The English started the slave trade

[Annamaria14]

I just saw a black American woman post online,

"The English started the slave trade. They caused all our problems, they hurt generations of people. I will never set foot in that country".

What do you think? I felt a bit guilty, because the English did cause a lot of problems around the world. Have we learned from our past. How can we do better in the future

I dont think she's completely wrong but if youre never going to visit any country that has ever violated human rights then there arent many places to go at all!

I dont feel guilty because I was not personally responsible and noone is responsible for the actions of another person. By that rationale, I guess I should be against all Germans since I lost relatives in the war 🤷🏼‍♀️

As said many times above, Britain didn't invent slavery. But we did very well out of our part in it and that resulted in the racism today in the US.

We still have it here in the UK too, but I do think it is slowly - much too slowly - being weeded out.

If you believe in collective guilt, as has already been pointed out, this is a blood libel. If you believe that everyone living in the UK is a beneficiary, through the privilege of living in the UK, then the guilt falls on every citizen. Irrespective of ethnicity. How do those posters who believe this suggest that happens

Very good point.

This is a very Eurocentric view!

It is true that human beings are responsible for the slave trade - so we should all feel guilty about it and try to treat other people better.

However slaves were taken and sold LONG before there was an England. Slaves have been the spoils of war pretty much everywhere.

Note that much of what we know about the Romans was recorded by their Greek slaves.

African slaves were taken by Africans for years before any Europeans got involved.

@Chiochan

I went to a UK comprehensive in the 80s and we most definatly learned about the slave trade and we not taught that Britian brought civilisation to the world. It seems unlikely that this has been introduced to the curuculm since then?

I doubt anyone under about 65 has been taught any of that stuff, at least in the state system. What they may pick up from older relatives waffling on about the good old days through rose tinted spectacles is another matter. I also suspect many, if not most people have forgotten most of what they learned in school history. Luckily learning doesn't just happen in school.

@Mockers

Most North Europeans today have 10-20% Neanderthal DNA

Do you have a link for that?

For another, the political systems implemented in these countries do not work with traditional African political institutions and thought,

Are you saying they can’t cope with democracy?

the countries' boundaries were created by colonialists, meaning that various groups jockey for power over the nation, which causes conflict.

Diversity not a good thing in this instance?

and thirdly, the countries' boundaries were created by colonialists, meaning that various groups jockey for power over the nation, which causes conflict.

But we did very well out of our part in it and that resulted in the racism today in the US
@GladAllOver are you saying that because black people were taken to what is now the US it caused racism because if that is the argument then it sounds like you don't want black people there as that is the problem.

Thank you @andyoldlabour and @MimiLaRue

The Royal Navy was instrumental in ending the slave trade and it cost an absolute fortune.

The American woman should be reminded that both Arabs and Black African tribes took, used and sold slaves.

*The American woman should be reminded that (the) Arabs also took African slaves

So why aren’t there millions of black people living for hundreds of years in the Middle East/North Africa?

Were the slaves freed and sent home? What happened to them?

Most North Europeans today have 10-20% Neanderthal DNA

Do you have a link for that?

• Maybe not exactly, but I got the gist of it:

bit.ly/2Ya1Ke6

I agree with others that there should be a distinction between responsibility and guilt.

Guilt is not helpful. If my father (or any other male relative) murdered or raped a woman when I was a child, that is not my fault and there is nothing to be gained from me beating myself up because we happen share the same surname. Guilt is a very destructive emotion and it rarely brings anything fruitful.

However, we DO have a responsibility to educate ourselves and ensure the past does not repeat itself. Lessons have to learnt and systems put in place to educate and protect that from ever happening again.

Should we feel guilty?- no.
Should we feel a responsibility to learn about the past and ensure we do better?- absolutely.

So why aren’t there millions of black people living for hundreds of years in the Middle East/North Africa?

Well they tend not to breed when you cut their balls off.

And there are plenty of very dark people in the KSA.

MimiLaRue

Couldn't agree more. Learning from the past should be the ideal way to avoid making mistakes at the presdent and in the future.

"present"

@Pisspotical you wouldn't care because you are not affected to this day by it.

What a disgusting comment.

The reason black people are mistreated today is because of white supremacy. White supremacy to brainwash people that black people are inferior to whites. The same white supremacy that the slave trade was built off of.

Did you know to abolish slavery, white slavery owners were paid out 200 years ago, black people were paid nothing.

To this day black people are on the back foot because of this. That's why people care, even if it was 200 years ago.

That is why people care, because the roots of slavery are STILL alive and well today.

Imagine the uproar if I said I didn't care about WW2 and the people that died, or remembrance day, how would you feel about that?

Just think about what you said.

Back to the nineteenth century, it was the view of many emancipationists at the time, both black and white, that the freed slaves should be allowed to 'return' to Africa, be they first, second or third generation or more enslaved.

The result of this mostly noble sentiment was the creation by the USA of Liberia and the British of Sierra Leone. In both territories, there has been a horrific series of conflicts and atrocities post-independence caused mainly by the mutual resentment of the indiginous Africans and the English-speaking elite descended from freed slaves.

So resititution does not always work out well.

That’s lazy thinking. Lazy thinking is often dangerous and harmful, people pick it up as sound bites.

The British (not English) were involved with the industrialisation of slavery in the 17th-19th centuries. Just because plenty of other ocean going nations were doing it too does not excuse that.

Slavery is, sadly, as old as humanity. Most large empires used it and some of them were large enough to industrialise it: the Romans, the Persians, the Ottomans, the meso-American civilisations, the Vikings.

White people have enslaved white peoples, black people have enslaved black people, Asian people have enslaved Asian people. It’s all horrific.

Should we acknowledge our nation’s role in the Afro-American triangle of slavery? Absolutely. I also take heart that Britain abolished slavery in 1833 (appallingly late) and that anti-slavery campaigns were widespread before then. We can’t change the past but we’re not the prisoners of it either. I don’t blame Dubliners for being the site of one of Europe’s biggest slave markets in the 11th century (selling mostly British slaves). That would be odd. Besides, we’re all genetically mixed anyway, no doubt we all have a slave and a slaver in our ancestry.

Far better to talk about people today, fighting discrimination, acknowledging white privilege and working to equalise socio-economic disparities.

So less guilt and self-hate, more positive action for change.

The Etymology of the word Slave comes from Slav, because so many Slavs were enslaved by the Ottomans. An interesting fact but a bit irrelevant to the main discussion.
Historic slavery of Europeans is just that, history, no white European alive today can point to known recent ancestors who were slaves of the Ottomans or has had their life and opportunities affected by it, whereas we have photos and written testimony from slaves in The US, the last person born in slavery died in about 1970! its very recent in historical terms and therefore raw.

As to the comment about it being hundreds of years ago, my great-great grandfather was born a slave, so certainly not going back that far for many of us. And because slaves didn't get a penny of compensation on being freed (though their owners did, by the bucketload), they still had to continue living on plantations and earning a pittance after slavery finished because the Caribbean island they lived on was set up around the economy of slavery and sugar production. The other choice was to try and move to America where they struggled doing low paying jobs in terrible accommodation, or to take on really dangerous work overseas. I have no way of tracing my family that far back because they were deemed property not people and didn't get proper records kept about them, so it does still feel raw and recent for me.

Saw a programme recently that talked about the other aspects of the economy of slavery - e.g. fishermen in Europe catching fish that would be processed and shipped to the colonies as cheap food for slaves, so it wasn't just the middle classes benefitting from it, whether they intended to or not.

I find it very hypocritical that often the same people who get furious at not remembering WW1 sufficiently (my family members who were grandchildren of slaves fought for Britain in the wars) also say that we need to get over slavery because it was ages ago.

Although slavery is technically illegal in most countries, there are still 94 countries in the world where enslaving another person is not actually a criminal offence.

See this article in the Independent www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/slavery-legal-crime-forced-labour-un-legislation-a9333891.html

So less guilt and self-hate, more positive action for change

Exactly. If only because self hate and guilt STILL makes it all about YOU, and it isnt. Its about going forward and eliciting real, practical, positive changes. That is much more helpful than self flagellating which is still very self absorbed and attention seeking.

Truth and reconcilliation commitees like they had in South Africa would be one way of approaching it, perhaps the culture of litigation in the States would make that tricky though.