Canterbury Christ Church University has bowed to pressure from students and labour unions to sack Historian David Starkey, after the visiting professor claimed in an interview that ‘slavery was not genocide’ because ‘so many damn blacks live in Africa and Britain’.
The 75-year-old academic who is a visiting professor at the university, made the comments during an online interview with Brexit campaigner Darren Grimes for YouTube channel Reasoned UK.
During the interview, Starkey said: ‘Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain, would there? An awful lot of them survived and again there’s no point in arguing against globalisation or Western civilisation. They are all products of it, we are all products of it.
‘The honest teaching of the British Empire is to say, quite simply, it is the first key stage of our globalisation. It is probably the most important moment in human history and it is still with us.’
The interview sparked a backlash online, even British-Nigerian historian David Olusoga reacted, tweeting, ‘This is truly disgusting. And by the same ridiculous, twisted logic the Holocaust would not be counted as a genocide.’
The university has now put out a statement announcing the professor's sack while apologizing to students and staff of the school.
In a statement today Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam College said: "The Master has accepted Dr David Starkey’s resignation of his honorary fellowship with immediate effect. "
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