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https://linktr.ee/treventoured

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Race and Racism in Austen Spaces | #VirtualJaneCon

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Race and Racism in Austen Spaces | #VirtualJaneCon

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Race and Racism in Austen Spaces || #VirtualJaneCon

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Race and Racism in Jane Austen: Kerry, Tre, Bianca and Amanda

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Race and Racism in Jane Austen: Kerry, Tre, Bianca and Amanda

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Kerry - https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol11/iss2/9/

Amanda - https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol11/iss2/10/

Bianca - https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol11/iss2/12/

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Digital Commons @ University of South Florida

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Author Biography

I am a Northamptonian writer-poet, speaker and educator. Enthusiastic about anti-racism and social justice, my work is heavily focused on racism, identity, Black British history and inclusive curricula. My passion for these subjects has taken me into my community, including the educational sector, healthcare and criminal justice, delivering sessions to diverse groups - from young people to grown adults, having conversations about Black history, race and identity.

Keywords

Austen, empire, anit-blackness, white supremacy, heritage

Recommended Citation

Ventour-Griffiths, Tré (2021) "Race and Racism in Austen Spaces: National Trust in Jane Austen's Empires of Sugar," ABO: Interactive Journal for Women in the Arts, 1640-1830: Vol.11: Iss.2, Article 11.
http://doi.org/10.5038/2157-7129.11.2.1292
Available at: https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/abo/vol11/iss2/11

DOWNLOADS

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Race and Racism in Austen Spaces: National Trust in Jane Austen's Empires of Sugar

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Author Biography I am a Northamptonian writer-poet, speaker and educator. Enthusiastic about anti-racism and social justice, my work is heavily focused on racism, identity, Black British history and inclusive curricula. My passion for these subjects has taken me into my community, including the educational sector, healthcare and criminal justice, delivering sessions to diverse groups - from young people to grown adults, having conversations about Black history, race and identity.

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Twitter: Amanda, Bianca, Kerry + Adrienne

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Twitter: Amanda, Bianca, Kerry + Adrienne

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Adrienne - https://twitter.com/barelytolerabIe

Bianca - https://twitter.com/bookhoarding

Kerry - https://twitter.com/kerry_sinanan

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Tweets by amandarprescott

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Conference Papers: Call the Midwife (Amy Neal) and Small Axe + The Trial of the Chicago Seven (Joe Baker)

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Conference Papers: Call the Midwife (Amy Neal) and Small Axe + The Trial of the Chicago Seven (Joe Baker)

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Department of History, University of York

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Public History Grad Con 2022: Panel 3 - Visual Media

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Keep Britain White  | Neil Kenlock (1974)

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Keep Britain White  | Neil Kenlock (1974)

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Victoria and Albert Museum: Explore the Collections

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Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case SP, Shelf 2

Photographer Neil Kenlock (born 1950) moved to South London from Jamaica in 1963 and became determined to document black pride in the face of racial prejudice. He became the official photographer for the civil rights activists the British Black Panthers, and took photographs for the early black British newspaper, West Indian World.

Kenlock's photojournalism for West Indian World included recording instances of racism against the black British community. The 'keep Britain white' graffiti in this photograph defaced the door to a training centre for black women headed by a key member of the British Black Panther movement, David Udah. To prove that the graffiti was real Kenlock asked Barbara Grey, a woman working at the centre, to be part of the photograph.

The V&A acquired ten photographs by Kenlock alongside work by his contemporaries Charlie Phillips and Armet Francis as part of the Staying Power project. Staying Power is a five year partnership between the V&A and Black Cultural Archives. The project aims to explore black British experience from the 1950s to the 1990s through photographs acquired by the V&A and oral histories conducted by Black Cultural Archives.

Categories

Object type

Materials and techniques

Brief description

Photograph by Neil Kenlock, 'Untitled [Young lady points to 'Keep Britain White' graffiti at the International Personnel training centre in Balham]', gelatin silver print, London, 1974, printed 2011

Physical description

A black and white photograph of a young black woman standing in front of a doorway, pointing to graffiti on the door which reads 'KEEP BRITAIN WHITE'. She wears a long skirt and cardigan. A sign at the top of the door reads 'INTERNATIONAL PERSONNEL' with further text underneath this heading.

Dimensions

Image size height: 45.6cm

Image size width: 30.7cm

Paper size height: 58.7cm

Paper size width: 50.0cm

Styles

Credit line

Supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Object history

The V&A acquired this photograph as part of the Staying Power project. Staying Power is a five year partnership between the V&A and Black Cultural Archives. The project aims to explore black British experience from the 1950s to the 1990s through photographs acquired by the V&A and oral histories conducted by Black Cultural Archives.

Subjects depicted

Association

Summary

Photographer Neil Kenlock (born 1950) moved to South London from Jamaica in 1963 and became determined to document black pride in the face of racial prejudice. He became the official photographer for the civil rights activists the British Black Panthers, and took photographs for the early black British newspaper, West Indian World.

Kenlock's photojournalism for West Indian World included recording instances of racism against the black British community. The 'keep Britain white' graffiti in this photograph defaced the door to a training centre for black women headed by a key member of the British Black Panther movement, David Udah. To prove that the graffiti was real Kenlock asked Barbara Grey, a woman working at the centre, to be part of the photograph.

The V&A acquired ten photographs by Kenlock alongside work by his contemporaries Charlie Phillips and Armet Francis as part of the Staying Power project. Staying Power is a five year partnership between the V&A and Black Cultural Archives. The project aims to explore black British experience from the 1950s to the 1990s through photographs acquired by the V&A and oral histories conducted by Black Cultural Archives.

Associated objects

Collection

Accession number

About this object record

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Untitled [Young lady points to 'Keep Britain White' graffiti at the International Personnel training centre in Balham] | Neil Kenlock | V&A Explore The Collections

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Request to view at the Prints & Drawings Study Room, level F , Case SP, Shelf 2 Photographer Neil Kenlock (born 1950) moved to South London from Jamaica in 1963 and became determined to document black pride in the face of racial prejudice.

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The story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, the African orphan who became the protégée of Queen Victoria, reads more like fiction than fact.

Born in West Africa, in what is now south-west Nigeria, she was captured as a child and held in captivity by the King of Dahomey before she was gifted to a British naval captain and taken to England. There, Queen Victoria took her under her wing, and by the time she reached adulthood she had taken her place in Victorian high society and become a celebrity - as well as part of the contemporary debate about race, slavery and empire.

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Who was Mary Seacole? What Doctor Who got right about the real-life historical figure featured in "War of the Sontarans."

Photo: BBC Studios

Doctor Who: Flux Episode 2, "War of the Sontarans," features Mary Seacole (Sara Powell), Britain's first Black nurse, in the middle of a Sontaran invasion of Earth in 1855. Aliens meddling in human history is a classic Doctor Who trope, and the long-running series often grounds the sci-fi adventure in real-life history. So what was factual about Seacole's role in the Crimean War and what was fiction from the mind of Chris Chibnall? Read on to find out...

The real Mary Seacole (née Mary Joan Grant) was born in Jamaica in 1805 to a white father and a biracial mother. Her skin tone and accent as portrayed in is close to reality, though some modern artist renditions make her appear darker. Seacole learned traditional herbal medicine alongside her family's expertise in the hospitality industry. She indeed did not call herself a nurse, but the gendered term "doctoress" because nursing as a profession was in its infancy. White women were not allowed to go to medical school, let alone women of color.

The Crimean War started in 1853 with the British in an alliance with the Ottoman Empire, France, and the Kingdom of Sardinia fighting to stop the Russian Empire from controlling major international shipping ports. The British suffered heavy losses from cholera as well as war injuries. After hearing about the war in a newspaper accounts and wanting to help the troops, Seacole traveled to England to apply for nursing programs but was rejected. She went into partnership with a friend of her deceased husband to open up the British Hotel on the Crimean war front in 1855.

Although the Doctor Who episode showed more running around with Sontarans than medical practice, Seacole did treat soldiers suffering from cholera and other injuries. She also sold food and drinks. In the recent episode, the Doctor uses Seacole to observe the Sontaran base camp. Seacole wrote her own autobiography to document her life in a world where racism would have prevented "legitimate" documentation. She also studied the human body via unofficial autopsy studies and observing patients' reactions to various medicines.

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Some fans may remember from their history lessons that Florence Nightingale was also a nurse during the Crimean War. There's a reason why the episode only gives her and her nurses a fleeting reference. The episode did not have enough time to explain that Seacole initially applied to Nightingale's program and other army offices for nursing but was rejected.

Seacole's entry inThe Oxford Companion to Black British History notes: "None had the courage to engage a stout 'yellow woman' [her words] dressed in vulgarly bright colors, at nearly 50 well past middle-age, 'unprotected'' (i.e. without male relations to take responsibility for her) loudly insistent, and obviously used to being in charge." Costume designer Ray Holman's choice of bright plaids for Mary's costume is supported by this quote. The rivalry continues today as Nightingale's supporters claim supporters of Seacole's traditional medicine and hospitality work undermines Nightingale's legacy. However, in recent years Seacole was voted "the greatest Black Briton" in a poll by the BBC, despite these objections. This explains why Dan knew who she was aside from his casual interest in history. Black British historians, educators and medical workers have pushed for official recognition.

While Mary Seacole was quite opinionated, it isn't likely she would have challenged authority or assisted a challenge in authority on battle tactics. Multiple historians have pointed out that she was more likely to ask officers and others to pay their bills for booze and snacks, and ended up heavily in debt after the war because of their defaults.

Overall, the episode stuck to the historical trajectory when it comes to the details of Seacole's life. Her lifesaving work during the Crimean War has been overlooked by many. Although I wish a Black screenwriter had written this episode, Seacole's story was handled respectfully. Her story did not need many diversions. Mary Seacole died in 1881, which is quite a while after the events of the Crimean War. BIPOC fans should rest assured that she could not be killed off in the episode or die immediately after from war injuries or illness.

Thisepisode, along with various statues and medical facilities named after Seacole, is a fitting tribute to her work which has gone ignored by many for so long. Seacole's other nursing and hotel management adventures were too numerous to fit in an episode with several other plot timelines. Fans who want to read more about Seacole can read her autobiography for free, listen to the Mary Seacole episode of the BBC comedic history podcast You're Dead To Me, or check out a biography. There is also a new biography coming out in 2022 as well as a movie in development starring Doctor Who veteran Gugu Mbatha-Raw. You can also read about other Black British Victorians who should be featured in future Doctor Who episodes.

Amanda-Rae Prescott is a long time Outlander fan, period drama enthusiast and cosplayer. Her previous season Outlander commentary can be found at Blacklanderz and Nerdeek Life. When she's not...

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The women of World on Fire are not passive housewives waiting for their husbands to return. They have their own stories.

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Albert is clearly the gender mirror to Connie's (Yrsa Daley-Ward) story, but also her opposite in terms of military status and how they define their nationalities. This is important because, as a professional musician, war would likely end Albert's career. Connie has a strong Manchester accent while Albert has a faint trace of a non-Parisian accent. His adamance in defining his nationality as French indicates he likely immigrated from a former colony. Before the war, many people from the colonies moved to Paris for improved educational and employment opportunities. In an era where various nationalist movements legally or socially stripped citizenship from naturalized citizens, Albert is defying these trends in his own way.

Webster and Albert's budding romance in Episodes 2 and 3 takes a common period romance trope and redefines it. Just as Caroline Penvenen on Poldark uses a medical appointment excuse to flirt with Dr. Dwight Enys, Albert visits Webster at the hospital after an injury, however World on Fire breaks from other period dramas by normalizing queer expressions of affection. The camera doesn't shy away from Webster and Albert in bed together or kissing. Although Albert and Webster have to distance themselves on a park bench, the show treats their relationship with just as much sympathy as Kasia (Zofia Wichłacz) and Harry (Jonah-Hauer King)'s short-lived marriage. The audience gets the sense Webster is falling in love for the first time and Albert is showing him how to undo all of the years of repressed desire.

Few previous period dramas depict the experiences of gay men during World War II. In an interview for the BBC, screenwriter Peter Bowker said:"We are hopefully now at a time where we can tell a story about two gay men living during the Second World War that is not sublimated into Brief Encounter." Although Home Fires combines military and civilian queer experiences, thee queer characters featured are British women. Cabaret and Bent have theater and film adaptations that present the German gay experience in which Nazi party suppression was implemented several years before the war. Bowker's careful research into the era proves that, just because these stories were not featured before, they have always been there, waiting to be told.

Albert's story is also an opportunity to explore black identity outside of American or British history. The French also have a very long history with colonialism and slavery, but differences in government structure, culture, and religion altered the course of French colonialism. Black characters in period dramas are frequently framed through a distinctly American or British cultural lens. Although some may question Albert's career choice as a trope, Paris between the wars was a refuge for entertainers such as Josephine Baker whose careers were stunted by legal segregation.

Episode 4 brings one aspect of the war directly to Webster and Albert. The hospital is already showing signs of Nazi influence. Although the Americans are officially neutral at this point in the war, Webster is making the professional choice to align himself with the anti-Nazi armies. The rules say he must turn away Jewish patients, but he ignores them. He still treats a pregnant Jewish woman and he supports a Jewish nurse who decides to stay and fight.

Towards the end of the episode, Albert finds a swastika painted with blood and a pig's head outside his door. Albert realizes that his safe space in Paris is under attack while Webster still believes their future together is bright. Smith said: "Webster is still, for better or for worse, very good at maintaining those blinkers, at keeping any threat at bay, because that's how he learned to survive." The audience remembers through all of these scenes aunt Nancy's counsel, but we see Webster hasn't completely connected the dots.

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re you British and reading this piece at the age of 94? If so, as you will know, you may actually have fought in the second world war. Widen the metric to anyone born by the end of the conflict, and the demographic swells: 76 and up. Even so, the greater part of the country could only know the era through parents, grandparents or grandparents' parents. Yet January has still begun with two new depictions of wartime Blighty. Such is British film. Whatever year the calendar says it is, the nation's cinema is always here to put an arm a little too tightly around your shoulder and pull you into a fusty back room to look at its Airfix Lancaster Bombers.

Sign up to our Inside Saturday newsletter for an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of the magazine's biggest features, as well as a curated list of our weekly highlights.

The first of the new films, Munich: The Edge of War, adapted from Robert Harris's novel, in fact unfolds in the last moments of peace, as Hitler carved up Czechoslovakia. Dial forward to 1943 and the second movie is Operation Mincemeat, a true story of deception plotted in a Whitehall basement. In each, the Nazi menace looms before expertly tensed British actors. The cast of Mincemeat is led by Colin Firth and Matthew Macfadyen; in Munich, Jeremy Irons is Neville Chamberlain, George MacKay a jittery adviser.

Britain has made a remarkable amount of films about the war. But as with any genre, not every one is alike. Moods change. Like canny politicians, the trick is to channel them. To make the right war film at the right time, tuned into the British id.

So something telling may be happening with these two new movies. In each, patriotism now comes with caveats. The atmosphere is less than triumphal. Of course, Munich could hardly fail to be downbeat. But if Operation Mincemeat is a tale told with the larky air of a heist movie, cynicism colours it, too. Of its two leads, Macfadyen is overshadowed within his own family by a dead war-hero brother. Firth also has sibling issues. His is suspected of being a communist spy. And in British high command, plenty are as interested in personal vendettas and their own postwar careers as thoughts of noble sacrifice.

It makes quite a contrast with the last cluster of British war films, which began in 2016 with the release of Dad's Army. A few months later came Their Finest, Gemma Arterton cast as a scriptwriter drafted into a propaganda film about Dunkirk. By summer 2017, Christopher Nolan had released the actual Dunkirk. It became a sensation. It was followed by another smash, Darkest Hour, which saw Gary Oldman morph into Churchill under heavy prosthesis. The movie was the second such biopic in the same cycle; a year before, Churchill saw the PM played by Brian Cox.

And in the middle of it all, of course, was the EU referendum. Aside from the sheer explosion of product, the tone of the biggest hits was striking. Dunkirk was an Imax blockbuster tightly focused on the microcosmic courage of ordinary Britons; Darkest Hour saw a cometh-the-hour Churchill communing with the public on the Tube. Neither was made in response to the Brexit vote. By then, Darkest Hour was already greenlit; Nolan was shooting Dunkirk in Swanage. But each was patriotic, a lavish British whipper-upper. As successful movies do, they caught the mood. They tapped the id.

How could second world war films not be addictive? They offered Britain an endless national Marvel movie

Of course, it would be just the kind of weird exceptionalism to which Britain can be prone not to register that other countries' films also fixate on wartime glory. Russian box office records were broken in 2019 by T-34, a movie named after, and tied up with, a Red Army tank. Last year Chinese audiences made The Battle at Lake Changjin - a Korean war epic of a clobbered America - the most popular film in national history.

Britain's equivalents are an inch less gung-ho, and yet cinema remains the place where we roll out wartime memories. That is only fitting. Whatever pathology surrounds Britain and the second world war, movies helped make it. The conflict began in the heyday of cinema; British films were put to work as propaganda. They did it wonderfully. The problem was, it proved hard to lose the habit. The audience stayed in their seats even as the real thing slipped out of view.

How could second world war films not be addictive? They offered Britain an endless national Marvel movie. The particular British identity that came with the package diffused through a million screenings of The Dam Busters on bank holiday telly. As the country fractured, second world war movies remade us whole. When Britain felt small, they enlarged us. And if the ghosts of empire threatened a guilty conscience, they recast us as an underdog nation of little boats. Who wouldn't vote for that?

Old news, of course. But although the conveyor belt of war movies has rolled on since 2016, the national mood has shifted. Five years after Nolan's Dunkirk, the shine has come off. Britain is in a more sceptical place now. So, too, are its second world war films. These are still mainstream stories. Operation Mincemeat is not the film, for instance, to tackle misgivings about Churchill. But it feels a lot less giddy and a little more grown-up, from the shits climbing the military hierarchy to the knowing wink at how much fiction war involves.

And the past looks different too in Munich: The Edge of War. For one, its Chamberlain is an idealist and strategist, desperate to keep the peace after the horror of the first world war, buying time for Britain when he can't. Historically, the jury remains out on that. It still makes some novelty for British cinema. Churchill can't be Churchill without Chamberlain as his antithesis; the feeble boob before the fearless bulldog. Chewier yet is the focus put on an anti-Hitler plot from inside Germany, based on the thwarted Oster conspiracy - one that in a different timeline might have lopped the head from Nazism in 1938. British dramatists have long loved counterfactuals in which we were successfully occupied. Munich offers a new How About: what if the Nazis had withered and the war never happened at all?

Where would modern Britain be now? If that weren't a mind-bender enough, a related question might ask the same of British films. The answer comes close to the unthinkable. So many actors, so many costume departments, all needing another script. Of course, in reality, they never did. And they won't. Now, as in 1945, British cinema will dim the lights and restart the sirens, making sure we'll meet again, the way we always do.

Munich: The Edge of War is in cinemas now and on Netflix on 21 January; Operation Mincemeat is in cinemas from 22 April.

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How rebellious colonies changed British attitudes to empire

Insurgent Empireshows how Britain’s enslaved and colonial subjects were active agents in their own liberation. What is more, they shaped British ideas of freedom and emancipation back in the United Kingdom.

Priyamvada Gopal examines a century of dissent on the question of empire and shows how British critics of empire were influenced by rebellions and resistance in the colonies, from the West Indies and East Africa to Egypt and India. In addition, a pivotal role in fomenting resistance was played by anticolonial campaigners based in London, right at the heart of empire.

Much has been written on how colonized peoples took up British and European ideas and turned them against empire when making claims to freedom and self-determination.Insurgent Empiresets the record straight in demonstrating that these people were much more than victims of imperialism or, subsequently, the passive beneficiaries of an enlightened British conscience—they were insurgents whose legacies shaped and benefited the nation that once oppressed them.

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An epic gangster drama set in the lawless streets of 1920s Birmingham.

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A United Kingdom | 20th Century Fox (2016)

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A United Kingdom | 20th Century Fox (2016)

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A United Kingdom Official International Trailer 1 (2016) - David Oyelowo Movie

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Available: Disney Plus

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Belle Official Trailer #1 (2013) - Tom Felton, Matthew Goode Drama HD

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The Underground Railroad | Amazon Prime (2021)

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The Underground Railroad | Amazon Prime (2021)

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The Underground Railroad - Official Trailer | Prime Video

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Harlots: Series Trailer (Official) • A Hulu Original

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Charlotte Heywood moves to the sleepy seaside village of Sanditon. Catch up on the ITV Hub - the home of ITV on demand.

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Mary Queen of Scots Trailer #1 (2018) | Movieclips Trailers

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age Official Trailer #1 - (2007) HD

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age | Universal (2007)

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age | Universal (2007)

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Elizabeth: The Golden Age Official Trailer #1 - (2007) HD

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Historical drama chronicling Thomas Cromwell's rise to power in the court of Henry VIII.

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Black People in Britain 1555-1833 | Folarin Shyllon (1977)

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Black People in Britain 1555-1833 | Folarin Shyllon (1977)

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Abstract

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Folarin Shyllon. Black People in Britain 1555-1833. London, New York, Ibadan: Oxford University Press, for the Institute of Race Relations, 1977. x + 290 pp. Illustrations, notes, appendices, index. $19.50 | ASA Review of Books | Cambridge Core

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Miranda Kaufmann

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"Highly readable yet intensively researched... lively prose and fascinating microhistories, [BLACK TUDORS] should draw some well-deserved attention." -- Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
"A highly instructive history of an understudied part of Tudor society. An eminently readable book that offers contemporary readers valuable insights into racial relations of centuries past." -- Kirkus Reviews
"For a modern audience acculturated to thinking of Africans in the West as either enslaved or altogether absent, the picture that emerges challenges the centrality of whiteness and slavery in the Tudor period." -- Foreword Reviews
A black porter publicly whips a white English gentleman in a Gloucestershire manor house. A heavily pregnant African woman is abandoned on an Indonesian island by Sir Francis Drake. A Mauritanian diver is dispatched to salvage lost treasures from the Mary Rose... Miranda Kaufmann reveals the absorbing stories of some of the Africans who lived free in Tudor England.
From long-forgotten records, remarkable characters emerge. They were baptized, married and buried by the Church of England. They were paid wages like any other Tudors. Their stories, brought viscerally to life by Kaufmann, provide unprecedented insights into how Africans came to be in Tudor England, what they did there and how they were treated. A ground-breaking, seminal work, Black Tudors challenges the accepted narrative that racial slavery was all but inevitable and forces us to re-examine the seventeenth century to determine what caused perceptions to change so radically.

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Miranda Kaufmann How much do you like this book? What's the quality of the file? Download the book for quality assessment What's the quality of the downloaded files? "Highly readable yet intensively researched... lively prose and fascinating microhistories, [BLACK TUDORS] should draw some well-deserved attention."

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England's Other Countrymen | Onyeka Nubia (2019)

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England's Other Countrymen | Onyeka Nubia (2019)

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England's Other Countrymen
Black Tudor Society
Onyeka Nubia

Zed Books Ltd

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Book Summary / Abstract

The Tudor period remains a source of timeless fascination, with endless novels, TV programmes and films depicting the period in myriad ways. And yet our image of the Tudor era remains overwhelmingly white. This ground-breaking and provocative new book seeks to redress the balance: revealing not only how black presence in Tudor England was far greater than has previously been recognised, but that Tudor conceptions of race were far more complex than we have been led to believe.

Onyeka Nubia's original research shows that Tudors from many walks of life regularly interacted with people of African descent, both at home and abroad, revealing a genuine pragmatism towards race and acceptance of difference. Nubia also rejects the influence of the 'Curse of Ham' myth on Tudor thinking, persuasively arguing that many of the ideas associated with modern racism are in fact relatively recent developments.

England's Other Countrymen is a bravura and eloquent forgotten history of diversity and cultural exchange, and casts a new light on our own attitudes towards race.

Front matter

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Preface

pp. vii-ix

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Bloomsbury Collections - England's Other Countrymen - Black Tudor Society

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The Tudor period remains a source of timeless fascination, with endless novels, TV programmes and films depicting the period in myriad ways. And yet our image of the Tudor era remains overwhelmingly white.

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Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England | Onyeka Nubia (2013)

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Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England | Onyeka Nubia (2013)

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When we think of Tudor England we do not automatically think of Africans being present. Instead we limit such an African presence to modern times, implying that cultural diversity is a relatively new concept in Britain. However, Onyeka in this book emphasises that Africans were present across Tudor England: in cities and towns such as London, Plymouth, Bristol and Northampton. Significantly, these Africans were not solely enslaved peoples occupying the lowest portions of society. The few modern historians who have written about Africans in Tudor England suggest that they were all slaves, or transient immigrants who were considered as dangerous strangers and the epitome of otherness.

Onyeka references a variety of documents: both manuscript and printed, some of which have been found by him for the first time, whilst other evidence has been neglected or forgotten - until now. This book is long overdue. Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England is changing the way we look at the Tudor period, and challenging our perception on it, as well as our perception of this country.

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Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England - Narrative Eye

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When we think of Tudor England we do not automatically think of Africans being present. Instead we limit such an African presence to modern times, implying that cultural diversity is a relatively new concept in Britain. However, Onyeka in this book emphasises that Africans were present across Tudor England: in cities and towns such as London, Plymouth, Bristol and Northampton.

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Staying Poweris a panoramic history of black Britons. First published in 1984 amid race riots and police brutality, Fryer's history performed a deeply political act, revealing how Africans, Asians, and their descendants had been erased from British history.
Stretching back to the Roman conquest, encompassing the court of Henry VIII, and following a host of characters from the pioneering nurse and war hero Mary Seacole to the abolitionist Olaudah Equiano, Peter Fryer paints a picture of two thousand years of black presence in Britain. By rewriting black Britons into British history, showing where they influenced political traditions, social institutions, and cultural life, Staying Powerpresented a radical challenge to racist and nationalist agendas. This edition includes a new foreword by Gary Younge examining the book's continued significance in shaping black British identity today, alongside the now-classic introduction by Paul Gilroy.

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Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain

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Staying Poweris a panoramic history of black Britons. First published in 1984 amid race riots and police brutality, Fryer's history performed a deeply political act, revealing how Africans, Asians, and their descendants had been erased from British history.

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The Black Presence in English Literature | ed. David Dabydeen (1985)

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The Black Presence in English Literature | ed. David Dabydeen (1985)

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The Black Presence in English Literature

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This collection of essays surveys the depiction of black people in English Literature from Shakespeare to contemporary popular fiction.

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The Spanish Princess | Official Trailer | STARZ

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Black Lives in the English Archives | Imtiaz Habib (2008)

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Black Lives in the English Archives | Imtiaz Habib (2008)

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Imtiaz Habib

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Containing an urgently needed archival database of historical evidence, this volume includes both a consolidated presentation of the documentary records of black people in Tudor and Stuart England, and an interpretive narrative that confirms and significantly extends the insights of current theoretical excursus on race in early modern England. Here for the first time Imtiaz Habib collects the scattered references to black people-whether from Africa, India or America-in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England, and arranges them into a systematic, chronological descriptive index. He offers an extended historical and theoretical interpretation of the records in six chapters, which serve as an introductory guide to the index even as they articulate a specific argument about the meaning of the records. Both the archival information and interpretive scholarship provide a strong framework from which future historical debates on race in early modern England can proceed.

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Black Lives in the English Archives, 1500-1677: Imprints of the Invisible

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Imtiaz Habib How much do you like this book? What's the quality of the file? Download the book for quality assessment What's the quality of the downloaded files?

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The Archaeology of Black Britain: Approaches, Methods and Possible Solutions | Black Presence (2010)

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The Archaeology of Black Britain: Approaches, Methods and Possible Solutions | Black Presence (2010)

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Black Romans in Britain - Black Presence

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Richard Benjamin discusses, the Presence of Black Romans who were stationed at Hadrians Wall and nr York, England. Learn more...

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An archeologist wants DNA testing of people living near Hadrian’s Wall after claiming they may be descended from African Moors.

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Eastbourne Museums Heritage Officer Jo Seaman recounts the 2014 quest for the identity of Beachy Head Lady, a Roman era skeleton originally thought to be a sub Saharan African living in Roman Eastbourne

We had over 300 different individuals, mostly skeletons, but some cremations and the idea was to go back through all those. We had some information about some of them but on others we had nothing.

They were held in the basement of the town hall, where I keep my archaeology collection and came primarily from two main Saxon cemeteries that were excavated - one in particular had over 200 graves.

The majority were excavated between 1992 and 1996, but others were excavated way back in the 1890s and have been in the collection since then. The idea was to give back some sort of life story to each of those people.

During that process we came across two boxes which said 'Beachy Head, something to do with 1956 or 1959', and that was about it. We opened it up and inside there was a very well-preserved human skeleton which, on initial inspection from our osteoarchaeologist, was a female, fairly small, between 5ft and 5ft 1" and fairly young.

She was intriguing because there were a number of elements about her which didn't seem to fit. We X-rayed her jaw and we found that she was missing her wisdom teeth, for example.

That immediately made us a little bit worried because I suddenly thought, 'uh-oh, if she's had her wisdom teeth out she's going to be fairly modern.' And the fact that it said Beachy Head as well, it seemed unlikely but it was a possibility.

We had also secured money to scientifically test about 12 of these individuals, both for radiocarbon dating and radio-isotope analysis, which could give us a place of origin for each person.

We spent about £12,000 to test 12 people fully. It's quite a lot of money but it's well worth it because you can get so much information out of those, down to their diet and everything.

Beachy Head Lady was an intriguing one because we knew nothing about her. With the others we generally knew where they'd been excavated. We even had fairly good records for some of them, particularly the ones from the '90s.

With her we had absolutely nothing. We tried to do some investigating.

The other thing about the box that she was in was that it had an English Heritage label on it. We found that it had indeed gone there at some stage, but nobody had any record of any testing that she had had done to her. She seemed to have been returned to the collection in the early 1990s. I did some investigating into the '50s and again drew a complete blank.

I went through coroners' reports which again should show us anyone dug up, basically. I followed up a few reports about a body being dug up in an ex-army camp, but they all seemed to be false. We were left a bit stumped by her.

So we thought, 'let's test her and follow the leads'. She was also sent off for facial reconstruction as she was so well-preserved.

The facial reconstruction was done by Caroline Wilkinson from Dundee University, one of the country's foremost reconstructors. Straight away on seeing this girl, she said, 'oh my, you realise you've got a sub-Saharan African here?'

Our osteo hadn't picked that up, but Caroline subsequently had it looked at by two more experts who agreed, without being prompted, that this individual showed many traits of being a sub-Saharan African person.

They were 100% sure that this was the origin of this lady. There are certain features of the skull that you can tell are Caucasian or African. We didn't know her carbon date at that stage or anything about her, so again it just deepened the mystery. They reconstructed her, and as they did so her African origins came out in the features of her face.

At that stage it was a bit of a worry because we didn't know anything about her. Obviously because of being African, depending on the time period that she lived in, she would have been either very rare or just worrying, because if she was 17th century onwards she was likely to have been a slave.

If she was earlier than that it was really interesting. As I say, the whole ethos behind this project was to give people stories. The radiocarbon dating came back with a firm Roman date - around 200 or 250 AD. That was a relief. It's not without precedent to find Africans from this date in Britain, such as the famous African bangle lady in York.

It was very rare and unusual, nonetheless. She's sub-Saharan African - she's not North African, which was part of the Roman Empire, so she's beyond the Roman Empire, to the south.

At this point we still couldn't really say anything, because we were waiting to get the radio-isotope analysis back. We still didn't actually know where she came from.

"she seems to be someone from the Eastbourne area, Roman, with very firm sub-Saharan ancestry"

It said Beachy Head on there but we could find no evidence that she was from that area at all. She could have been from a Victorian collector who just said she was from Beachy Head. She could have been an African skeleton from Africa.

If she'd come back as African origin we wouldn't have been able to say any more about her - that would have been it. But she came back as south-east England origin.

Even more intriguingly, she seems to be someone from the Eastbourne area, Roman, with very firm sub-Saharan ancestry. Whether that means that she's first generation we don't know. She could possibly have been born in Africa and brought over here at a very young age, but it's just as likely that she was born here.

It's a brilliant story straight away, but then you have the two camps: she was a slave or she wasn't. There's no way to prove either way at the moment, other than that the skeleton was very well preserved. She was obviously treated very well in the grave, because she was virtually complete.

Without seeing the grave, though, it's very difficult to say much about her social status. Her teeth were in good nick, her bones were in good condition, but again, that doesn't mean she was of higher status or a slave - it could be either. If she was a favoured slave she would be in pretty good condition.

Looking through 19th century reports of skeletons being dug up in the area, there is one intriguing one from 1891 which talks about three skeletons being excavated from a Roman cemetery. It said it was on the west side of Beachy Head, in the village of East Dean. We think we've identified exactly where that excavation was.

It mentions that one of the skeletons was found with a number of bangles on their arms. In Roman times that would mean a woman. It doesn't say anything about the skeleton, it just says the bangles were kept by the museum. But the museum was then bombed by the Germans in the Second World War and the bangles were lost.

If she is from there, which is possible, it could be the lady with the bangles, in which case she is probably of higher status and there's going to be an unknown Roman building nearby.

That hadn't been on our radar. We think we know roughly where the cemetery is and hopefully later this year we're going to go and try to find it, just because we may be able to find other individuals there.

If we're really, really lucky we may find another African if it's a family buried there. That's highly unlikely but it's worth a go. If we find another burial of a similar age it may point to her coming from that cemetery.

The process we've had to go through has been amazing, intriguing and incredibly frustrating. You think you've suddenly made a breakthrough and then you realise you haven't.

Probably the most moving part of it was when the facial reconstruction came back. When you actually see the face of someone that you've been investigating so carefully and you know that it is 75% accurate to two or three millimetres - that it is very likely to be a person who lived 2,000 years ago - you start really wondering.

I am quite hard-nosed when it comes to skeletons. I've come across a lot of them and worked with lots of them. I don't get emotionally attached to them, I'm not ultra-religious so I don't have a spiritual belief which links me to them.

But as an archaeologist, when you're excavating skeletons, sometimes you do go through these moments where you suddenly think, 'oh blimey, yes, this is a person.'

When her face came back, that was one of those moments where you think, 'wow, you really did live.'

"Archaeology that isn't interpreted is just data, it's no good to anyone"

When we put her in the exhibition, which featured her face and a number of reconstructions which, I've got to say, were equally stunning, and you saw her next to her skull - it was quite moving. You realise the humanity in there and you start wondering what on earth brought them here. You almost hope that she did have a good life.

She died when she was very young - probably only about 20 or 21 - and we don't know how she died. There's no evidence of disease or any wounds or anything.

In the future we could get DNA analysis which might tell us a bit more about how she died and I want to go back and find a bit more out about her, I think she deserves it. When you start delving into these skeletons you want to give them more because they're remarkable, absolutely remarkable.

Most of the samples we sent off are supposedly Anglo-Saxon but not one has come in as being foreign. Nearly all of them are local. One was from the east coast - probably East Anglia - the other guy was from the Pennines or more likely Wales, which again is odd. It's not what you're taught in the history books.

It's absolutely fascinating opening up these stories. It's really putting flesh on the bones. Archaeology that isn't interpreted is just data, it's no good to anyone - we want people to understand what we do and why we do it.

The archaeology of Eastbourne is phenomenal, we've got huge amounts. Like most places in Britain, if you delve under the surface it's absolutely chock-a-block with stuff.

Around here most people just go on about the Victorians and Georgians and seaside resorts. Actually that's just a tiny, tiny part of the story. We've had people living here for thousands of years. There's evidence for animals living here hundreds of thousands of years ago. We've got elephant's teeth and things like that from the interglacials.

Most archaeological museum collections hold these things but never do anything with them. It's all about telling these stories.
DNA analysis has since concluded that that although she grew up in Eastbourne, the place of her ancestry is in Southern Europe - most likely Cyprus. Visit the Beachy Head Story Visitor Centre for more on the story. The Ancestors exhibition ran at the Redoubt Fortress Pavilion in 2014. Find out more about the Ancestors Project at www.eastbournemuseums.co.uk/ancestors

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Eastbourne Museums Heritage Officer Jo Seaman recounts the 2014 quest for the identity of Beachy Head Lady, a Roman era skeleton originally thought to be a sub Saharan African living in Roman Eastbourne We had over 300 different individuals, mostly...

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The remains of a Roman woman known as the Ivory Bangle Lady have helped archaeologists discover that wealthy people from across the Empire were living in fourth century York.

Archaeological research on one of the Yorkshire Museum's best-preserved burial finds paints a picture of a cosmopolitan city, a theme explored in our Roman York gallery.

The skeleton is thought to be of a high-status woman from Roman York, whose story is revealed in our exhibition using real evidence and research uncovered by archaeologists.

Known as the Ivory Bangle Lady, the skeleton was found in 1901 near to Sycamore Terrace in York, a street lying mid-way between Bootham, the main road going north out of York, and the River Ouse.

Her remains, dated to the second half of the fourth century, were found with jet and elephant ivory bracelets, earrings, pendants, beads, a blue glass jug and a glass mirror.

The most famous object from the burial is a rectangular openwork mount of bone, possibly from an unrecorded wooden casket, which reads "Hail, sister, may you live in God" indicating she may have had Christian beliefs.

The research by the University of Reading's Department of Archaeology analysed her facial features, the chemical signature of the food and drink she consumed, and the evidence from the burial site. The research pointed to a high status incomer to Roman York, likely to have been of North African descent.

The skeleton and the grave goods are on display in Roman York: Meet the People of the Empire.

Please note: The Yorkshire Museum is home to an extensive and varied collection of items and artefacts. Whilst we make every effort to display a broad spectrum of our collections it is not always possible for all our collections to be on display at once.

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Ivory Bangle Lady - Roman York - Yorkshire Museum

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Ivory Bangle Lady - Roman York - Yorkshire Museum

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A Lady of York: Migration, Ethnicity and Identity in Roman Britain | Stephen Leach and Colleagues (2010)

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A Lady of York: Migration, Ethnicity and Identity in Roman Britain | Stephen Leach and Colleagues (2010)

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A Lady of York: migration, ethnicity and identity in Roman Britain

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A Lady of York: migration, ethnicity and identity in Roman Britain | Leach, S.; Eckardt, H.; Chenery, C.; Müldner, G.; Lewis, M. | download | BookSC. Download books for free. Find books

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Trolls, Twitter + Afro-Romans | The Guardian (2017)

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Trolls, Twitter + Afro-Romans | The Guardian (2017)

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Mary Beard has said she faced a "torrent of aggressive insults" on social media after posting messages asserting the ethnic diversity of Roman Britain.

The historian had been defending a BBC schools video that featured a high-ranking black Roman soldier as the father of a family, prompting a wave of online abuse. One person said she was "literally rewriting history".

She said the tone of the debate left her dispirited. "It feels very sad to me that we cannot have a reasonable discussion on such a topic as the cultural, ethnic composition of Roman Britain without resorting to unnecessary insult, abuse, misogyny and language of war, not debate."

Beard, a classicist at Cambridge University, who is well known for her robust responses to Twitter trolls, was one of those who pointed to evidence that there was at least some ethnic diversity in Britain under Roman rule.

There followed, she said in her blog in the Times Literary Supplement, days of attacks on Twitter, which she described as "a torrent of aggressive insults, on everything from my historical competence and elitist ivory tower viewpoint to my age, shape and gender [batty old broad, obese, etc etc]."

The abuse got worse, she wrote, when Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a professor of risk analysis in the US and author of the best-selling book The Black Swan, joined her critics.

Beard told Taleb on Twitter that this kind of family in Roman Britain was unsurprising. He questioned her scholarship and accused her of "talking bullshit".

Writing in her blog, Beard said: "I think I was courteous throughout, though I guess that is for others to judge. I think Prof Taleb did get annoyed when I said that I had read his 'pop risk' book, not the others. But I was actually trying to make clear that I had some knowledge of his work, though not a lot."

She also pointed out that some of her critics, who acknowledged Taleb's professorship, erased hers by calling her "Ms Beard". "I don't actually give a stuff about academic titles, but you see what's going on here," she wrote.

Beard said she would not block her opponents because "it feels to me like leaving the bullies in charge of the playground. And it's rather too much like what women have been advised to do for centuries. Don't answer back and just turn away".

The BBC video that triggered the storm could have been based on Quintus Lollius Urbicus, a Berber from what is now Algeria who became governor of Roman Britain, Beard said. The online commentators wanted a certainty that may not be possible, but there was evidence of diversity, she wrote.

"One thing is for sure, the Roman empire, Britain included, was culturally and ethnically diverse, from the Syrians in Bath to Quintus Lollius Urbicus, the Ethiopian who met Septimius Severus on Hadrian's Wall, and the wonderful couple from South Shields, Barates and Queenie [Regina], he from Palmyra, she an Essex girl. There is no doubt about that," Beard said.

Explaining that it can be difficult to be sure of ethnicity because Africans took on Roman names, she said: "Even in the case of Septimius Severus, the first Roman emperor from Africa [Libya], we don't actually know the colour of his skin, how far he was 'native', how far the descendent of Italian settler. The same goes for Quintus Lollius Urbicus, often claimed to be Berber, which he may well have been, but it isn't certain."

Taleb asserted in their exchanges that genetic evidence of people from sub-Saharan Africa in Roman Britain was lacking. Beard said a major study carried out by the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford showed very little sub-Saharan DNA, but also very little Norman DNA, "and there is no doubt that they came here in large numbers".

In a blog of his own, entitled Something is Broken in the UK Intellectual Sphere, Taleb says "any dissent from the statistical errors made by the politically correct police is treated as apostasy. Effectively, scholarship is dead in the UK."

The picture in the BBC video of a black father was portrayed as representative, he says. "Some people backtracked later by saying it is was not common but not impossible, which is where I shout "BS!" he writes. He complains of "the UK political correctness mob", writing that "today's typical UK academic is a wuss, with a renewable 5 year contract, and, like the middle class, in a state of insecurity and constant fear of being caught breaking rules. They are very vulnerable to the slightest accusation."

But, he said, he could not be affected by what he called IYIs (intellectuals like idiots) in the UK or elsewhere thought - and his book sales were increased by their attacks.

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Mary Beard abused on Twitter over Roman Britain's ethnic diversity

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Mary Beard has said she faced a "torrent of aggressive insults" on social media after posting messages asserting the ethnic diversity of Roman Britain. The historian had been defending a BBC schools video that featured a high-ranking black Roman soldier as the father of a family, prompting a wave of online abuse.

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May be able to find on Box of Broadcasts in full. No longer on ITV Player!

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Alison Hammond: Back To School Extra | Our ITV Talent Discuss The Lost Parts of British History

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Some of the history here is accurate. Some definitely not. I'm not happy about the Antigone character, a weak bit of invention. Also the actress Kasia Smutnik who portrays the older Livia, has a very different accent to that of her younger self, almost Scandinavian and although, she acts well, that accent is so annoying.

I dont feel this is as good as Rome, it all looks a bit cheap and the acting is largely 'B' grade in comparison, though I can see that the paciness of this production chimes well with the 2021 YouTube mentality, short video bite audiences this is aimed at. Its entertaining to binge watch on. I doubt it will win many awards, I enjoyed watching it, but Domina does not enthrall.

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Some of the history here is accurate. Some definitely not. I'm not happy about the Antigone character, a weak bit of invention. Also the actress Kasia Smutnik who portrays the older Livia, has a very different accent to that of her younger self, almost Scandinavian and although, she acts well, that accent is so annoying.

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Original title: Spartacus: Blood and Sand

The life of Spartacus, the gladiator who lead a rebellion against the Romans. From his time as an ally of the Romans, to his betrayal and becoming a gladiator, to the rebellion he leads and ... Read all The life of Spartacus, the gladiator who lead a rebellion against the Romans. From his time as an ally of the Romans, to his betrayal and becoming a gladiator, to the rebellion he leads and its ultimate outcome. The life of Spartacus, the gladiator who lead a rebellion against the Romans. From his time as an ally of the Romans, to his betrayal and becoming a gladiator, to the rebellion he leads and its ultimate outcome.

Is it a show? NO! Its pure art

So my regional netflix added this show a while ago and I was getting recommendation to see it. Initially I was very skeptical as I was not sure about the historical background. I thought its just another show with gladiator type fighting and lot of nudity (I read it in IMDBs section and reviews). After a while I gave it a try, I found first episode boring but continued to watch. And after third expisode when all major characters were introduced and story was making shape I found myself glued towards the screen to anticipate what is going to come next. I liked this show so much that I am watching it second time, we talk about GOT and Breaking Bad, IMO this show deserves equal standing.

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Spartacus: Created by Steven S. DeKnight. With Manu Bennett, Daniel Feuerriegel, Peter Mensah, Lucy Lawless. The life of Spartacus, the gladiator who lead a rebellion against the Romans. From his time as an ally of the Romans, to his betrayal and becoming a gladiator, to the rebellion he leads and its ultimate outcome.

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Alt History: Black British History We’re Not Taught in Schools - BBC Stories

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Black British History: New Perspectives | ed. Hakim Adi (2019)

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Black British History: New Perspectives | ed. Hakim Adi (2019)

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Chapter: Introduction (Adi)
Chapter: Blackamoores Have Their Own Names (Onyeka Nubia)

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For over 1500 years before the Empire Windrush docked on British shores, people of African descent have played a significant and far-ranging role in the country's history, from the African soldiers on Hadrian's Wall to the Black British intellectuals who made London a hub of radical, Pan-African ideas. But while there has been a growing interest in this history, there has been little recognition of the sheer breadth and diversity of the Black British experience, until now.

This collection combines the latest work from both established and emerging scholars of Black British history. It spans the centuries from the first Black Britons to the latest African migrants, covering everything from Africans in Tudor England to the movement for reparations, and the never ending struggles against racism in between.

An invaluable resource for both future scholarship and those looking for a useful introduction to Black British history, Black British History: New Perspectives has the potential to transform our understanding of Britain, and of its place in the world.

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Black British History: New Perspectives (Blackness in Britain)

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For over 1500 years before the Empire Windrush docked on British shores, people of African descent have played a significant and far-ranging role in the country's history, from the African soldiers on Hadrian's Wall to the Black British intellectuals who made London a hub of radical, Pan-African ideas.

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GCSE students are to be taught that some of our nation's earliest inhabitants were Africans who arrived here long before the English.

The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the extraordinary rewriting of our island's history - the politically correct work of a Marxist academic - will be offered to thousands of history students throughout England from September.

Its creators claim the course addresses the 'white male-dominated' view of history - but it has outraged some of Britain's most eminent thinkers.

Booker and Nobel prize-winning novelist V.S. Naipaul said: 'Once again political correctness is distorting our history and the education of our children.'

And historian Sir Roy Strong, author of The Story Of Britain, said: 'This stands history on its head, projecting back on to the past something that isn't true.'

The 'Africans in Britain' quotation is the opening line of a key book on the course reading list by a Marxist historian and refers to a Roman legion of North Africans briefly stationed on Hadrian's Wall in the 3rd Century, before the arrival of Anglo-Saxons.

Up to 500 'Aurelian' Moors - named in honour of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, popularised in the film Gladiator - manned a fort near Carlisle.

But there is no evidence they ever settled there.

Offered by the Oxford and Cambridge examination board (OCR) and approved for use in schools, the course literature states: 'This course will enable students to learn how the movement of people - European, African, Asian - to and from these islands has shaped the story of this nation for thousands of years.

'The history of migration is the story of Britain: in 1984, Peter Fryer wrote, "There were Africans in Britain before the English came." '

The course - Migration To Britain c. 1,000 to c. 2010 - was created with academics from the Black and Asian Studies Association but has been condemned as 'pro-immigration propaganda' at a time when the subject is especially sensitive.

Last night, eminent military historian and author Antony Beevor said: 'Migration is a very valid area to study, but if it's a question of rewriting history to bolster the morale of certain sections of the population, rather than a scrupulous attitude towards facts, then that is a total distortion and it's outrageous.'

Sir Roy Strong said: 'The only Africans who came here were a few with the Romans who came and then left! I find it disturbing that our children should be taught something that is clearly designed to feed into contemporary problems rather than tell our island's story properly.'

V. S. Naipaul added: 'This absurd supposition of Africans inhabiting Britain before the English only goes to show how our once esteemed centres of learning, Oxford and Cambridge, have been insidiously eroded by a dangerous dogma that, very like IS today, wrought misery and havoc in Russia, China and the Eastern bloc, where for all practical purposes it has failed.'

Although the new course takes its starting point as the Middle Ages, one section is headed 'Population diversity in England before 1066'.

Professor Alan Smithers, of Buckingham University, a specialist adviser to the Commons Education Committee, said: 'This seems to be aimed more at indoctrination than education. It is dangerous because a cohesive society depends on an authentic shared view of history.'

And Campaign for Real Education chairman Chris McGovern said: 'The country is being sold down the river by the politically correct brigade and national identity sacrificed for minority groups to feel included. It's pro-immigration propaganda.'

But Professor Mark Ormrod, of York University, one of the historians researching the new topic, said: 'It is an outstanding example of how a long view of history helps us to understand and to find a place for ourselves in contemporary society.

'Our research project shows how, for example, in the late Middle Ages, no one was more than ten miles from an immigrant.'

Mike Goddard, head of history at OCR, said: 'There is no political bias. The GCSE will present facts. It is not pushing any particular argument.'

And Martin Spafford, of BASA's education committee, stressed that 'students will hear both positive and negative views about migration. It's been a controversial subject and we don't shy away from that'.

The Department for Education said: 'The law is crystal clear - all political discussions in schools should be unbiased and balanced.'

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GCSE pupils taught Africans were in Britain before the English

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GCSE students are to be taught that some of our nation's earliest inhabitants were Africans who arrived here long before the English. The Mail on Sunday has discovered that the extraordinary rewriting of our island's history - the politically correct work of a Marxist academic - will be offered to thousands of history students throughout England from September.

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First modern Britons had ‘dark to black’ skin, Cheddar Man DNA analysis reveals

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The genome of Cheddar Man, who lived 10,000 years ago, suggests that he had blue eyes, dark skin and dark curly hair

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The Good Immigrant | Nikesh Shukla (2016)

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The Good Immigrant | Nikesh Shukla (2016)

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Chapter: Airport + Auditions (Riz Ahmed)

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The Good Immigrant | Nikesh Shukla | download

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The Good Immigrant | Nikesh Shukla | download | Z-Library. Download books for free. Find books

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Stephen Lawrence Inquiry AKA Macpherson Report | William Macpherson (1999) 

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Stephen Lawrence Inquiry AKA Macpherson Report | William Macpherson (1999) 

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Whiteness as Property | Cheryl Harris (1993)

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Whiteness as Property | Cheryl Harris (1993)

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In the lead up to Volume 134, the Harvard Law Review republished five classic Critical Race Theory articles from our archives. This is the first piece in our series. The full version of this Article may be found by clicking on the PDF link below.

Issues regarding race and racial identity as well as questions pertaining to property rights and ownership have been prominent in much public discourse in the United States. In this article, Professor Harris contributes to this discussion by positing that racial identity and property are deeply interrelated concepts. Professor Harris examines how whiteness, initially constructed as a form of racial identity, evolved into a form of property, historically and presently acknowledged and protected in American law. Professor Harris traces the origins of whiteness as property in the parallel systems of domination of Black and Native American peoples out of which were created racially contingent forms of property and property rights. Following the period of slavery and conquest, whiteness became the basis of racialized privilege - a type of status in which white racial identity provided the basis for allocating societal benefits both private and public in character. These arrangements were ratified and legitimated in law as a type of status property. Even as legal segregation was overturned, whiteness as property continued to serve as a barrier to effective change as the system of racial classification operated to protect entrenched power.

Next, Professor Harris examines how the concept of whiteness as property persists in current perceptions of racial identity, in the law's misperception of group identity and in the Court's reasoning and decisions in the arena of affirmative action. Professor Harris concludes by arguing that distortions in affirmative action doctrine can only be addressed by confronting and exposing the property interest in whiteness and by acknowledging the distributive justification and function of affirmative action as central to that task.

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In the lead up to Volume 134, the Harvard Law Review republished five classic Critical Race Theory articles from our archives. This is the first piece in our series. The full version of this Article may be found by clicking on the PDF link below.

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Hegemony: WTF? An introduction to Gramsci and cultural hegemony

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Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse | Stuart Hall (1973)

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Encoding and Decoding in the Television Discourse | Stuart Hall (1973)

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Deviancy, Politics and Media | Stuart Hall (1973)

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Deviancy, Politics and Media | Stuart Hall (1973)

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Deviancy, politics, and the media - ePapers Repository

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Hall, Stuart (1973) Deviancy, politics, and the media. Discussion Paper. University of Birmingham.

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"Notes on Deconstructing the Popular". In: People's History and Socialist Theory | Stuart Hall (1981)

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"Notes on Deconstructing the Popular". In: People's History and Socialist Theory | Stuart Hall (1981)

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People’s History and Socialist Theory | Raphael Samuel | download

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People’s History and Socialist Theory | Raphael Samuel | download | Z-Library. Download books for free. Find books

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Stuart Hall - Race, Gender, Class in the Media | Al-Jazeera (2017)

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Stuart Hall - Race, Gender, Class in the Media | Al-Jazeera (2017)

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Stuart Hall - Race, Gender, Class in the Media

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Vron Ware

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Foreword by Mikki Kendall

How have ideas about white women figured in the history of racism? Vron Ware argues that they have been central, and that feminism has, in many ways, developed as a political movement within racist societies. Dissecting the different meanings of femininity and womanhood, Beyond the Pale examines the political connections between black and white women, both within contemporary racism and feminism, as well as in historical examples like the anti-slavery movement and the British campaign against lynching in the United States. Beyond the Pale is a major contribution to anti-racist work, confronting the historical meanings of whiteness as a way of overcoming the moralism that so often infuses anti-racist movements.

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Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism, and History

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Vron Ware How much do you like this book? What's the quality of the file? Download the book for quality assessment What's the quality of the downloaded files? Foreword by Mikki Kendall How have ideas about white women figured in the history of racism?

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David Oyelowo is riding high at the moment as the star of Oscar-nominated historical drama Selma, in which he plays Martin Luther King.

And he says a lack of roles for black actors in Britain meant he had little choice but to make the move stateside in order to further his career.

Speaking in this week's Radio Times, Oyelowo says "We make period dramas [in Britain], but there are almost never black people in them, even though we've been on these shores for hundreds of years,

"I remember taking a historical drama with a black figure at its centre to a British executive with greenlight power, and what they said was that if it's not Jane Austen or Dickens, the audience don't understand.

"And I thought 'OK - you are stopping people having a context for the country they live in and you are marginalising me. I can't live with that. So I've got to get out.

"There's a string of black British actors passing through where I live now in LA. We don't have Downton Abbey, or Call the Midwife, or Peaky Blinders, or the 50th iteration of pride and Prejudice. We're not in those. And it's frustrating because it doesn't have to be that way. I shouldn't have to feel like I have to move to America to have a notable career."
Read Radio Times' review of Selma here Read the full interview in this week's Radio Times, on sale from the 3rd February

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Selma star David Oyelowo: I had to leave Britain to have an acting career

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David Oyelowo is riding high at the moment as the star of Oscar-nominated historical drama Selma, in which he plays Martin Luther King. And he says a lack of roles for black actors in Britain meant he had little choice but to make the move stateside in order to further his career.

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Come Away | UK Trailer | 2021 | Angelina Jolie | Family Adventure

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Table of Contents

Jeffrey Green has produced a fascinating account of the lives of dozen of black people born, resident or visiting Britain in the years between 1901-1914.

- Immigrants and Minorities

Black and Asian Studies Association - "Jeffrey Green"s long awaited study of black people in Edwardian Britain is a most welcome publication....Certainly an essential purchase and hopefully the basis for much future research."

Choice -"In this carefully researched monograph, Green rescues from obscurity the lives of a tiny but vibrant minority."

Twentieth century British History- "This delightful and fascinating book makes an important historiographical point whilst establishing multiple agendas for further research...Black Edwardians begins decisively to fill in a large gap in our knowledge of Black Briton"s history- that of the period before the First World War. It joins a limited but growing number of book-length works presenting substantial amounts of evidence in the field...its methodological innovations point the way forward for other scholars"

International Journal of African Historical Studies -" The history of the African diaspora in Britain has long been a neglected area of research, although there has been some important scholarly work in recent years. Jeffrey Green"s long-awaited study of black people in Edwardian Britain is a most welcome publication and an important contribution to this growing body of work...Green"s study is based on a rich variety of sources and contains almost fifty photographs, many of them published for the first time. Black Edwardians is a fascinating book and will hopefully provide the basis for further research on this important but often neglected aspect of the history of the African diaspora."

"a major contribution not only to black British history but also British history"

Albion

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Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain 1901-1914

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This study reveals the presence of black people in all walks of life all over the British Isles at the height of the imperialist era - challenging conventional views on imperialism, racism and British social history. Historians of British society have largely ignored this most visible of minorities, and commentators on racism have been silent on the period.

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Julian Fellowes + Period Drama | Herald Scotland (2017)

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Julian Fellowes + Period Drama | Herald Scotland (2017)

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Julian Fellowes feels "quite strongly" that there needs to be more diversity on the stage, but that for his production of Half A Sixpence only a white cast would be appropriate because of the time and place in which it is set.

He said that for period dramas, like his West End musical, it would be untruthful to cast ethnic minorities because it is set more than 100 years ago.

The Downton Abbey creator said that for contemporary theatre, though, there needs to be a focus on more adventurous casting, following a report commissioned by Andrew Lloyd Webber last year into the "hideously white" British theatre industry.

Julian Fellowes (Ian West/PA)

Julian, 67, told The Stage: "I feel quite strongly that ethnic minorities don't get a sufficient look-in.

"The way to get a better balance in our artistic community is in casting. We need much more adventurous casting.

"When you are doing a modern drama there is absolutely no reason why anyone can't play most of the parts.

"In every contemporary drama, there is a completely realistic option of a much more variegated cast than we are usually being given."

But he said that for Half A Sixpence, which is based on the 1905 novel Kipps by HG Wells, to have anything other than an all-white cast would be unrealistic.

Julian, who included a storyline featuring a black character in TV period drama Downton Abbey, said: "You can't make something untruthful. My feeling is about contemporary drama and there is absolutely no reason (why there shouldn't be diverse casting).

"But Sixpence is set in 1900 in a seaside town. You're in a different territory."

Julian Fellowes (Anthony Devlin/PA)

Julian said the Shakespearean character Othello has previously been played by white actors although now "it isn't right any more" to do so, and that the overall consensus would be to welcome a black actor portraying Henry V, particularly on camera.

He said: "I think at times you have more latitude on the stage than you do on camera - particularly in the great classical roles."

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Julian Fellowes says theatre needs more diversity, but not necessarily in period productions

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Julian Fellowes feels "quite strongly" that there needs to be more diversity on the stage, but that for his production of Half A Sixpence only a white cast would be appropriate because of the time and place in which it is set.

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Akala and Period Dramas | Kirstie Grant, BBC (2021)

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Akala and Period Dramas | Kirstie Grant, BBC (2021)

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Akala: Why we need more black, working class period drama

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Akala speaks to Radio 1 Newsbeat about filling the gaps in historical fiction.

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A natural storyteller with a vision of his own. THE DARK LADY, Akala's debut novel for teens, will enthuse and entertain teenagers and young adults, showing ...

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White Spaces | Shona Hunter and Colleagues

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White Spaces | Shona Hunter and Colleagues

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Challenging Whiteness White Privilege White Power | WhiteSpaces

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Critical uncompromising research informed analysis of whiteness as orientation to power

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Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race? | Ren Eddo-Lodge (2017)

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Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race? | Ren Eddo-Lodge (2017)

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From the publisher:

"This is a book that was begging to be written. This is the kind of book that demands a future where we'll no longer need such a book. Essential." -- Marlon James, Man Booker Prize-Winner 2015

"One of the most important books of 2017." -- Nikesh Shukla, editor of The Good Immigrant

A powerful and provocative argument on the role that race and racism play in modern Britain, by award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge.

In 2014, award-winning journalist Reni Eddo-Lodge wrote about her frustration with the way that discussions of race and racism in Britain were being led by those who weren't affected by it. She posted a piece on her blog, entitled: "Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race."

Her words hit a nerve. The post went viral and comments flooded in from others desperate to speak up about their own experiences. Galvanized by this clear hunger for open discussion, she decided to dig into the source of these feelings. Exploring issues from eradicated black history to the political purpose of white dominance, whitewashed feminism to the inextricable link between class and race, Reni Eddo-Lodge offers a timely and essential new framework for how to see, acknowledge and counter racism. It is a searing, illuminating, absolutely necessary exploration of what it is to be a person of color in Britain today.

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Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

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From the publisher: "This is a book that was begging to be written. This is the kind of book that demands a future where we'll no longer need such a book. Essential." -- Marlon James, Man Booker Prize-Winner 2015 "One of the most important books of 2017."

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Declartions of Whiteness | Sara Ahmed (2004)

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Declartions of Whiteness | Sara Ahmed (2004)

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Desiring Whiteness | Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks (2000)

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Desiring Whiteness | Kalpana Seshadri-Crooks (2000)

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Desiring Whiteness provides a compelling new interpretation of how we understand race. Race is often seen to be a social construction. Nevertheless, we continue to deploy race thinking in our everyday life as a way of telling people apart visually. How do subjects become raced? Is it common sense to read bodies as racially marked? Employing Lacan's theories of the subject and sexual difference, Seshadri-Crooks explores how the discourse of race parallels that of sexual difference in making racial identity a fundamental component of our thinking. Through close readings of literary and film texts, Seshardi-Crooks also investigates whether race is a system of difference equally determined by Whiteness. She argues that it is in relation to Whiteness that systems of racial classification are organized, endowing it with a power to shape human difference.

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Desiring Whiteness: A Lacanian Analysis of Race (Opening Out)

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Desiring Whiteness provides a compelling new interpretation of how we understand race. Race is often seen to be a social construction. Nevertheless, we continue to deploy race thinking in our everyday life as a way of telling people apart visually. How do subjects become raced? Is it common sense to read bodies as racially marked?

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Taking on popular music, advertising, literature, television, historical narrative, and film, hooks demonstrates the incisive intelligence and passion for justice that prompted Publishers Weekly to dub her "one of the foremost black intellectuals in America today."

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Taking on popular music, advertising, literature, television, historical narrative, and film, hooks demonstrates the incisive intelligence and passion for justice that prompted Publishers Weekly to dub her "one of the foremost black intellectuals in America today."

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Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism, and History | Vron Ware | download

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Beyond the Pale: White Women, Racism, and History | Vron Ware | download | Z-Library. Download books for free. Find books

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Persuasion starring Dakota Johnson | Official Trailer | Netflix

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Good White People | Shannon Sullivan (2014)

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Good White People | Shannon Sullivan (2014)

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Argues for the necessity of a new ethos for middle-class white anti-racism.

Building on her book Revealing Whiteness, Shannon Sullivan identifies a constellation of attitudes common among well-meaning white liberals that she sums up as "white middle-class goodness," an orientation she critiques for being more concerned with establishing anti-racist bona fides than with confronting systematic racism and privilege. Sullivan untangles the complex relationships between class and race in contemporary white identity and outlines four ways this orientation is expressed, each serving to establish one's lack of racism: the denigration of lower-class white people as responsible for ongoing white racism, the demonization of antebellum slaveholders, an emphasis on colorblindness-especially in the context of white childrearing-and the cultivation of attitudes of white guilt, shame, and betrayal. To move beyond these distancing strategies, Sullivan argues, white people need a new ethos that acknowledges and transforms their whiteness in the pursuit of racial justice rather than seeking a self-righteous distance from it.

"...Sullivan posits that it is white liberals' own 'anti-racism' that actually perpetuates racism by shutting down frank or nuanced discussions not only of race, but of white privilege, which created racial problems and still sustains them ... In advising white liberals how to honestly live their whiteness, rather than disown it or pretend it doesn't exist, Sullivan expertly deconstructs the familiar defenses ... Like W.E.B. DuBois and James Baldwin before her, Sullivan sees white domination as a spiritual problem that afflicts one group in particular but that touches us all." - Ms. Magazine

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Good White People: The Problem with Middle-Class White Anti-Racism

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Argues for the necessity of a new ethos for middle-class white anti-racism. Building on her book Revealing Whiteness, Shannon Sullivan identifies a constellation of attitudes common among well-meaning white liberals that she sums up as "white middle-class goodness," an orientation she critiques for being more concerned with establishing anti-racist bona fides than with confronting systematic racism and privilege.

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Netflix's Persuasion | Amanda-Rae Prescott

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Netflix's Persuasion | Amanda-Rae Prescott

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Features
There may be valid criticisms of Dakota Johnson's Persuasion, but the gleeful vitriol leveled against the movie and its inclusive cast reveals insidious gatekeeping of the Jane Austen canon by so-called fans.

Photo: Netflix

Netflix's Persuasion starring Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot and Cosmo Jarvis as Capt. Wentworth has become a very controversial adaptation of Jane Austen's novel since debuting on Netflix, with many critics and writers already debating the pros and the cons of the movie. However, in my personal opinion as an Afro-Caribbean American Austen fan, there has not been enough discussion of the harm racists and gatekeepers have done with the way they have engaged in discussing this movie.

I personally experienced the wrath of Austen fandom racists during "PineappleGate" and know that the debates over the merits of director Carrie Cracknell's Persuasion are hiding deeper issues. They also repeat the same patterns.

While the vast majority of good faith critiques by professional critics, as well as fan reactions, stuck to discussing elements of Persuasion that were separate from race, chatter on Facebook and other social media sites reveals that racists are hiding behind fair game adaptation critiques because they serve the purpose of convincing BIPOC and new viewers not to watch the film.

Although Johnson's Anne is white in the movie, she is surrounded by many more characters of color compared to past adaptations. Anne's sister Mary (Mia McKenna-Bruce) is married to Charles Musgrove (Ben Bailey-Smith), and their children are biracial. Charles' sisters Louisa (Nia Towle) and Henrietta (Izuka Hoyle, who is best known for her role in the West End cast of Six the Musical) are also diversely cast, and their melodrama, gossip, and hyperactivity represent the opposite of Anne's mourning and frustrated existence.

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Lady Russell (Nikki Amuka-Bird) who initially advised Anne not to marry Wentworth but then has a change of heart is also Black. Their presence in the space of the film is normalized and the film also wisely makes the choice to not break the escapism by answering questions of how the Musgroves and Lady Russell have obtained their status in society, thus avoiding some of Bridgerton's pitfalls with juxtaposing history and fantasy.

Meanwhile Henry Goulding as Mr. Elliot is a bold experiment in racebent casting in a Regency-set period drama. Goulding was offered both Wentworth and Mr. Elliott, and chose to stretch his acting skills and play an antagonist. In the story, Mr. Elliot has a roguish agenda to stop Anne's widower father Sir Henry Elliot (Richard E. Grant) from remarrying and disinheriting him. He's intrigued by Anne but Anne sees his presence as a distraction best kept at a distance.

While I will leave the ultimate call on stereotypes such as the " yellow peril villain" in relation to Mr. Elliot to Asian viewers, Persuasion is still going in the right direction in regard to expanding East and Southeast Asian representation in UK period dramas. It is clear some women wanted the chance to fetishize Goulding the way they did Regé-Jean Page from season 1 of Bridgerton and threw a tantrum at the trailer, because romance/period drama fandom struggles with rooting for antagonists/villains compared to other fandoms.

Persuasion picks up where Mr. Malcolm's List left off by featuring Ashley Park and Naoko Mori. Bridgerton in contrast mainly featured East Asians as very minor or background characters. East and Southeast Asian representation in UK period dramas in the past decade has focused on stories far away from the Regency era: the cleaned up but still problematic Yi Tien Cho story in Outlander Season 3, the blocked by copyright law from US viewing WWII era miniseries, The Singapore Grip, and more recently the Hong Kong set episode of the BBC/PBS miniseries Around The World In 80 Days. No matter what viewers decide on this adaptation's approach to Mr. Elliot, we need more diverse representation in future Austen adaptations and non-Austen period dramas overall.

Sources sent me these screencaps from a popular Austen Facebook group which proves that people are hiding behind dog whistles. "Historical accuracy" is a well-known dog whistle to justify attacks against inclusive casting. They also specifically reference Bridgerton as a negative influence, which is also pervasive, problematic element in fandom.

This two part thread shows how a BIPOC Austen fan was criticized by for pointing out racism. Fortunately they were supported by a white fan:

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Similarly, Austen blogger Black Girl Loves Jane faced passive aggressive comments on one of her Facebook group discussion posts. When she confronted other members for criticizing the movie over casting Black actors, admins shut off responses to her post. She also found racists disguising their feelings about the movie with meme humor. The meme maker Photoshopped the Persuasion cast into a poster for the UK "comedy" series Carry On. For those who are unaware after they click the image, the Carry On series on UK streaming services have content warnings for racist and sexist stereotyping. This sort of meme humor is another easy way for heinous sentiment in fandom to slip under the radar with a jeering nudge and "joke."

There has long been an established link between strict canonical interpretations of Austen and upholding white supremacist structures since well before Persuasion. Whether mainstream critics like it or not, there is a segment of Austen fandom that truly believes this necessary step toward racial inclusion is intolerable. There was even a previous racial backlash in fandom toward Sanditon, an adaptation of an unfinished Austen novel where Austen herself created Georgiana Lambe to be a Black heiress.

The focus of racial ire in that fandom turned to enforcing boundaries of who could participate in fandom. Those same elements of fandom also don't like Bridgerton and Mr. Malcolm's List for representing BIPOC as having money and status in the Regency, these two works are based on modern Regency romance novels and not Austen's books. (Regency romance has its own history of racism which is interconnected.) This is also combined with many of Austen's characters and the world around them having been built on slavery and colonialism.

The Jane Austen Museum at Chawton House has made strides to acknowledge this difficult history, but many in the UK media attacked the museum for it. The Black Lives Matter movement across Austen fandom and the Regency historical costuming community during June 2020 also brought into the light those who claimed their exclusionary tactics were motivated by religious fundamentalism. This was the result of such fans posting anti-Black Lives Matter posts on Instagram that were subsequently deleted. This context is key in understanding how fandom is interpreting Persuasion.

Closely related to this blatant racism, there is also the issue of driving away younger Austen fans. Many critics have argued that the modernization in the dialogue is "egregious," but these are the sort of changes Generation Z viewers are going to appreciate. These pronouncements ignore that many of the changes are actually closer to history than expected and are also faithful to Austen's spirit or intention.

"She's a 5 in London but a 10 in Bath" correctly points out the fact Bath was a resort town far away from the bustle of London, plus the scarcity of eligible young women in that community. Witty observations of social structures are at the heart of Austen's novels. An Austen historian pointed out on Twitter that the term "exes" first shows up historically in 1825, only a decade after the original publication of Persuasion. There are far worse anachronisms in all-white period dramas.

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Austen gatekeepers also are attacking the framing of Anne's melancholy about being forced to give up Wentworth. This also ties into the racism factor as Anne Elliot has been seen by many as a paragon of "white womanhood," which would naturally exclude BIPOC and other marginalized groups. White women weaponizing their identity against BIPOC in fandom has been well documented in other fandoms, however it wasn't until the Sanditon PineappleGate controversy that there was any attempt to document this in Austen/period drama circles. Many claim that Anne "wasn't funny," but they're missing the point.

It's clear the screenwriters of 2022's Persuasion combined the dark humor many younger fans used to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic with the examples of Austen's humor from the novel. Anne's role as a caretaker for the ill along with her frustrations over her sister's selfish ways resonates so much with our pandemic experience. These visual and dialogue queues were misinterpreted as Anne being a "girlboss." A girlboss character would be taken seriously by the supporting cast around her, not as an awkward fifth wheel until her skills are deemed important by others. Anne's calm when Louisa falls during the Lyme excursion, and Wentworth immediately praising Anne, is what proves the screenwriter actually "read the novel," despite the condescending skepticism of some reviews.

Persuasion represents the new generation of adaptations that will borrow more cinematically and thematically from other adaptations plus other movies in general versus relying solely on Austen's original novels. Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice (2005) is echoed in the costuming choices of Persuasion, and the cinematography and the modernized humor of the new film is clearly influenced by Autumn de Wilde's Emma (2020).

Many reviewers have also compared Anne talking to the camera as reminiscent of Fleabag, but the comparison not only is a sly dig at recent pop culture trends younger viewers love but also ignores that there are examples of breaking the fourth wall during the historical Regency. Epistolary novels, or novels based on letters addressed to the general public to read, have the same function as a character talking directly to the camera. Austen's earliest works, such as Love & Friendship, were examples of the epistolary format.

Some Austen fans are even angry at the thought that younger fans will find the modernizations in the movie approachable, such as this Tumblr post mocking the screenwriter for writing with their 13-year-old daughter in mind. How is this not the very definition of ageist gatekeeping in fandom? It's depressing that I had to read hundreds of posts attacking the movie before I found someone excited for the film. Shouldn't we be happy for and eagerly welcome Gen Z into Austen fandom?

"Jane Austen Is For Everyone" was a slogan BIPOC Austen fans came up with a few years ago, because literary societies, historical costume groups, and academic spaces were prioritizing white comfort over making antiracist reforms. The founders of that slogan also hoped that one day there would be adaptations that reflected race/ethnic diversity. Persuasion is the first wholly based on one of Austen's novels to use racebent casting. While many media critics correctly pointed out this is a good thing, this fact in Austen fandom is intolerable. Racism in Austen fandom is defined by unspoken hostility, dog whistles, "tranquility," and maintaining discussion spaces that fail to ban white supremacist sympathizers.

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Although separating the fair critiques from the bad ones is difficult work, it must be done. If "Austen Is For Everyone," that should indeed include BIPOC and fans who like Persuasion. More must be done to confront racism and gatekeeping in Austen fandom.

Written by

Amanda-Rae Prescott

Amanda-Rae Prescott is a long time Outlander fan, period drama enthusiast and cosplayer. Her previous season Outlander commentary can be found at Blacklanderz and Nerdeek Life. When she's not...

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Persuasion Discourse Has Revealed Racism in Jane Austen Fandom

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Features There may be valid criticisms of Dakota Johnson's Persuasion, but the gleeful vitriol leveled against the movie and its inclusive cast reveals insidious gatekeeping of the Jane Austen canon by so-called fans. Netflix's Persuasion starring Dakota Johnson as Anne Elliot and Cosmo Jarvis as Capt.

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Netflix Persuasion | Bianca Hernandez-Knight 

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Netflix Persuasion | Bianca Hernandez-Knight 

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In our "Romanticism Beyond the Academy" series, we invite literature-lovers to reflect on the significance of Romantic-era writers and ideas in the contemporary world and/or in their own lives. In the following post, Bianca Hernandez Knight reviews Netflix's Persuasion (2022) and discusses how criticisms of the film can play into white supremacist fantasies of a "pure" Austen universe. See more entries from this series here. To write for this series, contact us.
Netflix's Persuasion Falls Short of Its Vision, But Isn't All Agony

A review by Bianca Hernandez Knight

"I am half agony, half hope"- Mr. Wentworth, Jane Austen's Persuasion

You know when you're ordering dinner somewhere and you think "I know I always get my regular dish, but tonight I'm gonna try something new?" That's the leap of faith Jane Austen fans who have a special place in their heart for Persuasion have to make in order to watch this new film.

Specifically, the folks who cling to the previous adaptations as pillars of perfection.

As you can guess, I don't believe that Persuasion (1995, with Ciarán Hinds and Amanda Root) or Persuasion (2007,with Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones) are the ultimate adaptations. But I also don't think Netflix's Persuasion (2022) is either, though I do think Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis have moments we often don't get in other on-screen adaptations.

Instead of delivering us another comfortable version of Persuasion (aka the dish we have already had many times), Netflix gives us something new. It's a dash of EMMA. (2020) and yes... it's very "modern" at times. It has modern language, modern movement and expression, but I don't see that as a detractor. (Though do be aware of people who are using "modern" in terms of casting choices, because using it as a placeholder for "not-white" is reinforcing problematic and racist ideas of the Regency.) The few times when the filmmakers depict Anne with a 21st-century sensibility are like salt in a chocolate chip cookie: they bring out moments of Austenian writing that are still so keenly accurate to contemporary life and experiences of heartbreak, while making it far easier to digest for present-day audiences who are watching a fairly fast-moving plot in less than two hours.

That being said, as someone with a background in media (across many mediums) I have a few thoughts on the approach to Persuasion taken here. A movie is not a book, nor is it a miniseries. Netflix's Persuasion is one hour and 47 minutes. When it comes to movies, especially adaptations, you have to decide what to keep, what is most vital to your vision. I know this seems simple, but the number of times I have to remind folks of this when talking about book-to-screen adaptations having different lengths is kind of sad. We cannot compare movie adaptations to the books they are attempting to adapt without nuance.

With that in mind, it is clear that this Persuasion made choices. And much like Anne, it has to live with them.

The choice to bring "modern" elements of language, expression and dating into this story were fun to see, but ultimately it would have been a more successful adaptation if it hadn't held back on that. It's only a partial commitment to a vision, a vibe of what Persuasion is at times, and I think that's what contributes to this adaptation being hard to love fully. It was always gonna let down the Austen "purists" who demand each new adaptation somehow capture every single element of her books, but if the goal was to woo new, young audiences, I feel it only goes halfway.

It was also a choice to cast Dakota Johnson, and sadly I think this adaptation suffers as a consequence. This movie chooses to ditch a lot of the elements of Persuasion (Mrs. Smith, more discussion of economics, class issues, the tension of new money) to focus on Anne and Wentworth's relationship, specifically through Anne's gaze. I don't have an issue with the shift of focus, and in fact see it as a strength, setting it apart from the other film adaptations that have to cram so much info into so little time. While class and economic questions are crucial to Austen's world, an adaptation does not need to take on every aspect of her novels. It can stand alongside and in conversation with all the others. Giving audiences time to mull over tense interactions over melancholy music captures a critical part of Persuasion, because it ultimately is a novel that meditates on sadness, grief and the past.

The sad truth is casting Dakota Johnson as the lead in a film so much more focused on Anne's gaze and performance was a mistake. She does not have the range to pivot from intense sorrow, to patient management of her insufferable family, to grappling with a lingering passion for Wentworth. Johnson nailed the awkward moments of trying to regain a foothold in Wentworth's life, but she has no tension with Cosmo Jarvis' superb Wentworth. Johnson can sell an audience on Anne's sorrow, but leave us feeling just as confused as Wentworth on where she really stands. I think the most damning moment is Dakota reading Wentworth's letter to the camera, utterly lacking in believable shock or relief or joy.

However, many of the cinematic choices that modernize Persuasion translate so much of the interiority of the novel into the film medium. Anne breaking the fourth wall by looking at the camera and making a joke about her sadness and situation is... relatable. Would the Anne Elliot on the page do that? No, but if folks want that Anne they have three movies that give us the more silent and reserved version of her already. For me, the Anne who jokes about being "single and thriving" is relatable. I was once 27, single and trying not to be bitter. I'm pretty sure I can dig up similar comments I made about my relationship status, or lack of one.

Yes, I loved Persuasion in my mid 20s. I still do, but I also am no longer 27. I think that the filmmakers giving Anne language and characterization that speak to modern 27-year-olds is frankly refreshing. We constantly see headlines of new "gritty" versions of classics, but what about just making them more clearly relatable for modern audiences? I know some folks will scream that it's wrong to change Anne at all, and that it's a basic misunderstanding of the novel to do so, but don't we as Persuasion fans want more folks to read this book and see all the things we see too?

I'm not saying Netflix's Persuasion is like Wishbone. I don't think it's suddenly going to make waves of young adults read this book, but I do wonder why some are so adamant that modern movies cannot take liberties in order to weave a story more accessible to modern audiences? When I think about how Jane Austen would be categorized today, I know most of her works would be in the YA section (which ranges from 13-18), with Persuasion classed as having an older outlook (Anne is 27 and Wentworth 31), I think it works to incorporate devices we see in movies that center similarly aged relationships. Anne's much-maligned line from the trailer about being "exes" is delivered after a painfully real interaction with Wentworth, making me immediately think of conversations I've had with friends about the pain of someone you're really interested in dating deciding to friend-zone you.

For all the little self-deprecating moments from Anne, to me the major appeal of this film is how it centers Anne and Wentworth's relationship, specifically their pain and their baggage. This film doesn't spend a lot of time articulating economics or class issues (though they are mentioned), and instead gives an audience plenty of time to see all the ways these two people are still trying to heal, even as they both feel the slashes of new wounds. There's a scene in Lyme where Anne and Wentworth are talking in that tiptoeing way you do with someone who you are vulnerable with, but also hurt by. I felt like the script did such a good job conveying that these are two people trying to figure out where they stand without giving up too much of themselves again.

Who among us hasn't been more cautious with a broken heart?

The first trailer from Netflix (which elicited people lamenting the "Fleabag era" or "Bridgertonization" of Jane Austen) was flawed, but the movie isn't as extreme as that trailer suggested, and I understand why the marketing team tried to convey a less dreary story. A trailer is an ad, it's a way to sell tickets or subscriptions, and after years of misleading trailers I'm not really sure why folks rely on them to be the true representation of a movie. (Like... folks know that trailers are made by different teams than the ones that made the film, right? They're legit an ad agency.) Regardless, I think presenting Anne as not just an ideal, but someone with flaws who is clearly still going through some shit is nice to see.

Honestly, before I read Persuasion the first time I felt like it was too depressing for me because of how folks described it, but was so pleasantly surprised by all of the moments of complicated feelings and relationships that I was hooked once I read it. I'm glad I didn't let first impressions (a term very familiar to Janeites) scare me away from Persuasion, but I do think this first trailer from Netflix was an attempt to convince audiences who don't want to watch another depressing film that this is different. Considering the state of the world and the continued effects of the pandemic on our overall health, I haven't been clamoring to watch sad films either.
The choice to try to market this as a Fleabag-ish adaptation was shaky and could ultimately tank the film. I don't feel like that first trailer accurately represents the film, but I think the damage was done when Austen communities decided to dogpile on it.
Despite its shortcomings, I love so many little things in this movie. Mary Musgrove being *that* white lady who misuses, even weaponizes, mental health terms to justify their own selfishness is spot on, and I think anyone who is offended by this portrayal has some serious soul searching to do. Louisa's fall is violent, shocking in a way the other adaptations handle clumsily. In previous iterations this fall is delivered through shaky camerawork and strategic cuts, but in this version we get a raw, visceral fall that immediately pulls audiences out of the serene seaside walk. Sir Walter Elliot, as played by Richard E. Grant, is perfectly self-absorbed. The music is spare and melancholy. Henry Golding is just superbly seductive on screen as Mr. Elliot. Lady Russell admits her past mistakes and hints at some fun tours she takes (good for her).

The ire for this adaptation makes me sad because it overshadows the fact that we should be celebrating the diverse casting of this film. I will never get tired of seeing BIPOC folks on-screen in period drama, especially after so long being excluded from those spaces while very much existing. Persuasion has a diverse case but chooses not to engage with discussions of race or racism. I personally don't have an issue with that, having seen many diverse stage adaptations, but I do wonder what a Persuasion that engages with race and racism would look like. And perhaps the loss of the Joel Fry/Sarah Snook adaptation will be our personal lost love, the adaptation we almost got and never will now.

Indeed, I think Austen audiences are eager for an adaptation that centers race and racism, even as the Janeite community continues to struggle with decentering colonialism in how people are "allowed" to interpret and interact with her works. There are already many harmful remarks about the Musgrove sisters being Black in this Netflix adaptation. Before it was canceled, there was a firestorm of people insisting Wentworth could never be Black in the Joel Fry adaptation, using flimsy "historical accuracy" arguments that had less basis in reality and more basis in the whitewashing of history. We desperately need to continue to push adaptations to not only represent the world we live in, but the one Austen herself inhabited, one with a diverse population.

Which brings me to my final thoughts, though I could go on forever about so many details in this movie (the bunny! the "playlist"! the nod to stalking your exes feed!). I don't hate this adaptation, and I firmly believe some of the anger at it is inflated. It's fine. It had ample chances to do something unique and never-before-seen, and failed to. It chose to be safe despite trying to be different.

What is successful here is how the film portrays a complex relationship that begins in the characters' early 20s and resumes on different terms eight years later, when they've had time to think about the long-term ramifications of their choices and have experienced a lot more of the world. There's palpable anxiety and awkwardness, sometimes Anne's outbursts of comments go a little too awkward (I could bear to watch this without the Uppercross dinner or tea with the Dalrymples), but I there was a wonderful attempt to bring to the screen a very layered relationship.

While this is still not the Persuasion I feel in my heart when I read the book, I think a valiant effort was made to portray parts of the book that get rushed in other on-screen adaptations that are more concerned with checking off points on a "book accuracy" checklist than with an original vision. Cosmo Jarvis is the first Wentworth I'm really sold on, vacillating between cutting words to Anne or Mr. Elliot when necessary to reflections about his time at sea or longing to be settled (a Wentworth who isn't fully in love with naval life? Who seems a little jaded by how the government treats him and his crew? I want more.).
It's been wild seeing some folks act like Netflix came into their homes and burned all their copies of Persuasion. No one is taking away your Ciarán Hinds honey. He's always gonna be there, much like your go-to meal at your favorite restaurant.
But if you're in a mood for something different, something that might even surprise you in a good way, give this a try when it drops July 15 on Netflix.

Social media mage by day, and nerd of many fandoms by night, Bianca Hernandez-Knight is a lady of many interests. From fighting for a more inclusive Jane Austen community, to ignoring her TBR pile, she is always ready for her next nerdy project. She works professionally in social media, mostly in brand marketing and around audience engagement. You probably saw her iconic memes on Drunk Austen (RIP), but can now enjoy them on Bookhoarding, which can be found on most social media platforms. You can read her article "Race and Racism in Austen Spaces" published in the academic Journal ABO here.

In our "Romanticism Beyond the Academy" series, we invite literature-lovers to reflect on the significance of Romantic-era writers and ideas in the contemporary world and/or in their own lives. In the following post, Bianca Hernandez Knight reviews Netflix's Persuasion (2022) and discusses how criticisms of the film can play into white supremacist fantasies of a "pure" Austen universe. See more entries from this series here. To write for this series, contact us.
Netflix's Persuasion Falls Short of Its Vision, But Isn't All Agony

A review by Bianca Hernandez Knight

"I am half agony, half hope"- Mr. Wentworth, Jane Austen's Persuasion

You know when you're ordering dinner somewhere and you think "I know I always get my regular dish, but tonight I'm gonna try something new?" That's the leap of faith Jane Austen fans who have a special place in their heart for Persuasion have to make in order to watch this new film.

Specifically, the folks who cling to the previous adaptations as pillars of perfection.

As you can guess, I don't believe that Persuasion (1995, with Ciarán Hinds and Amanda Root) or Persuasion (2007,with Sally Hawkins and Rupert Penry-Jones) are the ultimate adaptations. But I also don't think Netflix's Persuasion (2022) is either, though I do think Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis have moments we often don't get in other on-screen adaptations.

Instead of delivering us another comfortable version of Persuasion (aka the dish we have already had many times), Netflix gives us something new. It's a dash of EMMA. (2020) and yes... it's very "modern" at times. It has modern language, modern movement and expression, but I don't see that as a detractor. (Though do be aware of people who are using "modern" in terms of casting choices, because using it as a placeholder for "not-white" is reinforcing problematic and racist ideas of the Regency.) The few times when the filmmakers depict Anne with a 21st-century sensibility are like salt in a chocolate chip cookie: they bring out moments of Austenian writing that are still so keenly accurate to contemporary life and experiences of heartbreak, while making it far easier to digest for present-day audiences who are watching a fairly fast-moving plot in less than two hours.

That being said, as someone with a background in media (across many mediums) I have a few thoughts on the approach to Persuasion taken here. A movie is not a book, nor is it a miniseries. Netflix's Persuasion is one hour and 47 minutes. When it comes to movies, especially adaptations, you have to decide what to keep, what is most vital to your vision. I know this seems simple, but the number of times I have to remind folks of this when talking about book-to-screen adaptations having different lengths is kind of sad. We cannot compare movie adaptations to the books they are attempting to adapt without nuance.

With that in mind, it is clear that this Persuasion made choices. And much like Anne, it has to live with them.

The choice to bring "modern" elements of language, expression and dating into this story were fun to see, but ultimately it would have been a more successful adaptation if it hadn't held back on that. It's only a partial commitment to a vision, a vibe of what Persuasion is at times, and I think that's what contributes to this adaptation being hard to love fully. It was always gonna let down the Austen "purists" who demand each new adaptation somehow capture every single element of her books, but if the goal was to woo new, young audiences, I feel it only goes halfway.

It was also a choice to cast Dakota Johnson, and sadly I think this adaptation suffers as a consequence. This movie chooses to ditch a lot of the elements of Persuasion (Mrs. Smith, more discussion of economics, class issues, the tension of new money) to focus on Anne and Wentworth's relationship, specifically through Anne's gaze. I don't have an issue with the shift of focus, and in fact see it as a strength, setting it apart from the other film adaptations that have to cram so much info into so little time. While class and economic questions are crucial to Austen's world, an adaptation does not need to take on every aspect of her novels. It can stand alongside and in conversation with all the others. Giving audiences time to mull over tense interactions over melancholy music captures a critical part of Persuasion, because it ultimately is a novel that meditates on sadness, grief and the past.

The sad truth is casting Dakota Johnson as the lead in a film so much more focused on Anne's gaze and performance was a mistake. She does not have the range to pivot from intense sorrow, to patient management of her insufferable family, to grappling with a lingering passion for Wentworth. Johnson nailed the awkward moments of trying to regain a foothold in Wentworth's life, but she has no tension with Cosmo Jarvis' superb Wentworth. Johnson can sell an audience on Anne's sorrow, but leave us feeling just as confused as Wentworth on where she really stands. I think the most damning moment is Dakota reading Wentworth's letter to the camera, utterly lacking in believable shock or relief or joy.

However, many of the cinematic choices that modernize Persuasion translate so much of the interiority of the novel into the film medium. Anne breaking the fourth wall by looking at the camera and making a joke about her sadness and situation is... relatable. Would the Anne Elliot on the page do that? No, but if folks want that Anne they have three movies that give us the more silent and reserved version of her already. For me, the Anne who jokes about being "single and thriving" is relatable. I was once 27, single and trying not to be bitter. I'm pretty sure I can dig up similar comments I made about my relationship status, or lack of one.

Yes, I loved Persuasion in my mid 20s. I still do, but I also am no longer 27. I think that the filmmakers giving Anne language and characterization that speak to modern 27-year-olds is frankly refreshing. We constantly see headlines of new "gritty" versions of classics, but what about just making them more clearly relatable for modern audiences? I know some folks will scream that it's wrong to change Anne at all, and that it's a basic misunderstanding of the novel to do so, but don't we as Persuasion fans want more folks to read this book and see all the things we see too?

I'm not saying Netflix's Persuasion is like Wishbone. I don't think it's suddenly going to make waves of young adults read this book, but I do wonder why some are so adamant that modern movies cannot take liberties in order to weave a story more accessible to modern audiences? When I think about how Jane Austen would be categorized today, I know most of her works would be in the YA section (which ranges from 13-18), with Persuasion classed as having an older outlook (Anne is 27 and Wentworth 31), I think it works to incorporate devices we see in movies that center similarly aged relationships. Anne's much-maligned line from the trailer about being "exes" is delivered after a painfully real interaction with Wentworth, making me immediately think of conversations I've had with friends about the pain of someone you're really interested in dating deciding to friend-zone you.

For all the little self-deprecating moments from Anne, to me the major appeal of this film is how it centers Anne and Wentworth's relationship, specifically their pain and their baggage. This film doesn't spend a lot of time articulating economics or class issues (though they are mentioned), and instead gives an audience plenty of time to see all the ways these two people are still trying to heal, even as they both feel the slashes of new wounds. There's a scene in Lyme where Anne and Wentworth are talking in that tiptoeing way you do with someone who you are vulnerable with, but also hurt by. I felt like the script did such a good job conveying that these are two people trying to figure out where they stand without giving up too much of themselves again.

Who among us hasn't been more cautious with a broken heart?

The first trailer from Netflix (which elicited people lamenting the "Fleabag era" or "Bridgertonization" of Jane Austen) was flawed, but the movie isn't as extreme as that trailer suggested, and I understand why the marketing team tried to convey a less dreary story. A trailer is an ad, it's a way to sell tickets or subscriptions, and after years of misleading trailers I'm not really sure why folks rely on them to be the true representation of a movie. (Like... folks know that trailers are made by different teams than the ones that made the film, right? They're legit an ad agency.) Regardless, I think presenting Anne as not just an ideal, but someone with flaws who is clearly still going through some shit is nice to see.

Honestly, before I read Persuasion the first time I felt like it was too depressing for me because of how folks described it, but was so pleasantly surprised by all of the moments of complicated feelings and relationships that I was hooked once I read it. I'm glad I didn't let first impressions (a term very familiar to Janeites) scare me away from Persuasion, but I do think this first trailer from Netflix was an attempt to convince audiences who don't want to watch another depressing film that this is different. Considering the state of the world and the continued effects of the pandemic on our overall health, I haven't been clamoring to watch sad films either.
The choice to try to market this as a Fleabag-ish adaptation was shaky and could ultimately tank the film. I don't feel like that first trailer accurately represents the film, but I think the damage was done when Austen communities decided to dogpile on it.
Despite its shortcomings, I love so many little things in this movie. Mary Musgrove being *that* white lady who misuses, even weaponizes, mental health terms to justify their own selfishness is spot on, and I think anyone who is offended by this portrayal has some serious soul searching to do. Louisa's fall is violent, shocking in a way the other adaptations handle clumsily. In previous iterations this fall is delivered through shaky camerawork and strategic cuts, but in this version we get a raw, visceral fall that immediately pulls audiences out of the serene seaside walk. Sir Walter Elliot, as played by Richard E. Grant, is perfectly self-absorbed. The music is spare and melancholy. Henry Golding is just superbly seductive on screen as Mr. Elliot. Lady Russell admits her past mistakes and hints at some fun tours she takes (good for her).

The ire for this adaptation makes me sad because it overshadows the fact that we should be celebrating the diverse casting of this film. I will never get tired of seeing BIPOC folks on-screen in period drama, especially after so long being excluded from those spaces while very much existing. Persuasion has a diverse case but chooses not to engage with discussions of race or racism. I personally don't have an issue with that, having seen many diverse stage adaptations, but I do wonder what a Persuasion that engages with race and racism would look like. And perhaps the loss of the Joel Fry/Sarah Snook adaptation will be our personal lost love, the adaptation we almost got and never will now.

Indeed, I think Austen audiences are eager for an adaptation that centers race and racism, even as the Janeite community continues to struggle with decentering colonialism in how people are "allowed" to interpret and interact with her works. There are already many harmful remarks about the Musgrove sisters being Black in this Netflix adaptation. Before it was canceled, there was a firestorm of people insisting Wentworth could never be Black in the Joel Fry adaptation, using flimsy "historical accuracy" arguments that had less basis in reality and more basis in the whitewashing of history. We desperately need to continue to push adaptations to not only represent the world we live in, but the one Austen herself inhabited, one with a diverse population.

Which brings me to my final thoughts, though I could go on forever about so many details in this movie (the bunny! the "playlist"! the nod to stalking your exes feed!). I don't hate this adaptation, and I firmly believe some of the anger at it is inflated. It's fine. It had ample chances to do something unique and never-before-seen, and failed to. It chose to be safe despite trying to be different.

What is successful here is how the film portrays a complex relationship that begins in the characters' early 20s and resumes on different terms eight years later, when they've had time to think about the long-term ramifications of their choices and have experienced a lot more of the world. There's palpable anxiety and awkwardness, sometimes Anne's outbursts of comments go a little too awkward (I could bear to watch this without the Uppercross dinner or tea with the Dalrymples), but I there was a wonderful attempt to bring to the screen a very layered relationship.

While this is still not the Persuasion I feel in my heart when I read the book, I think a valiant effort was made to portray parts of the book that get rushed in other on-screen adaptations that are more concerned with checking off points on a "book accuracy" checklist than with an original vision. Cosmo Jarvis is the first Wentworth I'm really sold on, vacillating between cutting words to Anne or Mr. Elliot when necessary to reflections about his time at sea or longing to be settled (a Wentworth who isn't fully in love with naval life? Who seems a little jaded by how the government treats him and his crew? I want more.).
It's been wild seeing some folks act like Netflix came into their homes and burned all their copies of Persuasion. No one is taking away your Ciarán Hinds honey. He's always gonna be there, much like your go-to meal at your favorite restaurant.
But if you're in a mood for something different, something that might even surprise you in a good way, give this a try when it drops July 15 on Netflix.

Social media mage by day, and nerd of many fandoms by night, Bianca Hernandez-Knight is a lady of many interests. From fighting for a more inclusive Jane Austen community, to ignoring her TBR pile, she is always ready for her next nerdy project. She works professionally in social media, mostly in brand marketing and around audience engagement. You probably saw her iconic memes on Drunk Austen (RIP), but can now enjoy them on Bookhoarding, which can be found on most social media platforms. You can read her article "Race and Racism in Austen Spaces" published in the academic Journal ABO here.

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Netflix's Persuasion Falls Short of Its Vision, But Isn't All Agony - K-SAA

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In our "Romanticism Beyond the Academy" series, we invite literature-lovers to reflect on the significance of Romantic-era writers and ideas in the contemporary world and/or in their own lives. In the following post, Bianca Hernandez Knight reviews Netflix's Persuasion (2022) and discuss