Slavery ‘Not Just About Profit And Suffering’, UK Government-Backed Race Report Claims

Slavery was not just about making profit and British schools should instead tell a “new story” about culturally African people, a controversial government-backed report has said.

The race and ethnic disparities commission said the UK’s education system should focus on parts of the “Caribbean experience” that show how “culturally African people transformed themselves into a re-modelled African/Britain”.

It said education about the British Empire should focus on how “Britishness” influenced former colonies and those colonies “influenced what we know about modern Britain”.

“One great example would be a dictionary or lexicon of well known British words which are Indian in origin,” the report’s controversial chair Tony Sewell wrote in the foreword.

It went on: “There is a new story about the Caribbean experience which speaks to the slave period not only being about profit and suffering but how culturally African people transformed themselves into a re-modelled African/Britain.”

Labour called on the government to explain how it published content which “glorifies the slave trade” and urged ministers to “immediately disassociate themselves from these remarks”.

The review, commissioned after the Black Lives Matter protests, has been controversial since its inception after Boris Johnson gave control of it to his top policy adviser Munira Mirza, who has previously accused an “anti-racism lobby” of fostering a “culture of grievance”.

The government has also been criticised for appointing Sewell as chair of the review after he previously claimed evidence of institutional racism was “flimsy”.