‘My family were owned as slaves by Scots. It’s time this nation faced up to its history’
In a powerful, no-holds-barred interview, Scotland’s foremost black academic, Professor Sir Geoff Palmer, says this country must finally acknowledge the horrific truth about slavery, empire and colonialism. Today, he talks to our Writer at Large
Neil Mackay
IT’S as if fate has been waiting 200 years for Geoff Palmer to come along and finally force Scotland to confront the most shameful aspects of its past.
Our leading black academic is, without doubt, the nation’s most determined campaigner when it comes to demanding Scotland acknowledges its colonial wrongs and the nation’s role in the sins of the British empire.
The dreadful irony is that as Scotland finally begins to listen to him, Professor Sir Geoff Palmer is facing the possibility of his own death as he deals with a diagnosis of prostrate cancer at the ripe old age of 82.
Despite the seriousness of his work, and the personal struggles he is facing, he is a man full of laughter. He uses humour to balance out the cruelty he spends his life documenting.
Palmer upends all the lazy preconceptions his detractors throw at him. “Some people think I must be the most anti-white person in the world,” he chuckles – then points out that his wife is white and so are his children’s partners.
Today, Palmer is hailed as the first black person to ever become a professor in Scotland. He is a scientist by training and has been lauded internationally for his work. Currently, he’s Professor Emeritus in the School of Life Sciences at Heriot-Watt University. But scratch the surface and you discover that Palmer’s life here isn’t one simply garlanded with praise and acclaim – he has experienced appalling levels of racism in his adopted country.
No dogs, No Irish, No blacks
IN 1955, Palmer arrived in London from Jamaica as part of the Windrush generation, alone and aged just 14. He was astonished by the racism he witnessed. He remembers the hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric of Enoch Powell, and statements from Conservative politicians like “if you want a n***** for a neighbour, vote Labour”.
“As a young lad you were terrified when you bought the newspaper and saw headlines like ‘500 more have arrived’,” Palmer says of the insidious reporting about Caribbean immigration into Britain. “That would mean I had to be careful that day.”
At the time, London was full of signs reading “No dogs, No Irish, No blacks”, he recalls. White women would move away from him if he sat near them. “The myths and lies they had heard made them think I was a robber, inferior.” Palmer quotes from Shakespeare: “Mislike me not for my complexion.”
Come 1964, Palmer was in Edinburgh embarking on his doctorate. When he tried to rent a room, he experienced racism in Scotland first hand. “I’d look in the newspaper for somewhere to rent. I’d phone and be told to come along. As I walked up the path I’d see the curtain move and by the time I got to the door, I was told the room had been taken.”