AIBU to think I should get reparations?

I wish I had enough time in a day to do such ridiculous navel gazing.

How do you know wealthy land owners pay massive taxes?

Aaaaah. Like him from The Beautiful South offering to nationalise his songs!

Together, comrade, we can restart the sheep -> wool -> sewing into cape -> export industry again!

(I am being tongue in cheek. I do support renationalisation of some public services and infrastructure such as water and rail. Not sure full scale nationalisation of everything ever will be a roaring success though...)

One of my ancestors was eaten by a sabre toothed tiger back in the ice age, surely I can claim for that?!

You are being ridiculous. I suspect that you know this and that really this is some goady post trying to attack those people and countries asking about compensation for slavery.

That debate aside, which is complex, looking back and blaming your woes on things that happened before you is never helpful. There are few things you can control, but your own potential is one of them.

Besides, if you go back far enough in anyone’s family tree we will all have been related to the desperately poor and most probably too could trace some strand back to royalty. Isn’t everyone in Europe supposed to be related to Charlemagne? It’s a bit like that nonsense argument the take England back for the English lot spout. One of the (many, many) problems being with their nonsense that they never really quantify what they mean by the English? Normans? (French/viking) Saxons? (germanic) Iron Age? (Roman) Celt? (Turkish/Afghan) Stone Age man? (African)

We come from a vast and wonderful assortment of backgrounds, they interweave and everyone’s stories are extraordinary. It should be celebrated. But we can only affect our own futures. Don’t look back in anger, look forward in hope.

Well now wealthy land owners pay massive taxes and we have the welfare state paid for by such taxes. So presumably the money is somehow being clawed back in a roundabout way. Don't think it can go to specific people because nearly everyone in history has been exploited one way or another by a minority of very wealthy individuals.

It's a bit different to slavery where whole communities were forcibly and brutally relocated across contitnents and treated sub-humanely, in many cases raped, bred like cattle and murdered, and forced to work for free and then, even when emancipated, discriminated against extensively leading to a profound societal disadvantage (in pretty much every way) for generations proceeding them.

My great grandfather died during WW1 and my Grandfather was injured during WW2. My great grandmother had to work 2 jobs to support her family. My grandmother also during the war.
Looking at my DNA, my family would of suffered when the Romans and vikingds invaded, then made to be Norman's in 1066.

I must be owed £1000s for hardship they endured.

You don’t get anything. The Britain public do 😁 go and take it under public ownership so we all benefit

My dad was a Japanese POW whose untreated PTSD made mine and my siblings' childhoods hell. None of these men were compenstated for their suffering. Do you think we should get some money as we have all had mental health issues? Intergenerational trauma is a real thing

I am off to claim 3 sheep and a small part of a now defunct shipyard (and possibly a singer sewing machine too) Not sure what i will do with these items other than revel in the reflected glory of the workers.

You’re only done well for a poor person though, not objectively well

Imagine what you could’ve done if the monarch had given your ancestor half of London 300 years ago.

Also.. blame your ancestors.. years ago you could form a group, storm a castle and take over as king. If your ancestors did not do this and now you are not part of the generational elite.. blame them. Lazy bastards.

Such people do get support, via the welfare system.

So your ancestors worked very hard for very little money, and now you want to profit off them rather than working very hard to earn a good amount of money for yourself instead.

We don’t demand money, we demand control of the assets gained from our labour 😁

Ok that's the majority of the world population then.. who is going to cough up. Absolute pipe dream.

I'm sure these people would be delighted to chat through some options with you.

I can’t tell if this is meant to be a wind up.
my family line is also full of labourers - quite a lot of families ancestors are full of them.

We live in a time where our lives are by far improved than those of our ancestors. You should count yourself lucky.

Some of the biggest issues in the UK relating to (recent) generational poverty and disadvantages came about as a result of the privatisation of infrastructure, closure of the mines (ultimately a good thing for the environment although devastating for communities), closure of steelworks, docks and other heavy manufacturing industry. You could go after the descendents of Maggie Thatcher and the Tories in the 1970s and 1980s if you wish on that one.

Additionally, the lack of investment in existing communities (demolition of housing and building of new towns which gave people houses with indoor plumbing and gardens instead of slum tenements and terraces but often destroyed existing community networks and moved people away from employment) and focus on reducing the public sector didn't help matters.

But hey, that's capitalism for you. I don't think demanding money from rich folk will change endemic and embedded imbalance. Unless we go full throttle communism and that... doesn't necessarily have the best track record for success.

Anyway, hunners of years ago the majority of the population were in the same boat. If everyone got cash now we would most likely end up with £8.50 and some of those rich people would pay themselves because they would have come from poor backgrounds too.

I don’t disagree! However I wouldn’t give you cash. I would break up the inherited stolen wealth from the aristocracy and distribute it, and safeguard future hoarding of wealth

One of my ancestors, in the 13th century, was landed gentry, so I assume was one of the oppressors and I should be paying reparations. Except my great grandfather was a fisherman, my grandma in service and my grandad a tin miner. We’ve not exactly continued to benefit from our lofty status!

Do you think most people now aren’t being “exploited to make others rich” ?

Depends on the family but census and parish records often list where people are and what jobs they have.

I only know my family to about mid 1850s at most - they were working poor - some migrant agricultral workers - you can track them moving up and down with kids cenus and marriages, welsh weavers - illegitimate birth and odd recording - father married to someone else and mum not appearing in any other records before or since and boy bing raise by another family entirely make it harder to go back. Rest were miners, quarry men, canal and railway workers and domestics.

Part of DH family is from Irland coming over with potatoe famine and can't be traced back as records in Ireland were lost. Other parts can be traced back with parish record to 1400 in roughly same area - and with that line there are people dying in work houses when they came in.

Both our families had illegimate kids in them but wider family seem to have raillied round - informal adoptions and living with wider family - family using middle names and records formal can mean tracking is very hard - easier where surnames are less common.

70% of land in the UK is owned by just 1% of the population. Much of this elite, generational ownership traces its roots back to the Norman Conquest of 1066 when William the Conqueror seized the country and granted it to his loyal barons.

Most of my family taken advantage when they could of any social moblity around - I think it is worrying that social moblity is on the decline.

Do a couple of weeks slavery for him and get reparations money back.

I think I'm due reparations. I started working on Saturdays when I was still at school. I worked in an ice cream shop and I was only paid £1.50 for an afternoon's work. It was a long time ago but not 200 years. Can we work together OP @PositiveEngine

You’re serious????? Seriously… FFS! Everyone should be getting repatriation money for some reason then…. Let’s make this country even more bankrupt and screwed than what it is now. I despair…..