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

Well never mind I'm sure we won't miss her

Presentism is a cultural disease very prevalent in our times. The people in the past, they did what they did for their reasons. We do what we do for our reasons. If we are superior to them, it is because we are able to see further because we are standing on their shoulders.

So I do hope they are not "tearing down" those Civil War statues in Amerikee, but carefully relocating them to a more appropriate site where they can be properly set in their context with some shiny new bronze information plates.

it’s in human nature to feel guilt for something they’re not involved in though

So which things that you weren't involved in do you yourself feel guilt over? Since it's 'human nature' and all that?

Think the Egyptians were pretty early I think, the Romans were also early adopted. In fact you’d be pretty hard pressed to find any civilisation or Empire who hadn’t partaken. At some point in history a lot of cultures have been subject to a form of slavery or at least subjugation by some oppressive power, probably the Jews have been the most consistently oppressed people.

I think it’s important to recognise that the black slave trade wasn’t unique in history, it’s also important to recognise that it wasn’t entirely white facilitators of the trade.

Freedom is one of the most precious things for humans but so many people have had to and continue to fight for it.

One of the things history has taught us is that one of the best ways to mend the wounds of the past is to move on, to culturally assimilate, this is how cultures grow together and respect and understand each other. All this talk of cultural appropriation is a tool of divide and rule. In order to develop society has always had to be a bit of a cultural magpie. Whilst cultures remain protectively insular it’s going to be hard to grow together.

@MexicanStyle

A much more useful, practical and compassionate goal would be to tackle modern slavery and people trafficking, bonded Labour. Of course, that effort would extend way beyond Britain.

I don't know anyone who would feel guilty for something for which they were not responsible. That sounds a very weird concept.

@BovaryX

A much more useful, practical and compassionate goal would be to tackle modern slavery and people trafficking, bonded Labour. Of course, that effort would extend way beyond Britain.

Yes - absolutely. We show what we think of people by what we accept in the here and now.

Maybe as a white male, I should feel remorse for the actions of Fred West and Dr Harold Shipman, not forgetting the other white males, such as Hitler, Mussolini etc?
All I feel for those people is anger and disgust, plus pity for the victims.

Xenia

Feeling guity for the crimes of others, particularly publicising that guilt, is the ultimate form of virtue signalling IMHO.

Present day slavery takes many forms. Those £2 t-shirts in Primark, how do you suppose they do that?

Meanwhile, the Qataris have popped up today promising everyone a great World Cup in 2022, and never mind all the dead bodies in the concrete.

Worth also remembering South Africa in 2010, which was secured by a massive campaign of bribery of mainly West Indian delegates that went under the name of the slavery restitution fund.

Seems to me the whole of human history is about the domination of one group or tribe of human beings over another. Formerly oppressed peoples don’t generally seem to behave hugely better or differently if and when they get their hands on the reins of power than the people who went before them. Even in the face of issues which clearly require global co-operation, there is a tendency towards immediate self-interest, competition, and self-justification. Would this tendency stop if humans became better at apologising to each other? Or would it result in an adjustment of the tribe to accommodate some new people, but also find a different group to take advantage of with the excuse of some other kind of invented inferiority?

bovaryx very true, and it seems that trafficked children are going missing from care at a greater rate during lockdown , surely that should be fixed now , not matched over in ten years time

But surely, if people are going to feel guilt for what their race has done in the past, then we cannot cherry pick only certain things. We have to feel guilty for EVERYTHING they've done- why feel guilty for some crimes and not others?. Which then means that all races should feel guilt because all races at some point or another have done horrific things to other people and violated other people's rights.

Where does it end?! I dont buy this at all. I am not responsible for something someone did before I was even born and I dont expect other people to be responsible for my actions either. Personal responsibility is key to psychological wellbeing - the ability to take responsibility for our own actions and allow others to take responsibility for theirs is a basic skill that mature, psychologically healthy adults are able to do.

In life there are only two things we ever have control over: what we think, and what we do. Everything else is beyond our control.

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

Good, won't be missing her! She does realise that slavery has gone on for thousands of years, not defending anything, just putting a historical perspective on it. Who sold the people taken from Africa? It takesat least two to trade.

We used to do a lot of things that we learned were wrong so we stopped doing them. We don't need to feel guilty for something we didn't personally have any control over.

One of the gifts of DNA testing is that it has conclusively buried the misbegotten notion of race. We are all mongrels.

Present day slavery takes many forms. Those £2 t-shirts in Primark, how do you suppose they do that?

Absolutely agree. Instead of looking backwards, why isn't there more outrage about what is going on in the present? The sweatshops which rival the Satanic Mills of the Industrial Revolution which supply the high streets of the West? The consumers of these products really are complicit. It's very strange that posters demand 'remorse' for events from two centuries ago, but impunity from their responsibility for 21st century bonded Labour.

The vast majority of black people living in America are there because of slavery. They’re there because their ancestors were bought and sold like cattle and shipped over to provide free labour for white people. A few generations doesn’t erase the past when the colour of their skin, the very reason they were considered ‘inferior’ and slavery their ‘natural state’, is still used to discriminate against them.

The Portuguese started the slave trade in the fifteenth century, however under Elizabeth I slavery became a significant trade. It wasn't until the Seventeenth century that Northern European countries dominated this trade.

Vik81
Tell that the the Greeks, the Vikings and the Romans

There are some greys points about slavery in other countries and time periods on this thread but some drip with utter colonialism and white privilege.

But it was ever thus on MN, ever thus.

All then there is the pretty much “Africans lived in mud huts the British helped!” and “maybe we should send you all back to where you came from” that was ignored by the vast majority of posters on this thread. You are utterly, utterly despicable.

My hands are too small for my new phone and I can’t type on it, so please excuse my continued typos.

I won’t excuse your racism, which continue to be absolutely blind to.

MrsBthepatker

You are a nasty, nasty individual.

I suspect lots of people ignored them because of prefering to engage with less ignorant posters. Ignore the trolls rather than engage with them, you'll notice nobody agreed with them.