YouSaid · the spoken record

Olivette Otele

lines on the record: 57
first: 2021-10-22
most recent: 2021-10-22
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Yes, it was very common. I mean, black madons are still here today, you know, the Virgin Mary of Montserrat, Guadalupe, and they're still very much not venerated, but people are very attached to them. But there's a dislocation and the distancing between those characters that existed, as you said, in medieval times and now. And the thing that is interesting about the Black Madonna's was that it was interpreted in various ways. So some people have argued that their color changed over time and it's the degradation of the sculpture that gave them the color black. Others are arguing that they've always been painted black and others are seeing some of the Madonna's have black hands. So the interpreter's kind of religious interpretation was this. You can be beautiful outside spiritually and ugly inside.”
2021-10-22 · Intelligence Squared · The Untold Story of African Europeans, with Olivette Otele · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Colonial exploitation developed, and in particular the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, so we see completely that distancing with what was there for centuries and suddenly European supremacy in terms of economic, if you would, economic promise takes over and changes mentalities and the African becomes the slave and the slave the African at least even the language changes the way people of Africa they send out refer to. So yeah, it's a long journey.”
2021-10-22 · Intelligence Squared · The Untold Story of African Europeans, with Olivette Otele · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Romans. So the color of the skin becomes something not completely inappropriate, but something that is just there, you know. So, and it was important for me to see how that connection and those that gaze completely change a few centuries later. So another example, I think it's 1240, for example, King Frederick, who was the king of Sicily. He had his Lord Chamberlain, who was Johannes de Moor, so he had an African who is his Lord Chamberlain. So he had, in his immediate in Sicily kingdom of Sicily, in his immediate entourage and his government, if you would, he had people from different color, of different colour, and he also welcomed the Jews and the Arabs and the Turks. So things change as colonial.”
2021-10-22 · Intelligence Squared · The Untold Story of African Europeans, with Olivette Otele · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Ah, that's interesting, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to start there, because I wanted to show that the notion of race or the prejudice based on color, on the color of the skin, is relatively new in so many ways. Because just to give you an example, you see in Roman times, it was about power, it was about education, it was about the ones who master Latin and Greek. It was about somebody who was a leader, who people who were intelligent enough to kind of climb the social ladder. So a color was one of the elements, but the Roman Empire had regions that were under the ban of the Roman Empire. In other words, North Africa, which is nowadays, what is nowadays North Africa, many places there where part of the Roman Empire. So all these people were basically”
2021-10-22 · Intelligence Squared · The Untold Story of African Europeans, with Olivette Otele · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And young people in Britain, young people in regions, in places, in villages, in West Wales for example, are finding connections with that story. I've seen them in Cardiff, for example, demonstrating with other people, even though it's not what they see as their family's history, but they consider it to be their history too. So this is an important moment, yes.”
2021-10-22 · Intelligence Squared · The Untold Story of African Europeans, with Olivette Otele · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, if you look at from that point of view, from our moment, these stories are very important. They're incredibly urgent. It's urgent to be shared. But the truth is these stories have been shared in various communities. It means that the story of black people, people of African descent, has been shared by many in various places. So it's now about a moment of reckoning the fact that in 21st century 2020, we are still grappling with the legacies of the past and the impact of racism on our communities. So in that sense, this is incredibly important, a crucial moment as well of collaborations because we talk about racism and the damages and the awful legacy inequalities and all that, but there is something else that is happening. It's the fact that young people from across the globe”
2021-10-22 · Intelligence Squared · The Untold Story of African Europeans, with Olivette Otele · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It matters because this is part of our humanity it's part of European history, part of African history, part of the world history, and very much in favour of full disclosure of any kind of stories, whether they're disturbing or not. I'm in favor of exchanging stories and sharing what connects us and sometimes as well what divides us. So these stories are very important for us.”
2021-10-22 · Intelligence Squared · The Untold Story of African Europeans, with Olivette Otele · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source