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[News] Reparations
- Thread starter Randy McNob
- Start date
Agreed. It's needs to be official, agreed and signed the all countries. Perhaps we could all meet in Versailles and come up with something?
Sure but we still would have done if other countries were in the same position and did not use slaves and have an advantage over us.
The Slave trade was abhorrent and reparations ideas are understandable but not realistic, in fact, they’d be tokenism and impossible to implement fairly whilst causing anger and resent amongst the sort of people who vote Trump.
What is really needed is more equality of opportunity for the African diaspora displaced by slavery. More acknowledge of the evils of slavery and less hero worshipping of those that abolished it. This will take investment and political will but it’s good to see Kamala Harris talking about giving black American men the same opportunities as their white conterparts.
Still I Rise
BY MAYA ANGELOUYou may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
Well for one, they wouldn't have existed. But even if we pretend they would have existed and they could prove their lives would have been better, they can't prove who's to blame.
The British did not rampage around Africa rounding up free people, they bought people who were already slaves.
- Jan 3, 2012
- 17,298
I often drive past the Drax estate on my way to other parts of Dorset and always find a little bit of anger about it.
i read something the other day that Justin Welby revealed slavery links in his family which he felt guilty about. But it was from his biological father who he didn’t actually know was his father until comparatively recently through a DNA test - from a fling his mother had just before she got married. I thought at the time that he shouldn‘t really feel ashamed of people he didn’t know.
Welby is contrite, but Drax refuses to apologise and seems to revel in it!
bluenitsuj
Listen to me!!!
An apology on behalf of our ancestors will suffice. No payments unless we demand payment for all the lost Navy men and for ending the slave trade across the empire.
maffew
Well-known member
The 100 billions or trillions that would be involved ain't gonna happen, it's a total non starter. You can't pay back like that for things that happened long ago.Glad the issue of reparations is being discussed again at the Commonwealth summit. I want Britain to formally apologise for it's part in the slave trade and reach agreement with the colonised countries for reparation payments
Global calls for reparations are only growing louder. Why is Britain still digging in its heels? | Hilary Beckles
The issue is on all our minds at this week’s Commonwealth summit in Samoa. Now is Keir Starmer’s chance to address it, says Caricom Reparations Commission chair Hilary Beckleswww.theguardian.com
Some reparation in respect of educational/health support might be possible, along with an apology.
Maybe clean out our prisons too and pay back with a couple of 100 thousand workforce for hard labour building infrastructure , win win
- Jan 3, 2012
- 17,298
Whether he’s trolling or not, isn’t it a perfectly valid topic of discussion?
"£18 Trillion less for the NHS" written on the side of a bus ?Let's just have a referendum and accept the outcome as we did with Brexit
Catchy.
Best the French apologise and pay for 1066 then.Glad the issue of reparations is being discussed again at the Commonwealth summit. I want Britain to formally apologise for it's part in the slave trade and reach agreement with the colonised countries for reparation payments
Global calls for reparations are only growing louder. Why is Britain still digging in its heels? | Hilary Beckles
The issue is on all our minds at this week’s Commonwealth summit in Samoa. Now is Keir Starmer’s chance to address it, says Caricom Reparations Commission chair Hilary Beckles
- May 8, 2018
- 10,503
Once we get some cash back from China and Michelle Mone to cover the cost of Covid I could be open to this. Let me know once it’s sorted 
- Oct 12, 2022
- 2,634
This has always seemed opportunistic to me. Crime by lineage. If an ancestor of McNob’s had committed a murder during the period between 1555 and 1833, and not been caught at the time, does McNob agree that should the murder now be solvable (using DNA testing, or other means) that he himself should be imprisoned for the crime, and owe reparations to the living relatives?
I’m afraid that I would not agree to such terms. I have no culpability for events that I could not influence or even be aware of at the time they were happening.
From my perspective, those alive today hoping for an opportunistic payday can jog on. They have not been enslaved, they are free and have the same opportunities as the rest of us. I have never engaged in slavery, and feel no need to wring my hands, as neither has my country’s government in the time I’ve been alive.
I’m afraid that I would not agree to such terms. I have no culpability for events that I could not influence or even be aware of at the time they were happening.
From my perspective, those alive today hoping for an opportunistic payday can jog on. They have not been enslaved, they are free and have the same opportunities as the rest of us. I have never engaged in slavery, and feel no need to wring my hands, as neither has my country’s government in the time I’ve been alive.
- Apr 5, 2014
- 25,781
How can there be an apology for people who had no desire to do so while they were here ? History needs to start looking forward and not back. On a personal level I would refuse to apologise for something I have nothing to do with.
- Apr 5, 2014
- 25,781
I suppose with the advent of goal technology we'll have to apologise for 1966 now.
fruitnveg
Well-known member
2/10 - Troll harder, Randy
Bob!
Coffee Buyer
- Jul 5, 2003
- 11,590
Glad the issue of reparations is being discussed again at the Commonwealth summit. I want Britain to formally apologise for it's part in the slave trade and reach agreement with the colonised countries for reparation payments
Global calls for reparations are only growing louder. Why is Britain still digging in its heels? | Hilary Beckles
The issue is on all our minds at this week’s Commonwealth summit in Samoa. Now is Keir Starmer’s chance to address it, says Caricom Reparations Commission chair Hilary Beckles
Shouldn't it be the descendants of those who received compensation for 'loss of property' (I e. enslaved people) that pay the compensation now?
nicko31
Well-known member
Wider question....
What is the point of the Commonwealth at all?
What is the point of the Commonwealth at all?
Worried Man Blues
Well-known member
Apparently the Vikings DNA isn't prevalent in the UK because they got to Kent and thought blimey we have better birds back home so just stuck to pillaging!!!
I heard one maybe two spokespersons interviewed on R5 about the issue yesterday. First of all they gave the interviewer a lecture about reparations. Apparently 'they' (a self-appointed pressure group) don't want 'reparations' because (here began a 2 minute lecture on the meaning of the word reparation and how it doesn't accurately reflect something or other).
The interviewer asked the spokesperson what it was they wanted. The reply was a long statement on colonialism and the semantics of cultural something or other.
The interviewer asked again what the spokesperson wanted. They again launched into a diatribe about what is not widely understood, and that until this is understood, and her organization was given free reign to set out the grievances, and the parameters for 'not' reparation but recognition of the fact (and so on) then, er..... we really have to understand this.
The interviewer then asked what practical things the government should be doing. This threw the spokesperson a bit. But it seems they (her organization) want to be given a blank sheet on which to write the precise wording of the apology and all of the 'not just' money (it is 'not about money') that should be paid in 'not reparation', without any discussion or negotiation as such, because it is their issue and they want to own it.
The interview ended with nobody any the wiser, and this was rinsed and repeated later in the day when the same (or similar) spokesperson was interviewed. I think 'they' want to shape and own the narrative so I guess we will have to wait till they have written it all down. Except I don't think they will, because if they do so this means they have capitulated to the unreasonable colonial expectation that the enslavement community bow down to the demands of the slavers and explain their grievances.
I was minded of the Trotskyite groups in the 70s who had such a precise take on their doctrine that they were not prepared to discuss it, even with other Trotskyite groups (the 'splitters').
And this is how what may perhaps be a legitimate issue can be safely ignored.
The interviewer asked the spokesperson what it was they wanted. The reply was a long statement on colonialism and the semantics of cultural something or other.
The interviewer asked again what the spokesperson wanted. They again launched into a diatribe about what is not widely understood, and that until this is understood, and her organization was given free reign to set out the grievances, and the parameters for 'not' reparation but recognition of the fact (and so on) then, er..... we really have to understand this.
The interviewer then asked what practical things the government should be doing. This threw the spokesperson a bit. But it seems they (her organization) want to be given a blank sheet on which to write the precise wording of the apology and all of the 'not just' money (it is 'not about money') that should be paid in 'not reparation', without any discussion or negotiation as such, because it is their issue and they want to own it.
The interview ended with nobody any the wiser, and this was rinsed and repeated later in the day when the same (or similar) spokesperson was interviewed. I think 'they' want to shape and own the narrative so I guess we will have to wait till they have written it all down. Except I don't think they will, because if they do so this means they have capitulated to the unreasonable colonial expectation that the enslavement community bow down to the demands of the slavers and explain their grievances.
I was minded of the Trotskyite groups in the 70s who had such a precise take on their doctrine that they were not prepared to discuss it, even with other Trotskyite groups (the 'splitters').
And this is how what may perhaps be a legitimate issue can be safely ignored.