Pride and Prejudice

Disdaining television as I do, I occasionally resort to the recently discovered BBC iPlayer. Much of the little that is available there appears to be unwatchable trash but there are a very few worthwhile offerings (how the mighty have fallen). Who Do You Think You Are? just sits in that class. The fifth programme in the series, available to watch or download until 9:59pm Wednesday, 17th inst, traces the family history of Ainsley Harriott, the television chef.

Naturally, given that the object of research is rooted in the West Indies, slavery loomed large in his past, and his anger on seeing the monument to the owner of his maternal ancestors was not unexpected though Mr Harriott was philosophical, describing slavery, incorrectly, as 'the story of the black man' (The overwhelming majority of 'blacks' are not descended from slaves and many are descended from slave owners or those who happily traded in slaves, of whatever hue, and slavery is actually the story of the 'white' man: 'Slave' is derived from Slav and the inhumane treatment of 'white' slaves, many of them English, in both the Roman and Mohammedan Mediterranean puts the suffering of 'black' slaves in Europe and the Americas very much in the shade). What was telling was his discomfort on learning that not all of his maternal ancestors, and ancestresses, were slaves (one was a policeman with an impressive property portfolio apparently bought with the earnings of his prostitute mother) and his shock on learning that his great great grandsire was himself a 'white' slave owner. His distress on finding his ancestral home derelict and overgrown was signal.

There is a lesson in his experiences: We may be proud, as he is, of what we are but we can never really know just what we are and sometimes, if we are to continue to be proud of what we are, we must give up some of our prejudices. It wasn't 'compelling' viewing but the programme was instructive and I hope it is shown as part of the slavery syllabus that is to be taught to our children, ostensibly that they might thereby form a more accurate and thus 'fairer' understanding of the past and their ancestors', and ancestresses', rôle in shaping it.
.