Reparations

[africanmixedkid]

Can we talk about this?
It's something that I feel needs to discussed and a collective campaign to force countries responsible for the slave trade to address. Black mumsnetters what do you think?

The UK has gained huge wealth off of the back of the slave trade. eastmidlandsbylines.co.uk/whose-ill-gotten-gains/

Reparations is something I hear many of the black community shout. But how do we go about getting this?

Dastardlythefriendlymutt

I see they've recently dragged out someone to say it's not worth returning the artefacts (I won't put up article as she deserves no further publicity) as African leaders won't take care of them properly/they won't be used for the benefit of the people.

So patronising. As if they can even know that. & As if theyve the right to take such decisions on stolen items that did not and do not belong to this country in the first place.

Always an excuse to vye to be Black People's gatekeepers. Always in the way. Always watching, and opining.

& Of course losing the artefacts could = negative impact on organisational diversity funding that keeps the blands in their role of just paying lip-service to cultural inclusion, or whatever term theyre using now. As with most things, it very often comes down to money.

It's akin to a radio with no off-switch, playing a not so good song in the background of life

africanmixedkid

There's just a complete lack of understanding of the hurt, pain, anger and displacement along with the need for justice

The type of person who consciously displays that mindset does understand, they just don't care. There must come a point at which they are ignored as focusing on them is a stumbling block in the way of a goal. That's happening more these days, thankfully

@PlanDeRaccordement

We should people like me have to contribute to any fund (through my taxes) when even 120 years ago my relatives were being beaten by their employer as children sent to be in service.

You shouldn’t. That’s why funds for slavery reparations should not come from general taxation. It should be from corporation tax and wealth tax because it’s the big businesses and wealthy that benefited from slavery, not the poor working classes.

However plenty of those of us with a working class background (& Irish famine background) pay corporate tax as we run limited companies.

So it would still be coming from (in my case) the pocket of descendants of Irish famine survivors for example...

Sorry, have now seen posts about white posters, etc so I won't comment further.

However, I do think that this is a valid point and politically I can't see how reparations would ever be feasible without addressing it.

I knew there were birth records prior to abolishment. Literally discussed it with my partner recently, his family are Jamaican and grandma is in her 90s we figured we could get the details going back at least 2 generations before her which takes us to before emancipation

It depends what you mean by birth records. Birth (and all BMD) registration didn't begin in Jamaica until 1878

A generation is classed as 25 years for the sake of genealogy, so 140 (90+50) years ago would be decades after abolition

There are parish records that include baptisms and they can go back a long way, but not all parish registers survive and the information in the ones that do can be incomplete or not give many details other than the childs name and father. If the name is common and the child has many siblings and cousins then it can be difficult to prove you have the right lineage. Also a baptism is not the same as a birth record because some people were baptised years after birth and it doesn't always state that it is an adult baptism in the record. No DoB or age noted

I love genealogy but it can be really complicated, even when you've been doing it many many years. Even professionals get it wrong sometimes

@DeeCeeCherry

Dastardlythefriendlymutt

I see they've recently dragged out someone to say it's not worth returning the artefacts (I won't put up article as she deserves no further publicity) as African leaders won't take care of them properly/they won't be used for the benefit of the people.

So patronising. As if they can even know that. & As if theyve the right to take such decisions on stolen items that did not and do not belong to this country in the first place.

Always an excuse to vye to be Black People's gatekeepers. Always in the way. Always watching, and opining.

& Of course losing the artefacts could = negative impact on organisational diversity funding that keeps the blands in their role of just paying lip-service to cultural inclusion, or whatever term theyre using now. As with most things, it very often comes down to money.

It's akin to a radio with no off-switch, playing a not so good song in the background of life

africanmixedkid

There's just a complete lack of understanding of the hurt, pain, anger and displacement along with the need for justice

The type of person who consciously displays that mindset does understand, they just don't care. There must come a point at which they are ignored as focusing on them is a stumbling block in the way of a goal. That's happening more these days, thankfully

It's so patronizing. They survived hundreds of years in their native homes before being stolen by you. There are artefacts and even remains of deceased chiefs lying in British museums and the living descendents have been asking the British government to return these for 40 years. Imagine in certain cultures where burial rites are extremely important, asking for your father's remains for years to be returned and constantly being rebuffed. Denying his children, grandchildren and great grandchildren the right to bury their father or know where he is buried and to add injury to insult having to apply for a visa to see people gawk at your father's remains. The indignity of it all.

Descendents of slaves suffer this on a much worse scale, the erasure of your own history and having to contend with the loss of language etc and even holding your slaveowner's name. How traumatizing is that?

And to answer PP complaining about white working class people not benefiting from slavery or colonialism and not fair for them to pay tax. This country benefitted from institutions and investments from the blood of slaves and former colonies. Black people, some descendent of slaves also until very recently paid tax that was in turn used to pay the families of slave traders. So how is that any different?

People always want to argue it was hundreds of years ago, talking about Israelites and Egyptians like 1000 years ago is really comparable to 40 years ago, but I doubt the British government would tolerate any foreign government holding onto one of its citizen's remains like that or holding onto precious artefacts like that.

Meant 2000+ years ago

Sorry, have now seen posts about white posters, etc so I won't comment further

It's not about White posters not being able to comment.

Just don't land with whataboutery such as 'yeah but the Irish'.

Black people did not enslave Irish people.

Hence it shouldn't be just assumed it's our remit to get in a discussion about it nor answer detailed questions and scenarios on it, deflecting the discussion.

This is about Reparations for Black people. It doesn't take away from what anyone else chooses to do and if there really was a concern about Reparations in other respects, there wouldn't be this urge to question Black people whenever we address issues pertaining to us.

Irish/White feeling they have cause for Reparations can do what we try to do - work towards addressing this with government, presumably you have or aim to have groups addressing this.

I'd just add. To anyone looking into their family tree to be cautious.

Seeing slave indexes can be upsetting, but far worse than that are the first hand accounts of plantations by visitors, documentary writers and abolitionists. These descriptions can really knock you for six and especially when, as you read some of these horrific accounts, you think to yourself, that could be my direct ancestor suffering that unimaginable cruelty and vicious, even psychopathic, punishment described

If you do get back to a plantation name you think your ancestor was probably enslaved on, and then google it, there might be some of these descriptions from people who wrote about it at the time and these historic books or pamphlets are usually available online for free, because they are past copyright dates and so in the public domain on sites like archive.org

It depends what you mean by birth records. Birth (and all BMD) registration didn't begin in Jamaica until 1878

A generation is classed as 25 years for the sake of genealogy, so 140 (90+50) years ago would be decades after abolition

You are massively overthinking this. It can reasonably assumed that the vast majority of people who have ancestors born in Jamaica during the colonial era will have slaves in their family tree somewhere. There is not some big population of people there who emigrated after the emancipation of the slaves and then didn't intermarry with the majority population.

NotDavidTennant

Yes I know all that NotDavid, but I was replying to a specific conversation I was having with a pp, about genealogy, records and legal proof

Personally I believe if any reparations were to be had it should be given to the community as a whole. In the way of better housing, education, etc.. not to individuals.

The only issue is this. Who would pay for the reparations? How much money would this cost?

With the cuts the Tories are already making what other cuts will happen to provide this money?

There is in fact this database:
www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/

So it's an interesting debate and I have to say my ancestors did not benefit from slavery however many institutions and other family's did. Should any reparations just be paid by them? Would you trace every family's tree and descendants even if they were from the line thst didn't profit should pay? What about interesting instances like the black Scottish mp who counted the Duke of argyll as his family and used to nip round on play dates but also has ancestors brought to Jamaica. Should he also pay even though he represents both sides? What about individuals like Samuel L Jackson who you could argue through his ancestors slavery has ended up with a far better life than if his ancestors had stayed in Africa? Should Italy pay reparations to the UK?

Is there a Post called

"Who Is Going To Pay - An explanation to non-African Diaspora people as to why Diaspora Africans should/shouldn't/should maybe get Reparations/brainstorm who's going to pay for what"

I can't see it.

www.audible.co.uk/pd/Why-Im-No-Longer-Talking-to-White-People-About-Race-Audiobook/B06XGLP7NP

Useful link and it's on free trial right now too

And its also why we spend 0.7 of our GDP on overseas projects to repay for our past. We also did this www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-stands-by-caribbean-and-overseas-territories

All methods of distribution of funds will involve money not always getting to the victims and, as shown in that article, the funds never meet the compensation requirements. How can money ever do justice for this, let alone $1000 for devastation of a people?

It really depends on what reparations are meant to be for - if it's just to have the government demonstrate remorse for their part in this, then yeah, I can see it individual reparations coming from corporation or other wealth-based taxes maybe fitting that goal though I fear the unintended consequences.

If it's to be part of structural change, then no, individualistic reparations haven't been shown to do anything on that. If anything, many of the individual reparations listed in the article has socially worked against many groups as it's too commonly portrayed that they've nothing more to complain about because they get government money (even among victims that aren't recognized and never recieve anything - not all Indigenous nations are 'federally recognized' and any talk of compensation must recognize that and the contentious issue of blood quantum).

the indigenous populations of the Caribbean were killed off when enslavement began.

Not accurate, there is writing from the time period on the enslavement of the Taínos, on whether Indians or Africans made better slaves, and on slave revolts by Taínos and African slaves working together. One was not killed off for the other.

There are millions of Taínos and other Arawak people still living today. Many of them are mixed with African and European descent as well, but it is unhelpful to perpetuate harmful myths about groups being entirely killed off or erase Taíno enslavement prior to and alongside Africans in the region.

Flaxmeadow Yes, caution at looking at family trees is likely wise. For me, the hardest part has been wrestling with the fact that multiple women in my family tree were clearly the victims of rape (and in one instance, a very obvious horrible case of on-going rape of a child), but also having to accept that the rapists are also part of my line as well.

What about individuals like Samuel L Jackson who you could argue through his ancestors slavery has ended up with a far better life than if his ancestors had stayed in Africa?

My God.

I've had to delete every attempt at a response to that post - because I don't want a lifetime ban from MN.

Presumably the person who wrote this has never once, in their entire life, wondered what the continent of Africa might have been had it not been systematically stripped, over centuries, of such a vast quantity of brainpower, talent, energy, heritage?

I am in awe of those of you able to discuss this with such elegant, knowledgeable rationality. Great thread.

Reparations will in no way assuage the murders, rapes and beatings that my forebears had to endure. It will not assuage the many who died after being thrown overboard floundering ships and left to drown and have no progeny that reparations could be paid to. Reparations are a " get out of jail free card" where you can say " yes we did bad things, but we've paid for them now with a financial settlement so stop going on about it". I am descended from slavery, but I haven't felt the level of pain and anguish my forebears had to endure, so should I get a financial stipend from it? It would feel like blood money to me and negate their pain and suffering. No amount of money could compensate. I would rather people are fully educated about slavery, the role of the UK in both the slave trade and the outlawing of slave trade. I want people to know that this country and many other countries made its wealth on the back of my forebears by pretending we were subhuman and beasts of burden so they could carry on this practice. Then we can start talking about the imbalances this has created and work to fix that.

@2020inhindsight

Reparations will in no way assuage the murders, rapes and beatings that my forebears had to endure. It will not assuage the many who died after being thrown overboard floundering ships and left to drown and have no progeny that reparations could be paid to. Reparations are a " get out of jail free card" where you can say " yes we did bad things, but we've paid for them now with a financial settlement so stop going on about it". I am descended from slavery, but I haven't felt the level of pain and anguish my forebears had to endure, so should I get a financial stipend from it? It would feel like blood money to me and negate their pain and suffering. No amount of money could compensate. I would rather people are fully educated about slavery, the role of the UK in both the slave trade and the outlawing of slave trade. I want people to know that this country and many other countries made its wealth on the back of my forebears by pretending we were subhuman and beasts of burden so they could carry on this practice. Then we can start talking about the imbalances this has created and work to fix that.

Thank you for sharing that. I have no further opinion because I don't believe I am entitled to one on this subject matter, but that post hurt my heart and strikes down any defensiveness I might feel around this discussion.

Wondering who's forebears haven't endured rape and beatings..?

@namechangetogamechange the discussion isn't about the forbears of others. The discussion is specifically about slave descendants and reparation.

You're being purposely goady and not contributing in any way to the discussion.

Thank to other posters, I'll try to read and respond after work.

@BiBabbles

The statement that the indigenous population of the Caribbean was killed off is mostly true. The Spanish did enslave them, but also what happened on many Caribbean islands was outright genocide. African slaves were brought in to replace the slaughtered Taino/Arawak slaved.

So while I agree it is wrong to erase the enslavement of the Taino and Arawak people, your statement below is highly inaccurate:

“There are millions of Taínos and other Arawak people still living today. Many of them are mixed with African and European descent as well, but it is unhelpful to perpetuate harmful myths about groups being entirely killed off or erase Taíno enslavement prior to and alongside Africans in the region.”

But the truth is that:
By 1507 the Spanish were settled and able to do a more reliable job of counting the Arawak/Taíno. It is generally agreed that by 1507 their numbers had shrunk to 60,000. By 1531 the number was down to 600. Today there are no easily discerned traces of the Arawak/Taíno at all except for some of the archaeological remains that have been found. Not only on Hispaniola, but also across the Windward Passage in Cuba, complete genocide was practiced on these natives.

And
Disease was a major cause of their demise. However, on Columbus’ 2nd voyage he began to require a tribute from the Arawak/Taíno. They were expected to yield a certain quantity of gold per capita. Failing that each adult of 14 was required to submit 25lbs. of cotton. For those who could not produce the cotton either, there was a service requirement for them to work for the Spanish. This set the stage for a system of assigning the Arawak/Taíno to Spanish settlers as effective slave labor. This system contributed significantly to their genocide.

tainomuseum.org/taino/genocide/

@Flaxmeadow

The compensation paid to former slave owners wasn't paid because government thought they deserved the money, they didn't think that

It was paid because that was the only way to end slavery legally at the time, without years of wrangling in courts. It was paid to end slavery as quickly as possible and yes it was paid for via direct taxation

I agree with this.

I imagine there was also a risk some slave owners would rather murder their slaves rather than set them free if they never received any payment.

However plenty of those of us with a working class background (& Irish famine background) pay corporate tax as we run limited companies.

Well yes, but I was thinking of corporation tax I was thinking of companies in existence today that are descended from the companies back then that did profit from slavery. So it wouldn’t be all corporations. But ones like Tate&Lyle, Barclays Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Aetna, JPMorgan Chase, Greene King, RBS