David Starkey apologises for racist claim slavery was not genocide because there are ‘so many damn blacks’ in UK and Africa

Get Nadine White's Race Report newsletter for a fresh perspective on the week's news Get our free newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Please try again later {{ /verifyErrors }} David Starkey has apologised for racist remarks during a recent interview in which he said slavery could not be genocide as there were “so many damn blacks” currently in the UK and Africa. The TV historian, who has been subsequently stripped of two university positions, said it was a “bad mistake” and that he had paid a “heavy price for one offensive word”. Fitzwilliam College at Cambridge University and Canterbury Christ Church University in Kent last week terminated Starkey’s honorary fellowship and visiting professorship respectively, while publisher HarperCollins UK said it would no longer publish the historian’s books. “I have also paid a heavy price for one offensive word with the loss of every distinction and honour acquired in a long career.” In his lengthy statement, Starkey said he made the ”deeply inflammatory” comments ”with awful clumsiness” in an attempt to say many slaves survived the slave trade.