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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Reparations paid to SLAVE OWNERS only stopped being paid by UK Government 2 years ago

88 replies

AssignedPuuurfectAtBirth · 30/03/2018 12:56

IANBU to think it's a fucking scandal that

"You might expect this so-called “slave compensation” to have gone to the freed slaves to redress the injustices they suffered. Instead, the money went exclusively to the owners of slaves, who were being compensated for the loss of what had, until then, been considered their property. Not a single shilling of reparation, nor a single word of apology, has ever been granted by the British state to the people it enslaved, or their descendants.

Today, 1835 feels so long ago; so far away. But if you are a British taxpayer, what happened in that quiet room affects you directly.

Your taxes were used to pay off the loan, and the payments only ended in 2015

The benefits of slave-owner compensation were passed down from generation to generation of Britain’s elite. Among the descendants of the recipients of slave-owner compensation is the former prime minister David Cameron.

www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/29/slavery-abolition-compensation-when-will-britain-face-up-to-its-crimes-against-humanity

OP posts:

PandaPieForTea · 30/03/2018 14:05

The loan payments now aren’t actually going to the particular people who benefitted from the repayments. Defaulting on payments doesn’t really make any sense.

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 30/03/2018 14:06

Defaulting on payments doesn’t really make any sense.

Nothing makes sense when you're talking to outraged SJWs.

WeirdAndPissedOff · 30/03/2018 14:14

Defaulting on payments doesn't really make any sense ^ this.
We can't not pay back money we owe because we now disagree with what we borrowed it for. Different if we were still making payments to the slave owners, but presumably the debt itself has nothing to do with them.

And I'm not sure how I feel about the payments. Whilst I agree it's disgusting that anyone could have profited from slavery, it sounds like the government at the time chose this as a quicker and less bloody option. As pp have said, regardless of the morals now or at the time, you can't simply write a law to remove people's "property" without massive fallout - it would have been a choice between war, riots and the payout.

And I'm normally someone who'd be called an "SJW".

DrEustaciaBenson · 30/03/2018 14:14

Person A lends money to Person B. Person B pays it to Person C. Person D thinks Person C doesn't deserve the money, therefore Person A shouldn't get their money back. Really?

'My mil lent money to my bil. He gave it to his mate who I think is a total loser. AIBU to think that bil shouldn't pay the money back to mil?'

ChazsBrilliantAttitude · 30/03/2018 14:19

I don’t think you can ignore the values of the time. Live as a poor worker in Britain in the early years of them industrial revolution was also brutal. So if those capitalists didn’t give a damn about poor white people who worked for them then they were going to care even less about poor black people.
Repugnant though it might seem to us buying freedom for the slaves might have been the most pragmatic option to achieve the result.

DrEustaciaBenson · 30/03/2018 14:21

you can't simply write a law to remove people's "property"

They couldn't do that anyway. The slaves were owned outside the UK, in places that had their own assemblies, and where the UK parliament had no jurisdiction. Only the Jamaican assembly could ban slavery in Jamaica, for example.

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 30/03/2018 14:22

As pp have said, regardless of the morals now or at the time, you can't simply write a law to remove people's "property" without massive fallout

One of the depressing things about British schools is parochialism of the history. The American Civil War was a long way and a long time ago, as compared to the obsessive teaching of the Second World War, so its causes, effects and lessons are unknown to most British people. I doubt that more than one person in fifty could even say when it happened, or distinguish it reliably from the American War of Independence.

The "fallout" is a massive war.

YetAnotherUser · 30/03/2018 14:33

How about we default on all the debts we ran up during WW2, because we helped keep the world free from tyrrany we shouldn't have to pay for it?

Schnauzermum2 · 30/03/2018 14:36

As a country we can’t default on a loan, it would be up to the lender to waive the loan, it doesn’t really matter what the loan is about. It’s ridiculous to try and take money off people 200 years ago. No compensation has been paid to anyone for 200 years. It would be better to use any money for current day problems rather than 2 century old ones

Kingsclerelass · 30/03/2018 14:40

Wouldn't it be better to worry about the slave problem in the U.K. today, that we can do something about, rather than waste effort sniping at one another about something that happened 175 years ago?

WhalesOfYore · 30/03/2018 14:43

You just have to love the simple-mindedness of SJWs...

UpstartCrow · 30/03/2018 14:44

We've been paying off the loan for 175 years and at the same time listening to Tories bang on about debts run up by Labour.

RoadToRivendell · 30/03/2018 14:47

You're very unreasonable, but I think you know this.

Camiila · 30/03/2018 14:48

wht is an SJW?

Camiila · 30/03/2018 14:50

why are so many people so outraged about slavery 200 yers ago, yet so unconcerned about slavery today?

I know people who sit and rant about how they should be compensated for the enslavement of their great great great great great great great grandparents, whilst puffing on a joint produced by child slaves in London this week.

IAmWonkoTheSane · 30/03/2018 14:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 30/03/2018 14:50

You just have to love the simple-mindedness of SJWs...

Look on the bright side: at least the simple-minded SJW of this thread hasn't blamed Jews or denied the holocaust yet. So that's something. Mind you, it's only page two, so there's time.

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 30/03/2018 14:52

So basically the government of the day borrowed a huge amount of money to buy black people and they then continued to force these people to work against their will for several years and it took nearly 200 years for the taxpayer to repay this loan?

What would you have done, then? Lay out a plan which would have achieved a better outcome. Hint: the American Civil War isn't a better outcome.

Kingsclerelass · 30/03/2018 14:53

I'm not sure why it's anything to do with the tories, they didn't exist in 1835. As far as any govt since then is concerned, it's just an outstanding loan they've inherited that needs to be paid.

WhalesOfYore · 30/03/2018 14:53

Social Justice Warriors - individuals waging an eternal struggle to right every perceived wrong in the universe, irrespective of minor considerations such as reason, reality, and logic, not to mention social, economic, and historical context.

Camiila · 30/03/2018 14:54

There are more slaves today than ever before.

The cannabis industry in the UK is slave based, mostly child slaves

Camiila · 30/03/2018 14:55

lets worry a little more about current child slaves in the uk, shall we?

CuboidalSlipshoddy · 30/03/2018 15:06

individuals waging an eternal struggle to right every perceived wrong in the universe

No, they're just interested looking good. They're not at all bothered about the people they affect to support, just about the social kudos that they get from affecting to care.

sleepyjane · 30/03/2018 15:20

It's always the rich who get compensated. If it affects the rich they'll be looked after, always been the same.
Their argument for compensation, they had their "property" took off them. The fact it was human "property" is obviously irrrelevant.

What about applying that logic to all the families who had their sons took off them in the two great wars....any compensation for their families?

You can guarantee that if was something that affected the poor there'd be nothing, they twist it to suit themselves. It's always been the same. The rich will look after their own.

MrsDirtyBear · 30/03/2018 16:15

@sleepyjane
Could not agree more. Bet if you looked at descendents of slave owners we had to pay off they would all be doing very well for themselves. And descendents of slaves would still be very poor. The Tory party ensure this type of taking and keeping of wealth for yourself still exists. Look at the massive tax evasion/avoidance which the very rich get away with.

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