5-minute read
Dermot Feenan
LLB MA LLM Barrister-at-Law FRSA
On 30 June 2020, an interview with Dr David Starkey was broadcast online via the web channel Reasoned hosted by Darren Grimes, founder of the pro-Brexit group BeLeave in the United Kingdom. Grimes describes himself on his personal website as “conservative commentator, broadcaster and Brexit campaigner.”
Dr Starkey, who is a historian of the Tudor period, made comments about slavery and Black people which led to termination of a visiting position at Canterbury Christ Church University and membership of the board of the magazine History Today. The Board of the Mary Rose Trust announced that it had accepted Dr Starkey’s resignation.
The comments led to the Master of Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, contacting Dr Starkey about his honorary fellowship at the college, following which the historian resigned. The college stated: “Fitzwilliam prides itself in leading the way in Cambridge in opening access to higher education for underrepresented groups. Our student and academic bodies are diverse and welcoming to all. We do not tolerate racism.”
The Royal Historical Society decided that Dr David Starkey’s comments were “inconsistent with membership of the Society” and resolved that he be asked to resign his RHS fellowship with immediate effect. The Historical Association withdrew the Medlicott Medal it had awarded Dr Starkey.
Harper Collins announced on Twitter that Dr Starkey’s views “are abhorrent and we unreservedly condemn them.” It added: “Our last book with the author was in 2010, and we will not be publishing further books with him. We are reviewing his existing backlist in light of his comments and views.”
On 3 July, the University of Kent, which awarded Dr Starkey an honorary degree in 2006, said: “We are appalled by and condemn recent comments made by Dr David Starkey […] we have triggered the honorary degrees revocation procedure.”
This article explains why I have written to Lancaster University supporting a case for the University to deprive Dr Starkey of the honorary doctorate that it awarded him in 2004.
Dr Starkey’s comments of 30 June
In the interview, Dr Starkey states: “Slavery was not genocide otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or Britain would there? An awful lot of them survived…”
Earlier in the interview, Dr Starkey states: “You, Black Lives Matter, are wholly and entirely a product of white colonisation. You are not culturally Black Africans. You would die in seconds if you were dumped back in Black Africa because you wouldn’t know how to cope.”
In addition, Dr Starkey states: “As for the idea […] that slavery is this kind of terrible disease that dare not speak its name, it only dare not speak its name […] because we settled it nearly 200 years ago.”
Discussion of Dr Starkey’s comments
Dr Starkey’s reference to “damn blacks” is offensive. It demeans Black people. It conveys irritation at the existence of Black people.
Dr Starkey’s comment about Black Lives Matter is also demeaning towards Black people. It misrepresents the culture of some members of Black Lives Matter, and infantilises them by insinuating their inability to “cope” if they were in Africa. The demeaning language of Black people being “dumped” is extended into noxious historical racist tropes of “black Africa” as dangerous.
These concerning comments should also be read alongside a minimising by Dr Starkey of Black experience (and of the concerns of others about slavery, its legacies and Black experience) when he says that slavery was “settled nearly 200 years ago”. As UCL’s Legacies of British Slave-ownership database illustrates, colonial slavery shaped modern Britain and its legacies persist.
Dr Starkey’s Statement of 6 July: Analysis
Dr Starkey issued a statement on 6 July, which was reported in The Mirror newspaper. It includes the following: “I used the phrase ‘so many damn blacks’ […] I am very sorry for it and I apologise unreservedly for the offence it caused.” I have set out the full statement in an Annex to this article. I do not regard the statement as an apology, for the following reasons.
The statement pertains only to the phrase “so many damn blacks”.
Dr Starkey also dismissed the idea of genocide against Black people by stating that “slavery was not genocide.” That dismissal is also concerning, especially in the context of the interview and the full statement.
The comments are accompanied by disturbing attempts to sanitise Empire by stating that “the honest teaching of the British Empire is to say that […] generally speaking, in most ways, actually fruitful.”
“As for the idea […] that slavery is this kind of terrible disease that dare not speak its name, it only dare not speak its name […] because we settled it nearly 200 years ago.” Slavery was not “settled” nearly 200 years ago. It has still not been “settled” in the UK.
This, too, is a disturbing dismissal of the concerns of Black people (and concerned others).
Dr Starkey does not provide an immediate, still less compelling, apology. His statement foregrounds his own justification for using the phrase and his own feeling, as follows.
I discussed the Black Lives Matter protest movement and the attempt by some of its supporters to delegitimise British history. It is a subject on which I feel strongly since I believe a nation’s history is the only basis for its present and future. Which is why I have devoted my whole career to studying and teaching and trying to understand it better.
It seems implausible, as Dr Starkey asserts, that the phrase “so many damned blacks” “was intended to emphasise […] the numbers who survived the horrors of the slave trade.” There is nothing in the context of the interview which could reasonably convey that meaning.
Dr Starkey engages in minimisation of abusive language by stating that the phrase was conveyed “in hindsight with awful clumsiness”. The phrase was not clumsy. Dr Starkey was educated at grammar school and at the University of Cambridge.
He has authored numerous books. He has been commissioned to produce TV series. He is not, on a number of measures, an uneducated individual who might be excused simply for clumsy remarks. He has a history of making racist (and sexist) comments publicly.
The minimisation is repeated when he says the phrase: “was a bad mistake.” Context and pattern suggests not. In any event, he undermines even these flimsy excuses by saying incoherently that the price he has paid for “one offensive word” arose from “misunderstanding of my words”.
Rather than take full responsibility for this phrase (and the minimising of genocide), he minimises his responsibility and seeks to shift responsibility to others by saying his phrase “in the present atmosphere, where passions are high and feelings raw, was deplorably inflammatory.”
What is known is what Dr Starkey said. What is not agreed is what is meant by “the present atmosphere”. Dr Starkey seeks also to obscure the reality of his comments in that interview with his vague reference to “atmosphere”. It is a classic technique of avoidant re-framing.
Dr Starkey’s purported apology is buried away deep within his attempted exculpatory statement: precisely, nine sentences in and nine from the end. And, it is tucked right before the misrepresenting plea for sympathy, below, which effectively wipes away any contrition.
I have also paid a heavy price for one offensive word with the loss of every distinction and honour acquired in a long career.
Additionally, the statement hints that what is really at stake is the ability to speak freely. It’s a distraction. And it insinuates that the problem lies not with him but with others. He says:
Central to British history is a tradition of free speech. If that tradition is suppressed on questions of race, resentments will fester rather than disappear.
My principal regret is that my blundering use of language and the penalty it has incurred will further restrict the opportunities for proper debate.
Ultimately, Dr Starkey cannot contain his arrogance. His “principal regret” is not in fact with the offence or hurt caused, but with his “penalty” and the imagined restrictions on “opportunities for proper debate”.
In sum, Dr Starkey’s statement is not only an “non-apology apology”: it is a disturbing insight into his unwillingness to take responsibility. It serves to distort, misrepresent, minimise the offence & the harm he has caused, blame others, and re-position himself as victim.
Lancaster University and its honorary degree
Lancaster University awarded Dr Starkey an honorary degree of D. Litt. (Doctor of Letters) in 2004.
The University states on its website: “Honorary Degrees are awarded to people with a recognised international standing in their field, and to those who have given special service in connection with the University or its regions”.
However, the University also allows for such degrees to be revoked in certain circumstances.
Under the University’s Charter, 4.(h), the Council and the Senate of the University may, where there is good cause, deprive a person of, among other things, any degrees or academic distinctions granted to them by the University.
Ordinance 17. 1 provides: “In respect of a person granted an ‘academic distinction’ by the University, an award based on that person’s reputation, ‘good cause’ could also include a finding that the individual has been adjudged by any court or other appropriate body to have conducted himself or herself in a manner which is inconsistent with the continued status of an individual holding an academic distinction of the University of Lancaster.”
My letter to the Vice Chancellor of Lancaster University on 7 July supports the case for Dr Starkey to be deprived of his honorary degree.
I argue that Dr Starkey’s comments are not consistent with the continued status of an individual holding academic distinction with the University, or indeed any university. His conduct damages fundamentally the reputation, including the standing, upon which he was awarded an honorary degree.
I note in the letter that it is a matter of public interest that the concerns about Dr Starkey’s comments should be acted upon promptly and appropriately, not least by a publicly-funded body such as Lancaster University.
I add that Dr Starkey’s comments about “damn blacks” and his communication that Black people in Black Lives Matter “would die in seconds if […] dumped back in black Africa because [they] wouldn’t know how to cope”, especially when read alongside his minimisation of slavery, its legacies and Black experience, are separately and jointly entirely inconsistent with the following:
- The University’s statutory duties in section 149 of the Equality Act 2010;
- The University’s ‘Our People Strategy 2020’ which states that two of the key measures of success and impact will be: “Increase in the diversity profile of applicants” and “Increased diversity profile of internal staff promoted into senior academic and leadership roles”;
- The University’s Equality & Diversity Plan, which “reflects [the University’s] commitment to celebrating the diversity of members of the University and maximising their potential, underpinned by an emphasis on equality of opportunity and equality of treatment”;
- The University’s EDI Strategy to, among other things, “improve equality of opportunity and remove barriers for groups and individuals to allow them to flourish in their research, teaching, studies, engagement, administration, service and life at the University.”
Deprivation of the honorary degree would not be inconsistent with the University’s duties to uphold academic freedom or freedom of expression.
I copied the letter to the Chair of Council, Lord Roger Liddle.
@Dermot Feenan 2020
Annex: Statement by Dr Starkey
On 30 June 2020, a podcast was broadcast in which I discussed the Black Lives Matter protest movement and the attempt by some of its supporters to delegitimise British history.
It is a subject on which I feel strongly since I believe a nation’s history is the only basis for its present and future. Which is why I have devoted my whole career to studying and teaching it and trying to understand it better.
During the interview, I used the phrase ‘so many damn blacks’. It was intended to emphasise – in hindsight with awful clumsiness – the numbers who survived the horrors of the slave trade. Instead, it came across as a term of racial abuse. This, in the present atmosphere, where passions are high and feelings raw, was deplorably inflammatory.
It was a bad mistake. I am very sorry for it and I apologise unreservedly for the offence it caused. I have also paid a heavy price for one offensive word with the loss of every distinction and honour acquired in a long career.
This misunderstanding of my words in no way reflects my views or practice on race. I have lived and worked happily and without conflict in multicultural London for almost 50 years and I spent much of the podcast discussing bi-culturalism as a key to the success of Britain’s multicultural society.
But that success is founded in turn on Britain’s multi-national history in which for the last three hundred years previously excluded groups have been incorporated, with struggle but without revolution, into the political nation as full and valued citizens.
Central also to British history is a tradition of free speech. If that tradition is suppressed on questions of race, resentments will fester rather than disappear.
My principal regret is that my blundering use of language and the penalty it has incurred will further restrict the opportunities for proper debate. For it is only open debate that will heal the divisions in our society that the Black Lives Matter movement has both exposed and expressed.
I shall be making no further comment.