Apologising for the slave trade

[Pennies]

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the slave trade and there have been calls recently for there to be a formal apology from Tony Blair and / or the Queen.

Will it make any difference?

My personal opinion is that you can't apologise for someone else's actions - it would be a bit like me apologising for Tony Blair's sanctioning of the war in Iraq (and I have never voted for him so I haven't even approvied those actions vicariously IYSWIM). It would be an empty apology, wouldn't it?

I can't see that it would ever change anything, or am I missing something.

WTF does vituperative mean please as I don't have a dictionary ready.

Woh Domini. I googled your MN name. Do you post on EVERY website chatroom going???

How on earth do you find time?

Vituperative means abusive.

No worries Clodhopper. At work, I eat men like DC for breakfast. Before children, I ran a research group of 50 scientists and engineers, 99% men and DC reminds me of a couple of them (too full of their self-importance).

No worries Peachy. I have learnt a great deal from doing this research. Today at our discussion group, we again discussed modern day slavery in the context of globalisation. It was illuminating, coherent and thoughtprovoking.

Right, I'm off to bed now.

love you speedymama.

Don't love you speedy,, but do feel a bit more enriched by your posts. Thank you.

Peachyclari, I have gothic levels of writers block it's a therapy. I never spend much time on a given posting. Am a fast, if mildly inaccurate typiest.
Currently I'm writing a lecture called "Cruel and Unusual Pointers II". Going badly...

Love u SM.xx

I think this debate would benefit from other black women really and before anyone says why black 'women' because this is farking mumsnet, and there ain't that many dads on here, let alone black ones

I do think that DC enjoys getting under people's skin and loves to display his apparent intellect. It is very amusing when he is soooo soundly put in his place .

Were you born beautiful too DC?

I am fearing for DC - he is becoming a caricature of himself!

DC - do like to read many of your posts, though. As wrong-headed as I think they are.

Peachy, during your study,don't forget about people like Olaudah Equiano, an African slave who purchased his freedom and then became active in the abolition movement. In 1789, he published "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African" which became a bestseller and helped to galvanise the abolition movement as well as put a human face on the indignity of the slave trade. I recently bought it from Amazon.

Another interesting person is Samuel Adjai Crowther (1809-1892). After beeing rescued from slavery, he became a Christian. He travelled extensively, founding many Christian missions. He translated the Bible into Yoruba and became the first black Anglican bishop. I have a book about him entitled "From Slave boy to Bishop" written by John Milsome.

HTH[smiles]

sm I'm not sure, but it could be that DC was onjecting to your calling him a System Engineer, rather than a systems engineer.

But I could be wrong. In which case I will beat myself for a good five minutes.

If I am not, I hope you are whipping yourself roundly for that ghastly error young woman!

As an aside
Coughs [Arse]

paulaplumpbottom - in my day (I am 39) my American school (an international one in Europe)didn't teach geography and I was told by my American teachers (who were mostly excellent by the way, but then Americans who move to teach abroad are not "typical" teachers, they tend to be the cream)that most US kids were not taught world geography or history at school. They may be taught North American geography/history, but certainly nothing that has any relevance to the rest of the world.

Also even at my own school which was mainly for the kids of US diplomats and UN officials, it was not compulsory to study world history. Most of the Americans and Canadians at my school opted to only study North American history. Quite shocking for the world's only superpower with military activities, bases all over the world. There have been many surveys on adult Americans' knowledge of basic world history and geography (one of them in DC's favourite mag. The Economist)and not surprisingly it turns out that most Americans have a very poor knowledge of other countries.

I make no apologies to any Americans on MN who DO have a good knowledge of either, you are very rare !

drosophila I was born quite remarkably ugly.
I was late, the amniotic fluid had dried, up then they applied penicillin's which made my skin come off.
After that I went into a bit of a decline...

I haven't yet come across a school that didn't teach both world geography and world history. I think your teachers were telling you porky pies.

I will agree that American's can be pretty blind when it comes to the rest of the world's current affairs. They probably couldn't tell you who is running for president in France and what the issues that concern The French are, but it would be a mistake to think that they couldn't speak with you about the French Revolution or point out Chad on a map.

paula - I beg to differ having had many many American/Canadian friends from very educated families, from solid upper middle class backgrounds. They simply weren't interested in anything other than very narrow domestic issues, although they lived bang in the middle of Europe. Like us Brits. and other English speakers they were also very quick to acknowledge that they didn't need to learn the language of the country they lived in as "even our cleaner speaks good English" Sad really. I am not just being critical of North Americans by the way. I think us Brits. can be just as woefully uninterested in world politics. Most of us also don't bother to learn languages which is a real barrier to undersatnding other cultures.

I cannot believe the blatant racism being posted on this site. I feel sick that many of you people have tried every which way to justify slavery, even to go so far as to suggest that if african's had not sold their own people then it would not have happened.

I have just returned from a pilgramige to west africa to visit the slave forts which were the last holding place of my ancestors. i was born in britain without my own name or identity from jamaican parents, who did not know who their parents were or where they were from. they were tricked into coming to the mother country 'for a better life' but in fact it was just to clean up after your bloody war.

the legacy of slavery exsits today. I do not know who I am, or where I am going. I have a job, a career and a family but no identity. This can easily be taken for granted by many of the people that have posted here today, and we can always search for modern day examples of astrocities and displacement (I belive one such example posted today was the Irish Potatoe Famine!? Very comparable!) and say that they too should be apologised to. But never in the history of mankind have million of one race been displaced, raped, tortured, as a deliberate attempt to strip all sense of identity, family, belonging or basic human rights for the benefit of wealth. not power, money. The western world all reap these benefits. The freedoms and wealth you have today is mainly built of the destruction of my race. repatriation is impossible because it would mean the collapse of everything you own or feel is rightfully yours. beacuse it was built by us.

My people still fight each other over who's skin is lighter, or hair straighter. The emotional abuse we suffered is now endemic in our culture. black people the world over still bleach their skin and straigten their hair to look white. our self esteem is so low and together with no sense of belonging we feel the only way forward is to emulate our 'masters'. Black people (especially men) the world over still only see the beauty in white people. Why wouldn't you, for generation after generation you have been told that black is dirty, wrong, ugly. Why would I want to produce 'Black' children for them to go through that abuse. My own daughter is not yet two, yet I have been inundated with 'compliments' by my own black people about how 'light' (not dark) her skin is; or how 'wavy' (not afro) her hair is. I cannot blame them. This negative thinking and self hate is the consequence of generations of abuse. Some of us are now coming out of the darkness and seeing the light. My husband and I have an overwhelming sense of duty and responsiblity to show our daughter that contrary to the negativity surrounding your beauty and race you are a queen, and the world can be your oyster too. In the face of adversity we will get stronger.

I live in England, but do not belong, and have been stipped of all identity that i do not even know where in Africa to return to. I do not know their lanuguage, I do not know my tribes or their practises, yet do not belong here. we are nomads left to wander the world with nothing but the clothes on our backs. ad if that wasn't enough, we then suffered 'legal slavery' known as colonism whilst our homeland was further stripped of its wealth and our fathers demoralised till the point where our african leaders now emulate the 'white masters' and see this as the only way to govern by pilaging their own people.

the legacy is here and you can ignore it, but we're here. we are in your schoools, we are in you workplace, your place of worship, we live in your street, we will marry your children. try to ignore the legacy of slavery at your peril.

Look at this aposite news story

protester disrupts slavery commemoration

bloody hell.

' our African leaders now emulate the 'white masters' and see this as the only way to govern by pillaging their own people'.

• to whom do you refer yentil? clarify please, or else people might think you are justifying any atrocity or dictatorship practised by a black African leader and saying - well, they can't help it can they.

yentil, perhaps you would like to educate yourself about The Great Hunger aka The Irish Potato Famine.

any spare time i have will be spent teaching myself about my own history. The education system in this country that I have more than paid into has failed us enough.

still no acknowledgement I see.

donnie, you have obviously spent your whole life justifying the actions of your ancestors. I will focus on preparing my children for when they meet yours.

Yentil, why don't you try something like this ?

(Though as Black Britons have just as much right to be here as white, I am sorry you feel you want to "return".)

Wow - this is really in-depth. Now I don't mean to stir things up a bit but it strikes me that all those Slave Trade descendents living in another country can't be that traumatised by it - surely they would move back to their native land if this was the case?

I think it's a little more complex than that CS

What's your opinion on the idea of an apology yentil?