David Olusoga

I have a lot of nothingness to work with this archive, and I'm going to use that to my advantage.

And I think it's, I'm trying to remember the quote, but I think it's David Olusoga and he talks about how the Victorian stage essentially had a weird mix of opportunity, racism, and racial stereotyping, and a freedom too.

So it's this real kind of web of complexity, as well as having a lot of this nothingness, means that I have...

I'm in a very unusual position in which I can't pretend that this recording was not happening in the time, in the place in which the Bohe brothers were facing an immense amount of also sonic racism.

It was extraordinary because I have heard often people talk about incidents in their childhood.

The one that really stands out for me is David Olusoga, actually.

And he talked about I think it was growing up somewhere in Newcastle and he was a mixed race child and, you know, taking a punch in the playground.

And I was like, shit, that's horrible.

It's called End Times Fascism and it's co-authored by the activist and filmmaker Astra Taylor.

Naomi and Astra joined the historian David Olusoga live in conversation in London a couple of weeks back to tell us more.

Good evening.

It's so wonderful to see so many of you here tonight.

So Sky News, they've sort of revamped their Sunday morning, and they've put lots of personality presenters in there, rather than, um, journalists.

So Ruth Davidson, David Olusoga, they're gonna have different hosts each week.

Everyone is tr- trying, whether you think it's GB News or Sky News, everyone is trying to get some kind of hook into the viral market.

Mm.

I'm currently reading a book, and this does delve us a little bit back into, um, what's on our bookshelf, 'cause it is on my bookshelf at the moment.

But I am finding it fascinating, and it is called Black and British Forgotten History, and it's by David Olusoga, and I'd recommend this month finding a book that you could really delve into, because it is a real insight into quite recent past where, you know, things were very, very different.

So let me read you this passage.

This is all about World War II and how women in Britain were discouraged strongly from going out with anybody who was a Black American GI, and to the point where they were shamed in newspapers, so their names were printed in newspapers.

We will be having, you know, new arrivals and then birds, um, disappearing off as well for, for warmer climes.

But yeah, so that's been really interesting.

I've already mentioned the Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga.

I recommend that.

Yes.

I, I, by the way, I do wanna remind people, in the last Celebrity Traitors final of five people, it was David Olusoga, Nick Mohammed, Cat Burns, and Joe Marler, and Alan Carr.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't believe...