Oddly, I wasn’t here 200 years ago
Posted on Oct 13 2006 | Tagged as: The Stupid, Media, Race
The current issue of Catalyst, the Commission for Racial Equality’s magazine, has an interesting article by Nick Wyke on the plans to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of slavery in the UK next year.
Discussing the cities that have apologised for their past involvment in the slave trade, he quotes the London Baptist Association’s minister for racial justice, Rev Kumar Rajagopalan, as saying “Too many people believe they are not responsible for what happened in the past.”
Well, we’re clearly not responsible for what happened in the past - unless we’re Doctor Who - so how do any of us owe anyone an apology for something our ancestors may have done?
Unless Rajagopalan is holding us equally to blame for something we had no part in just because we share genetic material. I’ve heard of that kind of thinking before somewhere…
