Furore in California School District Over High School Students’ ‘Nazi-Style’ List of Jews, Antisemitism’s ‘Long March Through the Institutions’, French Police Knew in Advance of Paris Kosher Supermarket Killer’s Weapons Cache, Witness Tells Terror Trial, California Governor Vetoes Bill Establishing Ethnic Studies Curriculum Criticized as Antisemitic, US Legislators Launch International Parliamentary Effort to Combat Antisemitism Online. It really did bring it home to me in a new way that this is all around us. Susanna Reid then chipped in to urge Piers to let Afua speak as he attempted to speak over her. If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us [email protected], calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page - we'd love to hear from you. I have not read Brit(ish), and doubt I ever will, but I did glance through a number of reviews. She is best known as a strident social critic who likes to focus on the imperceptible racism and prejudice that continues to permeate British society — imperceptible, that is, to those who aren’t its victims. Combining scientific detective work, reportage and dramatic reconstruction, “Enslaved” has multiple moments of pure horror, such as slaves being thrown overboard from the Spanish ship Guerrero to help it outdistance a British schooner and still deliver its illicit slave cargo to Cuba; or rusted iron ankle cuffs used to shackle slaves in pairs to encumber their movements and ensure no possibilities or swimming or escape. How would you describe the impact this project had on you, particularly visiting historical slave trading sites like Elmina in Ghana? Afua Hirsch, quite unintentionally, has provided us with a searing insight into the 21st-century politics of identity. When Miriam spoke about him, he was still considered ordinary, and her words were considered straightforward lashon hara. Yet “Enslaved” has moments of charm, such as scenes of Samuel L. Jackson, after DNA tests suggest his ancestors were transported as slaves from Gabon, visiting the country to retrace his roots. He just threw himself into this project with so much energy. The fact that if you go to Oxford to read history now, you can study the Trans-Atlantic slave trade as one subject or you can study the Industrial Revolution as a separate subject, which to me has no intellectual integrity. Despite the merits of her cause, however, like so many other tabloid polemicists, Hirsch seems to have lost the plot along the way. “You know what? I think that’s very deliberate. Those profits were invested in the industrial revolution, in infrastructure, in banking, in education, so the slave trade wasn’t a side hustle, it was the main event in British economic growth. It was this global trade and there are statistics about how many millions of Africans were killed and how many were trafficked and how many were stolen, but I think it often comes across as quite an abstract history to people. Normalization between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is arguably one of the most significant events in Middle East... For Hirsch this is not new territory. Elsewhere on today’s show, Piers launched into a furious rant about Meghan and Harry and claimed they’re ‘breaking up the royal family’. By involving Samuel L. Jackson — that instantly appeals to a completely new demographic, younger audiences familiar with his incredibly vast catalogue of movies. https://hollywoodmask.com/media/afua-hirsch-age-partner-married.html Miriam was not a heretic, he says, as it was only through God’s reaction that Moses’ unique status became known. Rather than trying to undermine her brother’s leadership or destroy his image, Miriam was simply engaged in constructive criticism, however misguided. There’s never a dull moment on live television, is there? And while not exactly comparable, it is equally clear that if the legacy of Sir Winston Churchill is threatened, the freedom for which he fought will inevitably also be in grave danger. Our world as we know it would not exist without this history. Jackson’s face, as he is greeted by Gabon’s minister of culture, local Benga dancers and a hugely enthusiastic crowd — emotion, surprise, overwhelming — are a picture, and an upbeat moment in a docu series which comes in from multiple angles on the slave trade, a huge entry in history’s annals of human infamy. At one point, at the turn of the eighteenth century, sugar from enslaved Africans working for British-owned plantations in the Caribbean was the single most valuable import to the British Isles. Maimonides uses this episode as proof of the severity of gossip and slander, in Hebrew known as lashon hara. Rabbi Wasserman’s solution is casuistic, and doesn’t really feel right. There is no British or American or South American or African person who was not touched by this history. Piers Morgan clashed with a Good Morning Britain guest in an explosive debate about whether the British press has been racist towards Meghan Markle. Or we talk about it on a very personal level. © Copyright 2020 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media, LLC. The Atlantic Ocean is literally littered with the wreckages of slave ships. But before she had time to continue her point, Piers asked if she was accusing him of being racist. Afua Hirsch is a British lawyer and journalist — born to a Jewish father whose family escaped Nazi Berlin in 1938, and an Ashanti Ghanaian mother. As of 2020, she is around 39 years old. She’s the first mixed-race person to enter the royal family. And the heated discussion didn’t stop there. In February Hirsch published her first book, Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, which the publisher promoted as a “personal and provocative investigation” into the collective denial that pervades British society in terms of its racist past and present. For Hirsch, honoring Nelson is a provocation, on account of his notorious opposition to William Wilberforce’s campaign to abolish slavery. Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV. Where has Disney Channel gone – why is it no longer on Sky? ‘You say we’re demonising a woman of colour, you’re the one bringing race into this,’ Piers scolded. Variety and the Flying V logos are trademarks of Variety Media, LLC. get the best of the algemeiner straight to your inbox! There would seem to be an inevitable connection between the industrial revolution and the slave trade …. Afua Hirsch debated the portrayal of Meghan Markle in the press on GMB (Picture: ITV) Piers clashed with Afua over her opinions (Picture: ITV) Susanna Reid then chipped in … Instead of recognizing the fundamentally positive nature of British identity, she tears it apart — all under the guise of presenting a “warts-and-all” perspective that doesn’t brush uncomfortable truths under the carpet. Afua Hirsch on ‘Enslaved,’ the enormity of the slave trade, working with Samuel Jackson. I would like to suggest an alternative answer. This is an edited extract from her book, ‘Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging’, published on February 1 by Jonathan Cape. Visiting former slavery hubs, such as slave dungeons at Elmina in Ghana, where one of Hirsch’s ancestors lived, and, introducing a sense of adventure to painstaking research, capturing six dives to locate and examine sunken slave ships, “Enslaved” documents the enormity and mortality of the slave trade. Beating Adolf Hitler, winning the war, stopping him exterminating every Jew he could get his hands on, these to me are far greater achievements than the negatives that lurk in his past, which lurk in anybody’s past.”. Indeed, this is often the case with lashon hara — the agenda is to correct an aberration or improve a situation. So I have a long family history that has always fascinated me. But what begins as a quest to get Britain to look at itself in a mirror, ends up as a McCarthyesque witch-hunt that targets icons of British history and trashes Britishness as hypocritical snobbery masquerading as tolerance and inclusiveness. But also the archaeological element, the adventure of it, the dives and the mystery solving as well as the the storytelling and the travelling, I think it’s so many things. ‘I’m saying that the narratives that you’re perpetuating are racist,’ Afua added. But in the case of an iconic leader or inspirational hero, constructive criticism can lead to damaging cynicism, or even anarchy. It was a really emotional one for me because when I was writing my book, which is about identity and British ethnicity, and partly about history, I did some research on my own family and even found a drawing of my fifth great grandfather’s house in Elmina, in the 1830s I think it was, which was just incredible. Why do you take exception to the word exotic?’. Variety talked to Afua Hirsch during this week’s virtual marketplace. Sold by Fremantle outside the U.S., Canada and Israel, featuring dives by Diving with a Purpose, an expert team of international deep-sea divers, part of the National Association of Black Scuba Divers, “Enslaved” is produced by Toronto-based Associated Producers and London’s Cornelia Street Productions. This, he says, resolves the problem with Maimonides’ use of this story as the basis of the laws of lashon hara. Afua Hirsch was Created 1-2 June 1981 from Also an Mum from Ghana as Well as Stavanger, Norway into a British Dad. Notwithstanding the fact that Miriam had nurtured and cared for Moses as a child, and had meant Moses no harm, she was penalized and reprimanded for her words. Afua Hirsch is a British lawyer and journalist — born to a Jewish father whose family escaped Nazi Berlin in 1938, and an Ashanti Ghanaian mother. MGM premium TV service Epix announced Tuesday that it will exclusively premiere in the U.S. in summer 2020 the six-part docuseries “Enslaved,” executive produced by and featuring Samuel L. Jackson. Sorry, this video isn't available any more. Introduction : Afua Hirsch is a person of many talents, as evinced by her foray into diverse areas. Afua then brought Danny Baker’s racist royal baby tweet into the argument, to which Piers replied: ‘Danny Baker’s not remotely racist as anyone who knows him knows. Piers dismissed this, telling her that she needed to look at the “bigger picture.” But Hirsch was unrepentant. And when the agenda is polemical deconstruction and unbridled nihilism, as in the case of Afua Hirsch, it is not lashon hara, but rather a deliberate path towards self-destruction. Many beautiful novels and films and TV series have been made recounting individual experiences, like Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” or the “Roots” series. What interested you about this production that brings to life the inhuman horror of the slave trade? One of the things that really appealed to me is that we talk about the history on two radically different levels. The idea of the series is to get beyond the self-selected groups that would engaged with the traditional documentary about the subject. He was genuinely intellectually curious about the history and also felt this emotional attachment to his own heritage and his own story. Is the South Park coronavirus pandemic special available to watch in the UK? Afua Hirsch June 12, 1981. ‘I’m telling you that as someone who’s lived the experience of being a person of African heritage in this country that there are narratives that are regularly…’ Afua continued. It is executive produced by Samuel L. Jackson, LaTanya Jackson, Eli Selden, Rob Lee, Jacobovici, Ric Esther Bienstock and Yaron Niski and produced by Ric Esther Bienstock, Sarah Sapper and Felix Golubev. She is also a visiting professor of journalism at … I have always felt that there was this gulf in the middle that makes it difficult for people to personally connect with the scale of the history and that’s because there is not really anything that you can see up close. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Afua Hirsch is the author of "Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging." Writer, broadcaster, and former barrister Afua Hirsch joined the programme alongside columnist Sarah Vine, PR expert Nick Ede and former royal butler Paul Burrell and locked horns with the host as they discussed coverage of the Duchess of Sussex.