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?

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@PursuingProxemicExactitude please ignore the poster at whom you directed your question, the responses just derail the thread and the discussion is prohibited from flowing.

[quote DeeCeeCherry]@africanmixedkids many individual voices amount to unity. I'd rather a very widespread campaign to inform upon reparations and encourage people to share, highlight, write to MP etc including asking for right to individual applications...[/quote]
Yes one lone voice is just that, but when it's many lone voices it becomes a collective. I'm going to write to my MP, I'm going to ask friends and family to write to theirs and share share share information and highlight the cause.

I agree about ignoring those that seek to disrupt and derail this important conversation. It is something that I have pondered for years on and off. I suppose I wondered how it could work. I think the way I see how black people are still treated poorly does not inspire me to hope that the powers that be would ever seek to really readdress the wrongs that have been done. I do believe that there has to be a calling on a large scale though. A petition to raise the motion in Parliament.

@NLisa

Power comes from money, the people who hold all the money hold all the power.

I understand the wanting to do baby steps. But risk with that is that when you reach for the first step and market it as the goal, they might say Oke if we reach an understanding on that matter. Let’s say individual reparations or a loan fund. That’s the end of it. But it’s not the end, reparations are just a small step to helping our people.

I would say we need black politicians funded by black money. Because when they are lobbying they are lobbying for the people that fund them.

I am just thinking out loud, but I would say: we need black businesses / people form an economical block get out people into power. So they can lobby for our interest. And maybe first on a U.K. level and then grow bigger to a European level and even global level. We need an economic powerhouse to fight for us.

Black business feeding into politics would help. Since the events of last year there has been an insurgence of black businesses trying to work together and share knowledge and as a result power. I've seen lots of social media examples of this.

But as you know the proportion of black businesses is small. I just don't see how this could impact this cause now. And to me it's an imminent cause. Black contribution to politics through economic power is a long way off IMO.

But I take your point.

And yes the baby steps can undermine the wider cause I agree.

@C130 there was a recent (now closed) petition. Check out the governments response.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/325237

I wonder how it came to be that descendants of slave owners were compensated. Did they ask or was it simply given? Seems to me it's something that could be highlighted as a comparison in terms of the case for reparations being paid to the descendants of enslaved Africans.

It does seem to be that the government were lobbied by slave owners. There's a discussion here from an MP at the time discussing it in parliament. You'll see there is mention of his constituents

history.stackexchange.com/questions/59723/why-were-slave-owners-even-offered-compensation-via-the-1837-act-if-theyd-lost/59731#59731

I see those changes happening too and I am very pleased with that as well. And I understand what you mean with there not being enough black businesses to leverage real power.

But I think we have to leverage what we do have. Black people in the entertainment industry speaking up for change. Buying black to grow our businesses. Creating unity and awareness in the community. Make noise. Make it a movement so loud no one can deny it.

I think the key thing we need is unity.

The question is how? When I look at the US and Europe I see a big difference. Even though we are at an disadvantage in both area’s. People in Europe have just enough to stay complacent. Making people in the US much more focal about what they want. Where even Rappers and athletes are speaking out about reparations.

Be unapologetic about supporting black people. When I was working for a recruitment agency a few years ago. I walked into an Asian business. They unapologetically told me they only hire Asians and only do business with Asians. At first I was really shocked but later on I realised they are just putting their own community first.

I might just be rambling now this is something that plays in my mind quite a lot.

Interesting. One thing I see as a huge issue is, several organisations wanting the same thing (Reparations) and yet not working together towards the same cause. I really don't know how to get past the hard-headedness of that at times; this consistent "re-inventing the wheel" with more organisations being formed here and there, when it's just not necessary.

Black businesses collaborating more over the last year or so has been great, circulation of the black pound. Reparations could be linked to that somehow in terms of pushing forward.

Most things in the end come down to economics/money anyway

Be unapologetic about supporting black people. When I was working for a recruitment agency a few years ago. I walked into an Asian business. They unapologetically told me they only hire Asians and only do business with Asians. At first I was really shocked but later on I realised they are just putting their own community first

Also this X 100. & Nobody really queries it. It's only where Black people seek to have a voice, that all and sundry and their little bandwagons either try to silence black voices, or assume their own voices should be heard, and matter the most too. That's when they're not aiming to co-opt us into their causes that essentially, do not benefit us.

Reasons for that are vast I won't go into it as we know what it's all about.

So, yes, "Be unapologetic about supporting Black people" is a good mantra for life

Please ignore some of these posters who want to derail these threads. One claims to have a black husband and mixed race children and thinks it entitles her to anti-black comments and the use of slurs. I shudder to think if what she says is true I genuinely feel sorry for her children. Ignore the derailers. One wonders if they get mad for being called out on their silencing tactics why they bother posting in the first place. The ego and entitlement, my goodness

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020 @/jul/09/british-slavery-reparations-economy-compensation

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/british-slavery-reparations-economy-compensation

Right one

Slavery is still a very serious issue in the UK with live slaves existing in this country under our noses. We have trafficked girls from Eastern Europe being raped every day in this country, held captive. I think it would be shocking to try and "fix" the past with reparations whilst ignoring the current live suffering of slaves that we still have here.

Have to say I agree with this.

It's estimated that about 12 million African slaves were shipped across the Atlantic over a period of 400 years, whilst there are currently still 40 million slaves in the world today.

And as other posters have mentioned, how are other groups like Native Americans going to feel when Black Americans get reparations and they don't? Or Jews, Irish, etc.

Besides, we're already totally screwed by Brexit and covid19. Where's the money going to come from?

^@DuaneAgain
And as other posters have mentioned, how are other groups like Native Americans going to feel when Black Americans get reparations and they don't? Or Jews, Irish, etc.^

I kept going back and forth about how to respond to this without getting rude.

For some reason whenever black people want something for themselves, the whole world expects us to think about everyone else. And put ourselves last. Our pain and suffering is always being portrayed as selfish because other people are suffering as well. BLM vs All lives Mather is a good example of this.

The Jews have had acknowledgment, excuses and some form of reparations. With regards to WWII. The native Americans have received a special status in American with land, free schooling and other benefits. Germany had to pay Europe for the effects of WWII.

When those payments where being distributed nobody said, hey hold on a minute how would the black people feel about this. Our interest is always an afterthought. So why should we care about all the other groups that are already being cared for.

Well said NLisa. The people who always have something negative to say when this issue is discussed, seem to forget that Black people are still suffering to this day from the trauma plus racism. They should have had reparations years ago. Why has this not happened? As you rightly said, no one was saying hang on what about black people when they were getting theirs were they.

I don't think we're going to agree on this. Of course the effects of slavery have been profound but you can't compare it to the holocaust which only happened a generation ago. Reparations for people who were still alive, albeit elderly, isn't the same as reparations for something that ended nearly 200 years ago. We are feeling the effects of slavery, none of us lived through it.

I guess I just don't think throwing money at the problem will solve the sociological issues. If anything, it will make it worse. I don't want preferential treatment over impoverished working class white men, for example. They didn't have much involvement in the slave trade and were struggling back then down coal mines and many are still struggling financially and in education etc, with some of the worst prospects in British society now the mines and heavy industry have died.

Society is slowly improving and is very different to how it was 100 years ago and it will be different in another 100. I don't want handouts. I want a society that gives equal respect and where people can live together, rather than this divisive 'screw them' attitude.

@DuaneAgain I want a society that gives equal respect and where people can live together, rather than this divisive 'screw them' attitude.

I think we all want that. Just like with the protest it’s not about screw the other parties. It’s about acknowledging the interest of the black people. Black people have been trying to get reparations for decades. It’s not a new thing, it was just that the people in power where not willing to listen. But that doesn’t mean it absolves the countries that participated “because to much time has passed” Britain is build on slave trade. People might think they didn’t benefit directly. But if you do a little bit of research you will learn that with the proceeds from slavery Britain build railways, developed bank etc So No it’s not about handouts it’s about paying what they are due, because for centuries they have been able to profit from the horrors of slave trade. The people in the mines might have been struggling but at least they where free, got paid for their work and used the products the enslaved people harvested.

And when they have given us the respect of acknowledging and apologising for the horrible things they have done. Which in this world means paying for it. Then we will be able to level the playing fields.

And when they have given us the respect of acknowledging and apologising for the horrible things they have done. Which in this world means paying for it. Then we will be able to level the playing fields.

But obviously this won't happen due to them having been dead for over 150 years!

Britain paid the slave owners reparations for the loss of their slaves once slavery ended. The slaves were not benefactors

Please just ignore poster seeking to derail and delegitimise a pertinent conversation. This narrative that working class Britons didn't benefit anything from the slave trade is extreme 🙄 mental gymnastics.

This country's development was funded by blood money from the slave trade and raping and looting colonies of their natural resources to build banks, schools, towns, housing estates, businesses that employed people etc. Just ignore

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/09/british-slavery-reparations-economy-compensation

I didn't say that working class people didn't benefit from slavery. I said they didn't perpetrate it (and likely weren't in a situation to do much about it). Communities that were forced down coal mines as children and face mass unemployment now the mines and industry are closed.

I'm going to bow out as this won't go anywhere, but I'd rather focus on helping those currently in slavery than focusing on what happened to my ancestors. Reparations won't ever happen because then society would need to address reparations for the pay gap women experienced, the unpaid labour of poor people sent to workhouses/foreign penal colonies, child labour, etc. The queue is endless.

Ideally every last cent/penny that is due would be paid back to those countries where enslaved people were abducted, and also to the countries where slavery was conducted. Everything that was looted should also be returned with those countries' debts cancelled.

Then we should all 'go back home' courtesy of a pink van ride to the airport and a free plane journey (because that's what they really want to do to us anyway). And make the most of the newfound riches by building up those countries.

People who feel bad for the white working class in the UK, which is valid, can always stay here and work to uplift those communities. Very worthy mission.

This is tongue in cheek, but it's along the lines. All things being equal I wouldn't stay here.