„[...] – as well as explaining how and why they’ve been differently interpreted by generations of previous scholars. To this end, she constantly toggles between different centuries and perspectives. This can seem awkward, but it underlines her central message: what we see in the past, as in the present, is constantly in flux.“ – theguardian.com
Standardwerk für ein neues kulturelles Selbstverständnis
„[Olivette Oteles] Buch ist gleichwohl willkommen, denn es bietet eine breit angelegte, gut zugängliche Synthese der Geschichte von Afroeuropäern von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart, die neben aus der Forschung bereits bekannten Aspekten viele neue Facetten beiträgt. Besonderes Augenmerk legt die Verfasserin darauf, wie sich auf Religion, Rasse, Klasse und Geschlecht basierende soziale Hierarchien über die Zeit beständig wandelten, aber weiterhin höchst wirkmächtig sind.“ – faz.net
„A Call to Arms“
„Writing the book, [Olivette Otele] says, reinforced her belief in the fallacy of the self-made man — I would never have done it on my own, she says. That’s why she’s committed to telling the often overlooked and erased stories on which today’s world is founded, especially the stories of Black women and their experiences of empire, colonialism and slavery. When you talk about colonial history, you think about the fight between men….But what about Black women who were mothers and daughters, and who were used as reproductive tools? I’m a Black woman. I can’t separate ‘Black’ and ‘woman’.“ – time.com
„Discussions of cancel culture are very middle class. Activists just survive and support each other“
„The book is many things. A scholarly work that reveals detail and colour about African Europeans; a study in how race waxes and wanes in its significance within social structures; and a claiming of black history as European history. But more than anything it is a rebuke – a rejection of the simplistic accounts of race and the history of black people in Europe.“ – theguardian.com
