Should Benedict Cumberbatch say sorry for the slave owners in his family?
No, he should not. He wasn’t born – none of us were. And can we please stop this obsession with slavery that happened centuries ago? If you really want to worry about it, worry about slavery that is happening right now in Africa. Oh, yeah, of course, it isn’t whitey doing that is it?
The answer is not about being individually responsible, through our genes, but collectively accountable for the structural inequalities that have passed down through generations to shape today’s world.
Fuck off! Only in an insane world do we visit the sins of the fathers on the sons. I am not part of your collective and I damned well do not feel any guilt over what happened several centuries ago and I will not, ever, feel any responsibility for anything that I am not personally involved in. And you can take your guilt ridden self hatred and and your fucking collective and stuff it – stop expecting the rest of us to share in it, because I sure as hell won’t.
And, no, we should not, under any circumstances, pay anyone any reparations for something that happened long before any of us were born and long after all of those involved died.
Arseholes!
If this happens, then I want reparations from the Italian government (whoever that is this week) for the sufferings & indignities heaped upon my ancestors by those beastly Romans.
Not that I’m greedy – £20,000.00 should do it.
Plus, of course, interest compounded at 5% p.a. from 410 A.D., when they left.
One pertinent element of the slave trade which is always vehemently denied by all the Equality and Diversity Loons, even though it is amply recorded as historical fact, is that the entire trade would never have been possible without the active (and highly profitable) collusion of native-born Africans who provided the seemingly endless supply of victims for the traders by regular raids on neighbouring tribes. Interesting that that is never mentioned. Perhaps it doesn’t square with the preciously-held belief that “whiteys” are the only people capable of racial prejudice. Yeah, right.
Are the American descendents of slaves better off than the descendents of those left behind – assuming of course that they hadn’t been eaten by lions, crocodiles or hacked to death by the neighbouring tribe?
That applies to UK descendents as well. A few years back there was a television programme that went around St Paul’s in Bristol (evil slave capital of the world if you believe the progressives) and the mostly black locals seemed bemused by the questioning, not having given the matter much (if any) thought. No, they didn’t think that apologies or reparations were the thing to do. And they were doing just fine, thank you very much. Bit of a slap in the face for the beeboids.
one day many years ago, when at college, an argument broke out between classmates… one an Arab from Iraq and the other an Ibo from Nigeria…
it ended when the Arab said ” my grandfather used to sell you fuckers”
And the Arab’s Grandfather’s descendants are vey likely continuing in the family business.
Our Middle-Eastern brothers were enthusiastic participants in the slave trade lo-o-o-ng before brash upstart Europeans got into the act, and they are widely considered to still be the World’s centre for this continuing commerce.
But to accept that would really upset the Beeb/Grauniad/Leftie anti-Israel pro-Arab factions…
Nearly ten years ago, on “World Slavery Day” or thereabouts, I was working with a young woman who’s parents came from Jamaica.
She had not heard of the three way trade routes – make goods in UK, ship to African Coast, sell goods for slaves, ship to America / Caribbean, sell slaves for cotton & tobacco, ship to UK, sell cotton & tobacco for more goods and repeat. She did not know that it was Africans and Arabs who were selling the slaves to the Europeans, she thought it was European raiding parties kidnapping the Africans.
I then pointed out to her that if her ancestors had not been taken as slaves all those years ago, her parents could not have come to the UK in the 60’s and she would have been born somewhere in Africa rather than in London. She was not enamored by the thought!
So, as she has benefited by the historical process, should she not be asked to pay for it?
Haddock
Precisely – curious that – is said “arab” still alive, btw?
Oh yes: Only in an insane world do we visit the sins of the fathers on the sons. Well, the local vicar once used that text, about evil being visited until the nth generation for a text.
Another reason to despise christianity.
It was 45 years ago, I think that he stayed in this country, married a local girl, and attained his ambition of becoming ‘an Englishman’… he was determined to do that; it was his mission in life…
He described Iraq as being full of foreigners and not the sort of place an Englishman should live so I doubt that he returned.
If “slavery” was that bad, then the airports would be chokablock with Africans DESPERATELY trying to “return to their roots”….. or have I missed something here?
Africa is paradise on earth….. or?