and is now established as a

     popular British leisure pastime and a traditional, cultural act in

     contemporary Britain.

In other words, it is seriously being claimed that until this African dived into the Solent on his salvage mission, nobody in this country knew how to swim and the fact that five hundred years later, swimming is a popular pastime in Britain is due to the example set by a black man in the sixteenth century.

     There follows a passage about the nature of history in general, following which we are told about some photographs from the Victorian era. Then Queen Phillipa of Hainault is mentioned, and it is hinted that she might be black, which is of course absurd. Oblique references are made to the crusades. Throughout this piece, which was claimed to be about black settlers in Britain, up to the sixteenth century, not one single case of a black settler in that time frame has actually been cited. Not one. This is, by the way, a fairly sophisticated piece of writing, compared with much of the stuff which is produced on this subject.

      This then is how the black history business is undertaken in Britain. It is not necessary to produce a single fact in support of the thesis being advanced. It is enough to put the words ‘Black History Month’ at the head of an article to prevent any close examination, let alone criticism of what has been written.

https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/deconstructing-the-moors-black-presence-the-united-kingdom-and-during-the-tudor-period