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I participated yesterday via Internet in a TV debate in Portugal on colonial heritage and possible reparations. I talked about reparations recently decided by Germany (1,1 billion euros to Namibia for programs of development due to the genocide of Herera and Nama in 1904-09) and the Netherlands (200 million euros as compensation for the colonial past). I mentioned how the royal family in the UK recently opened their archives for historical research on its benefit from colonial profit. Then I pointed out that, in the Portuguese case, colonial exploitation was responsible for at least 20% of per capita income from 1500 to 1800, the highest rate among the European colonial powers (a study by Jaime Reis, Nuno Palma and Leonor Freire Costa). I also mentioned the transatlantic slave trade, in which Portugal transported nearly half of all enslaved Africans. Slavery was followed by forced labour, which became the norm in the Portuguese colonies until the 1960s. In my opinion, persistent racism in Portugal is a consequence of this past coupled with inadequate education; more than 50% of the population believes in the existence of superior and inferior races, the worst score in Europe. Racism has social and economic consequences, not only for the minorities who suffer discrimination; it hinders productivity. The three women present in the debate – writer Isabela Figueiredo, sociologist Cristina Roldão, and journalist and author Ana Cristina Pereira – contested the historical narrative of benign Portuguese colonialism and added new data on the present situation in Portugal (only 3% of trials on racism result in some form of punishment). They all had origin in the colonies and knew what they were talking about, excellent testimonies. The other three historians present in the debate were João Pedro Marques, who considers that reparations were made during the fight against the slave trade (in the case of Portugal light and only after the 1840s imposed by the UK), abolition was a white favour (he ignores the recent book by Jose Lingna Nafafe on early African abolitionist movements, as well as many books on slave revolts), and refuses reparations; José Miguel Sardica, who rejects critical history because he considers that it is driven by extremist agendas (in my view the first task of a historian is to demystify inherited historical narratives, there is nothing “extremist” there) and insists on “facts” (when the reconstitution of facts depends on what questions the historians ask); and João Paulo Costa, who considers that it does not make sense to talk about white expansion because the Portuguese were helped by local people everywhere (a Lusotropicalist vision that hides the main question, who benefited from colonial exploitation). It was an interesting experience.