Welcome to a compilation of insightful quotes by David Olusoga, a prominent historian, writer, and presenter known for his captivating explorations of history, particularly focusing on themes of race, colonialism, and identity. With a distinctive ability to weave together narratives from the past and present, Olusoga offers profound reflections that challenge conventional perspectives and encourage deeper understanding of our shared human experience.
Through his work, David Olusoga brings to light the often overlooked stories and voices of marginalized communities, shedding light on the complex intersections of power, culture, and heritage. Whether delving into the legacies of empire, the impact of slavery, or the dynamics of modern-day racism, his words resonate with a blend of intellectual rigor and empathetic insight, provoking thought and fostering dialogue on pressing issues of our time.
Below, you’ll find a selection of David Olusoga’s most compelling quotes, ripe for contemplation, reflection, and perhaps even inspiration. These quotes offer not just a glimpse into his vast reservoir of knowledge and wisdom but also serve as powerful tools for individuals seeking to engage with history in meaningful and transformative ways. Feel free to use these quotes as a source of inspiration, whether for personal reflection, academic study, or creative endeavors.
But Johnson’s Churchill-lite shtick and Theresa May’s even less convincing Iron Lady routine are only even vaguely viable because they tap into a fantasy version of British history that has contaminated visions of our conceivable future. David Olusoga
When historians write the last pages of their books, and the producers of history documentaries sit down to edit the final minutes of their programmes, there is often a strong urge to look to the future and emphasise the positive. David Olusoga
To describe someone as a pessimist is to issue an insult, whereas to be labelled an optimist is to get a pat on the back. To dismiss someone’s argument as pessimistic is to suggest it is the product of a personality disorder, rather than careful analysis. David Olusoga
From daycare to graduation, our education system stacks the odds against the poor. Predicted grades is just one of many hurdles that are set a little higher for those whose parents do not have the money to smooth their path in life or the inside knowledge of how the system works. David Olusoga
History, after all, is a process, not a position, and it is not best written in bronze and marble. It is complex, plastic and ever-changing; all things that heroic statues are not. David Olusoga
Historians spend their days engaged in the literally endless task of reshaping and expanding our view of the past, while statues are fixed and inflexible. David Olusoga
I am as much British, white and working class, my mother’s background, as I am black and Nigerian, my father’s heritage. David Olusoga
There’s always been a snobby dismissal of football and the emotions it elicits in millions of people. David Olusoga
Britain in the 19th century was two things simultaneously; the hub of the largest empire on earth and the greatest manufacturing and trading nation the world had ever seen. Yet the formal empire and the trading empire were not the same thing. David Olusoga
Excusing or downplaying British racism with comparisons to the US is a bad habit with a long history. David Olusoga
Whether we like it or not, there are moments in history when pessimism is the appropriate response. David Olusoga
I was born in Africa but brought up in the north-east of England. Most of my childhood was spent living on a council estate that overlooked the Tyne and I went to the same junior school as Paul Gascoigne, of whom I have a vague memory. David Olusoga
We nonchalantly expect that next year’s smartphone will be faster and better than this year’s, yet we struggle to imagine that society and our lives could progress at anything like the pace at which technology advances and we meekly accept it when things go backwards. David Olusoga
In the Britain of 2019, around a third of a million of our fellow citizens are homeless. David Olusoga
Because racism is not like jealousy or selfishness, it is not a primal urge or a basic instinct, it is a 400-year-old political and economic system that has infected our institutions, our culture and even our thinking. David Olusoga
Not only does the UK have the highest levels of regional inequality among the major economies, the imbalance is widening, not narrowing. David Olusoga
Most people involved in the delivery of history, in universities, publishing, museums and the heritage industry, are aware that we have a problem with diversity and inclusivity. David Olusoga
As one of the very few black historians who, from time to time, appears on TV, my daily life is a constant, open-air focus group. David Olusoga
What needs to be debated is whether IQ tests, as currently designed, are fit for purpose, and capable of measuring the changing nature of intelligence in the 21st century among generations brought up with digital technology and different learning habits. David Olusoga
Britain fought the second world war with men and money partly drawn from the empire and that, after the defence of the home islands, the survival of the empire was a fundamental war aim. David Olusoga
Each year when the A-level results come out, thousands of students and their families settle down to deal with the implications – positive or otherwise – of the fact that their actual grades differ from those they had predicted by their schools. David Olusoga
I disagreed with my teachers on pretty much everything, including what grades I was going to get at A-level. I was sure I’d pass, they were convinced I’d fail. David Olusoga
I never had a black teacher or lecturer, I never once met a black British person who held any sort of professional or managerial role. David Olusoga
Donald Trump did not cause America’s democratic crisis of faith, he rode to power on it. Once in control, he and other populists discovered their room for manoeuvre was expanded by the same disillusionment that helped them into office. David Olusoga
It was through watching documentaries on the BBC in the late 1980s that I first became interested in art and history. David Olusoga
Even the building of a second British empire in the 19th century never fully healed the wound of losing America, and the end of Britain’s imperial prestige after the second world war has cut deeper. David Olusoga
I have met other black and mixed-race people who were victims of racism, often far worse than anything I experienced, and who have taken a different path. They moved away from their home towns as soon as they could. David Olusoga
As well as remembering the service of the non-white soldiers and auxiliaries of the first world war, we have also to remember what happened to them and their dreams of justice in the months and years after the armistice. David Olusoga
Our national history cannot be national if, in the near future, one in three young adults feels their stories remain untold, if this country’s long global history of empire and interconnections is marginalised and if the historical reality of race is rendered almost invisible. David Olusoga
The history of the British empire, the chapter of our national story that would have explained to my classmates why a child born in Nigeria was sat among them, was similarly missing from the curriculum. David Olusoga
Civilisation is slippery, the word has multiple and contested meanings. David Olusoga
I’ve received tweets that I suspect people wouldn’t have sent in 2015. Is that a changed country or is that people who are unpleasant feeling emboldened to speak? David Olusoga
Black people are expected to be passive citizens, good immigrants, mute and grateful. David Olusoga
For black and Asian people of my generation, the England team and the cross of St George were once ingredients in a toxic broth. For decades, a minority of England fans brought the nation and the national team into disrepute, bringing violence both to foreign streets and immigrant communities at home. David Olusoga
As a historian, I always think you know what a moment was 20 years later. David Olusoga
The emotional compact between football clubs and their supporters is visceral and usually lifelong. David Olusoga
Along with never having got round to writing down our constitution and having a monarch who legally owns all the swans, one of the things that makes the UK a bit of an outlier is our university admissions system. David Olusoga
Everyone is happy for the history of slavery to be investigated so long as the investigation examines the parts in which we look good. David Olusoga
At its height, Rome’s empire stretched right along the coast of north Africa and sub-Saharan Africans passed to and fro across its porous southern border. David Olusoga
The primitive fight-or-flight regions of our mammalian brains react to immediate danger. We instinctively run from an avalanche but the gradual retreat of a glacier, the portent of the far greater danger of rising temperatures and rising oceans, just doesn’t get through to us in the same way. David Olusoga
When I was a child, growing up on a council estate in the northeast of England, I imbibed enough of the background racial tensions of the late 1970s and 1980s to feel profoundly unwelcome in Britain. David Olusoga
After 150 years, Bristol’s prime music venue is to finally change its name and thereby cut its link to the infamous slave trader Edward Colston. David Olusoga
I think I was eight the first time I saw the Benin bronzes. I was taken to see them at the British Museum by my white, British mother, who felt it important that her half-Nigerian children learned about the artistic achievements of their forefathers. I’ve been entranced by them ever since. David Olusoga
Talking about class and identity can be as divisive as talking about race and racism. David Olusoga
What we’re seeing is a backlash against any attempt, whether from the world of scholarship or popular culture, to paint non-white people back into the British past. Those of us who write about this history have long been familiar with this. David Olusoga
The loss of the American colonies was the first time the process of British empire building had been put significantly into reverse, and became the starting point for a nostalgic yearning for lost colonies – and the wealth and global influence that came with them – that has become part of our national psyche. David Olusoga
My first teenage holiday was spent touring the great art galleries of Europe after having been inspired by what I had seen on television. David Olusoga
At 18, I stood in the Louvre in front of the paintings that TV had first shown me. David Olusoga
It is of course perfectly possible for a university, or any institution, to carry out a rigorous investigation into the historical origins of its accumulated wealth, while at the same time putting in place systems to address modern inequalities of access and attainment. David Olusoga
Britain today is not revolutionary France. There are no grades of citizenship. An immigrant who has just shaken hands at the end of their citizenship ceremony is as British as a member of the oldest family in the land. David Olusoga
I went to school in the 70s and the 80s, and the last thing I expected of my schools back then was that they would be the places in which I would be taught about black history. David Olusoga
By 1956, London Transport was recruiting in Barbados, even loaning migrants the costs of their passage to Britain. British Rail placed ads in the Barbados Labour Office and the NHS appealed to West Indian women to come to Britain and train to become nurses. David Olusoga
The British deployed the men of their Indian army on the European battlefield from October 1914; the decision being made within days of the outbreak of hostilities. David Olusoga
Since I began presenting programmes about black history my life has become a constant impromptu focus group. I am stopped in the street by people who want to talk about the histories those documentaries explore. David Olusoga
In my school, racism was ubiquitous and unrelenting, and not just from the pupils. For a year I was terrorised by one of my teachers. David Olusoga
Britain went to war in 1939 in the name of freedom and democracy, but fielded armies within whose ranks were black and brown men who were regarded and often treated as second-class citizens. David Olusoga
No matter that you’re a British citizen, no matter that you were born here – your skin colour means you do not have the same rights as others to express critical opinions about your own country. David Olusoga
History suggests that the disillusioned and the disaffected do not readily take to the streets nor man the barricades to defend a system that failed to defend them. David Olusoga
Democratically elected governments meekly requesting giant corporations to pay pitifully low levels of tax on their enormous profits is not a good look. David Olusoga
If you want someone to call you a traitor or accuse you of hating Britain, try suggesting that Britain is a normal nation or that our history is remarkable but not exceptional. David Olusoga
My view as a historian is that the empire was an extractive, exploitative, racist and violent institution and that the history of empire is one we need to confront and come to terms with, rather than celebrate. David Olusoga
The refusal to accept that the black presence in Britain has a long and deep history is not just a symptom of racism, it is a form of racism. It is part of a rearguard and increasingly unsustainable defence of a fantasy monochrome version of British history. David Olusoga
The great untruth around which everything pivots is the idea that the defenders of these statues are the defenders of history and truth; while those who want to see them toppled or contextualised are the Huns at the gate, who would destroy national histories and bring down great men. David Olusoga
The old racism of imperialism not only rendered the postwar political elite unable to see black people as full British citizens, it provided them with a whole glossary of stereotypes and preconceptions that they then deployed in order to justify their aim of introducing immigration controls. David Olusoga
Racism is not primal or instinctive. David Olusoga
I don’t have any personal memories of the broadcast of ‘Civilisation’. I was born the year afterwards. But the many personal stories I have heard from the people it touched do resonate as I had my own television-induced epiphany. David Olusoga
Ultimately, the naming of buildings is not a mechanism by which history is kept alive. It is a mechanism by which the rich and the powerful are honoured. David Olusoga
Why go from the individual to the entire race, from the singular to the group, from the guilty to the innocent? We know why. That is how racism works. That is racism in action. David Olusoga
Schools unable to keep their lights on and their doors open for the full working week is just the latest bleak instalment of a long-running show. The age of austerity returns for its ninth miserable year; always in the background, the common denominator in everything from the Brexit vote to knife crime. David Olusoga
Racism is a belief system. It was assembled over centuries from many component parts – bits of biblical scripture, the propaganda of the slave-owning lobby and the pseudo-science of academics working in universities in Europe and America. David Olusoga
Many anglophone Africans still have deep emotional, economic and often familial links to Britain, but those with money are now as keen to holiday in Dubai as London. David Olusoga
Theories, books and ideas created within ivory towers had real-world consequences. David Olusoga
Ten Guinea Street is on a Historic England site. David Olusoga
Public buildings, built from the rates and taxes paid by past generations, are being auctioned off by impoverished councils who need the money to pay the redundancies of workers they can no longer afford to employ. Many of these grand Victorian buildings will be turned into flats that most people will never be able to afford. David Olusoga
1819 was a year of hunger, mass unemployment, political repression and murderous, state-sanctioned violence. David Olusoga
Britain and Churchill fought not solely in the name of liberty and democracy, but also with the intention of maintaining the empire, defending vital interests and remaining a great power. David Olusoga
I only ever wanted to do history, and make documentaries. David Olusoga
It is true that Britain and its institutions have survived past crises, but often this was because those in charge, at a certain point, snapped out of the stupor of latent optimism, recognised the dangers circling the nation and acted. David Olusoga
A hard Brexit would be so damaging to the true interests of the UK that what might follow – if we are lucky – is a great unmasking, not just of the political fantasists and chancers who peddled the great Brexit swindle, but of the historical delusion that empowered them. David Olusoga
Black history is a series of missing chapters from British history. I’m trying to put those bits back in. David Olusoga
I finally got to watch ‘Roots’ in my mid-teens, on a video rental. Slowly and meticulously Roots fed its black characters through the mincing machine of American slavery. People with names, hopes and family connections were destroyed and dehumanised before my eyes. David Olusoga
Some of the problem with IQ tests stems from the inescapable reality that human intelligence is staggeringly complex and multifaceted. David Olusoga
The most extreme among the Brexiters are convinced they can ride the chaos and deploy the ‘shock doctrine’ to remake the nation in their ideological image. David Olusoga
The age of national leaders, or candidates for high office, has never been automatically regarded as an issue for concern. David Olusoga
Given that his rousing speeches play on a perpetual loop somewhere in the back of the national psyche, and the bulk of the country is unshakable in its view of Churchill as the greatest of British heroes, how can the historian see him with any clarity? David Olusoga
Even in London, at the centre of the wealthiest region in northern Europe, in so many ways insulated from the financial realities faced by the rest of the country, the facts of austerity are becoming harder to ignore. David Olusoga
While everyone knows that London is both big and overprivileged when it comes to spending, the scale of its dominance is poorly understood. London is not just the biggest city in the UK, it is the biggest city in western Europe. It is also the richest region. David Olusoga
I have always been most drawn to those moments from the past when people from distant lands and different societies made contact with one another. David Olusoga
The easiest way to make television authentic is to make it really authentic. David Olusoga
Many historians will tell you that there are no laws of history and no great cycles that govern human events. History often appears more random than rhythmic. But if not patterns or cycles, there are certainly coincidences and some are so marked that they are hard not to notice. David Olusoga
Humans are pattern-seeking animals, consciously and subconsciously imposing designs and theories on to past events. We do this in both our private lives and when looking at history. David Olusoga
Very occasionally, I wish I was French. The fantasy usually materialises just after a holiday, when I dream of living by the warmth of the Mediterranean, or after a trip to Paris during which I indulge fantasies of being a Left Bank cafe-bohemian. David Olusoga
Aside from his other achievements, Winston Churchill wrote a six-volume, 1.9m-word account of the second world war and his role in winning it. David Olusoga
The nation of 2019, exponentially wealthier, appears to have a fraction of its former self-belief and little faith in its capacity to solve the latest in a long line of housing crises that stretch back to the 18th century. David Olusoga
The OBE, CBE and MBE are among the ways Britain honours its citizens for their contribution to national life. I wish we had agreed on a different form of words, but we haven’t and the decision to change the system is above my pay grade. David Olusoga
When the banks crashed the global economy in 2007-08, it was they who received a bailout while the rest of us got austerity. David Olusoga
In the case of the second world war the distorting factor is not poetry but our seemingly insatiable need to view the war through the prism of national mythology. David Olusoga
Historians are a long way from being key workers. The best place for them is at home, reading their books and keeping out of the way. David Olusoga
Those of us involved in TV have a habit of using the word ‘landmark’ a bit too readily. I have been involved in a couple of television projects that, while we were making them, felt quite landmark-ish, but that in retrospect were just good TV. David Olusoga
When black Britons draw parallels between their experiences and those of African Americans, they are not suggesting that those experiences are identical. David Olusoga
