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The many meanings of Haile Selassie I
In my last blog I bemoaned the return of the theatre adaptation of Ryszard Kapuściński’s famous book The Emperor. I criticized the portrait of Haile Selassie I in the book and the play, a portrait of a feudal gothic overlord that even Kapuściński later refuted. I worried about the consistent artistic reduction of all things African to…
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There is more to Ethiopia and Africa than Dog Piss
I write this blog as a response to the new production of a play due to run at the Young Vic, London, based on Ryszard Kapuściński’s famous book The Emperor, about the final days of the reign of Haile Selassie I, emperor of Ethiopia. The book was turned into a play in the late 80s. Salman…
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Black Academia 1.2
For the last couple of years I’ve written a bit of commentary on the Equalities Challenge Unit’s statistical reports on higher education, paying especial attention to what they say about the state of Black Academia in the UK. So here are some comments on the latest report, incorporating data from the 2013/14 academic year. I’m not…
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Racism, multiculturalism and Brexit
I take it as a given (by polls) that the most influential reason why people voted Brexit was not to restore British sovereignty in the abstract but more precisely to “take it back” in order to stop more of “them” coming over. I also take it as understood that this statement does not infer that all who voted for Brexit are racists.…
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The Black Pacific: forum, critiques, responses
Recently The Disorder of Things ran a forum on my book, The Black Pacific. After an initial post by myself, Heloise Weber (University of Queensland), Sankaran Krishna (University of Hawai’i), Ajay Parasram (Carleton University), and Olivia Rutazibwa (University of Portsmouth) provided commentary and critique, and then I finished the forum with my response. Since then, I’ve been very fortunate…
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The Black Pacific
This year I published a book called The Black Pacific: Anti-colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections. You can buy it, or download it for free from the publishers: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/the-black-pacific-anti-colonial-struggles-and-oceanic-connections/ Because so much of the book was based on community stories, I wanted to make sure that the conversation could and continue and that the end of the book…
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Black Academia 1.1 (update)
Last summer I uploaded a blog post called Black Academia, which outlined the state of staff and students of African heritage (which for the purposes of this blog I term as Black) in UK academia. This is what I concluded: Black students are over-represented in general, but especially – and perversely – in less prestigious institutions.…
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More notes for discerning travellers
A little while ago I wrote a blog, Notes on Europe and Europeans for the Discerning Traveller. It was a fictional travel guide, but with all points speaking to historical realities. What is it about a certain “European” sensibility? Not all people who live in European countries have it, of course, but this sensibility seems to…
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Four quick paradoxes of the welfare state for Black communities
1) The welfare state was supposed to provide universal provision but was never extend to British subjects outside of the UK. However, British subjects in colonial territories were just as much subjects to the crown as those resident in the UK. 2) The era where, in large part due to the welfare state and the…
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RasTafari and reparation time
I’ve just published a little piece about the August 1st reparation march through London on OpenDemocracy. You can access it here: https://www.opendemocracy.net/beyondslavery/robbie-shilliam/rastafari-and-reparation-time
Robbie Shilliam 