Munroe Bergdorf makes George Floyd/Black Lives Matter all about Munroe Bergdorf

[GiantKitten]

What MB was cancelled for was not what this is all about, was it?

twitter.com/MunroeBergdorf/status/1267460238678069249?s=20

As a Brit living in the USA for 24 years may I remind you that the USA was built on British Colonies, that the White Supremacy and race relations that you accuse Americans of was imported directly from Europe and very much from the UK. Even the Quakers (English in orgin) had slaves until they had a change of heart. All those White people in the Deep South that introduced the Black Codes and Jim Crow to keep Black people in indentured servitude for another 100 years after the Civil War, were of majority British descent. And British people didn't just emigrate hundreds of years ago, British immigrants came in large and steady numbers all the way until the 1950s into the USA. The number one place new immigrants to the American South came from 1900-1950 was the UK. The history of our two countries are different but let's disabuse anyone of the notion that the British were not deeply involved in the development of and directly benefited from, the slave trade in North America, before and after the creation of the USA.

Quite. BLM was created as a response to the specific context of the US' racial history and its policing.

Yes, but I think it's important to realise it is not thesrefore necessarily the only way to think about race in America, either.

I would argue that the reason they are so unable to understand that there are differences in how race operates in other settings is very much because of their own ideology. It's not that they just mistakenly assume that other places have a similar history, according to the ideology they have developed, that must be true.

They are race essentialists. The idea that racism against dark skinned people is in the DNA of white people is not really a metaphor for them.

@TangibleTuTu

My post is about the significant difference between US and UK policing. It is not comparable. To suggest otherwise requires industrial quantities of false equivalence.

the number one place new immigrants came to the South from between 1900 and 1950 was the UK
That may include Irish immigrants until 1922 - it's worth checking out, for accuracy's sake.

@TangibleTuTu

As a Brit living in the USA for 24 years may I remind you that the USA was built on British Colonies, that the White Supremacy and race relations that you accuse Americans of was imported directly from Europe and very much from the UK. Even the Quakers (English in orgin) had slaves until they had a change of heart. All those White people in the Deep South that introduced the Black Codes and Jim Crow to keep Black people in indentured servitude for another 100 years after the Civil War, were of majority British descent. And British people didn't just emigrate hundreds of years ago, British immigrants came in large and steady numbers all the way until the 1950s into the USA. The number one place new immigrants to the American South came from 1900-1950 was the UK. The history of our two countries are different but let's disabuse anyone of the notion that the British were not deeply involved in the development of and directly benefited from, the slave trade in North America, before and after the creation of the USA.

Yup, this is why (by way of explaining the current news to DS) we're doing a home schooling project on exactly this, and why I picked as my starting point the slave trade and Britain's role in it.

Next stop, how the slave trade destabilised Africa making European colonisation possible, and how we (collective we, Europeans) fucked Africa over in a big way, and how a lot of the political instability there now is a legacy of colonialism.

We're not all ignorant of our ancestors' role in this.

We're not all ignorant of our ancestors' role in this

@CaraDune

Speak for yourself. Don't make assumptions about the ethnic background of other posters. By the way, your belief in collective guilt? That people are responsible for historical events they never participated in which happened centuries ago? How very progressive....

Apologies, Bovary, I was responding to Tangible saying "if only Brits knew what I knew having moved to America."

As for collective guilt - no, I don't buy into that. But I do buy into the idea that reparations are arguably due. When you look at the legacy of the British corner of the triangular trade in cities like Bristol, with disproportionate numbers of its black population in the poor areas, and huge amounts of inherited wealth still in the hands of people whose wealth was first made in the slave trade, I certainly wonder whether anyone in British politics has ever "tried hard enough." For instance, in the immediate aftermath of abolition, all British slave owners were given government compensation for having owned slaves. No compensation was given to the people formerly enslaved.

Of course people aren't responsible for events that happened centuries ago. But they are responsible for taking the time and effort to learn the historical context to our present day inequalities before they sound off about things like race riots (for instance, on one of the AIBU threads, the one discussing Trump's tweeting of the quotation "when the looting starts the shooting starts" there are dozens of posters prepared to say "sounds fair enough to me" without actually taking the time to look into the origin of the phrase, or even continuing to defend its use once its origin has been explained to them).

immigrationtounitedstates.org/393-british-immigrants.html

Slavery is barely mentioned in this link except here:
In 1689, the British population of New England was about 80,000. The middle colonies had some 40,000 immigrants, not all of whom were British; and the southern colonies more than 80,000. By 1760, immigrant numbers had increased to some 165,000 in Virginia alone, plus some 150,000 African slaves. Other colonies saw similar increases

It skirts around the South and focuses on New England. Just as many place names in the South are from the British Isles and English laws, language, culture were all imported including the class system in many colonies. You can quibble over numbers while refusing to acknowledge the elephant in the room, people of British descent and newly arrived British were directly involved in creating the structures of enslavement.

There is a whole group of conservative black American writers who talk about police violence, I am not seeing them being posted about. There is a whole group of leftist black American writers, I am not seeing them being posted about.

Would you be able to recommend some of them please, Goosefoot?
I'd be interested in reading some blogs or articles that are not from the Critical Race Theory angle.

I think it would be great if there were public debates between the conservative black American group vs the CRT group.
I've always wanted to see more diversity of opinion within minority groups expressed publicly, open disagreements and discussions.

I watched a clip of a UK programme a few months ago. Think it was the Big Questions or something like that. I can't remember the topic - might have been along the lines of Is Britain a racist country..... there were two black men in the audience.
One was a US academic who moved to the UK and was definitely in the CRT camp by the way he was talking about the subject of race. The other man was of mixed race heritage... I can't recollect which African country his father was from... I think his mum might have been Polish. And he had some very interesting and different viewpoints from the first guy. It was so refreshing to see diversity of opinion and disagreement instead of the standard tropes around the 'black community' as if they all agree on a certain perspective.
There's a similar pigeon holing with terms like South Asian community, Muslim community, LGBT community etc. It's so simplistic and infantile and doesn't allow the variety of opinions to shine through.

Apologies,Bovary,I was responding toTangiblesaying "if only Brits knew what I knew having moved to America.

That is not what I said but I am on this side of the Atlantic and there is often a self-righteousness on MN without acknowledging not just the slave trade but American society itself was created from English colonies and continued British and European immigration. Where does policing of black people's bodies come from? 400 plus years of oppression. We know there was not a significant population of people of African descent in the UK until late in the 20th century so acting as if the UK is so enlightened when overseas British colonists were creating all white armies and police for the majority of modern history is disingenuous.

We seem to be talking past each other Tangible. Though I'd argue that the "we didn't have to worry about race relations because we were ethnically homogeneous till the late 20th century" view (not saying you espouse it, but many people do seem to) is in itself a white-washing of history. There were quite sizeable black populations in London and many of the port cities from the late 18th century onwards, albeit still smaller minorities in percentage terms than now.

@TangibleTuTu
BLM was an specific response to a specific American context. If you are actually in America, presumably you are clearly aware of the significant differences between policing in the UK and policing in the US. To suggest there is a legitimate comparison between the two is deeply disingenuous. I think your post is a deliberate attempt to divert attention from the origins of BLM. And why its Tranatlantic journey strips it of much of its original meaning.

The point is using minority groups in history such as There were quite sizeable black populations in London and many of the port cities from the late 18th century onwards, albeit still smaller minorities in percentage terms than now. is missing where the vast majority of people with black bodies were in the countries which Britain founded and had very deep economic ties to and still do. Noone is denying the diversity in British history but to not talk about the macro movements is much more of a whitewashing. Some black people within the USA were always free and there were free towns of colour even in the South but noone would seriously use them as examples of American and British race relations for the majority of what black people experienced.

Because if you challenge any of this, there is just a torrent of abuse

I find it depends how you phrase it. I keep pointing out that there are violent thugs across the political spectrum, and those on the left tend to gravitate towards antifa. So far the response has been tumbleweed.

let's disabuse anyone of the notion that the British were not deeply involved in the development of and directly benefited from, the slave trade in North America

Not sure anyone (okay, maybe one person) was actually disputing this.

It's more that we're being assumed to have American-specific cultural values and biases simply on the basis of our skin colour. And the assumption that the white British population and the UK authorities are in any sort of agreement about basically anything.

Quite a lot of white British people are actually quite keen on holding our own government to account for supporting and colluding with the American regime. I'm guessing that fact flies under the radar across the pond.

The idea that racism against dark skinned people is in the DNA of white people is not really a metaphor for them.

That's a really blinkered view of humanity's capacities. We're pretty big on the demonisation of outgroups generally; skin colour just happens to be an obvious physical characteristic for this to revolve around. In the absence of other skin tones we're perfectly capable of finding a different marker to identify the shat-upon caste.

Just a thought: does it seem reasonably accurate to say the US has a massive race issue whereas in Europe it's more of a xenophobia issue?

And another thought: on the English-speaking internet, the default human is American. This grates.

For instance, in the immediate aftermath of abolition, all British slave owners were given government compensation for having owned slaves. No compensation was given to the people formerly enslaved.

As I understood it, a large proportion of the economy depended on slavery.
If you wanted to end slavery fairly quickly, you needed to convince the slave owners en masse to move into businesses and ventures that did not require the use of slaves. People are less likely to sign up to something if it will have a negative impact on them - see the shrieks of communism every time a politician suggests tax rises these days.

So by paying a hefty lump-sum to slave owners, they either happily retired or used that compensation to invest in some other line of business. Thus relinquishing the 'assets' of slaves. It was a pragmatic move to swiftly put an end to a practice without getting into a giant dispute with very wealthy and powerful business owners. It wasn't some grand messianic gesture to bring peace and goodwill and redress moral injustices of past and present.

As I mentioned in a previous post, a number of 'advances' in human society were made out of calculated pragmatism and self-interest in addition to any altruistic motives.

When you want people who fundamentally disagree with you to adopt your ideas, you have to be able to sell it to them... As well as bribe them.
When the foundation for the NHS was being established, the GPs and the BMA fought tooth and nail against it because they didn't want to lose their income from wealthy private patients. To overcome this, they were paid generously for taking on NHS patients, hence the quote by Bevan about stuffing their mouths with gold. There wasn't some universal burning SJW desire to do good for the poor. Those narratives are for fairytales.

all British slave owners were given government compensation for having owned slaves.

Is it just me or does that make a bit of a mockery of the idea that slavery must be eradicated for ideological reasons of human rights?

Because it means the slave owners weren't actually made to free their slaves, they were made to sell them on to someone who would free them.

That's true, Nonny.

There's all sorts of these pragmatic moves during the history of abolition and the years that followed it. It was only half way through the American Civil War that Lincoln switched to a "free all the slaves" platform - previously he'd been anti slavery in the sense of resisting its extension to the northern states, and being prepared to argue in court that it was a bad thing, but took a gradual approach to abolition, hoping it would die out "naturally" in the southern states. He switched for reasons of military strategy - to put economic pressure on the south and cut the funding out from under their military. Likewise, the Jim Crow laws came about after a "hung parliament" type situation in American politics - one candidate won the popular vote, the other the college (remind you of any recent elections?) and the eventual compromise was that Hayes became president if he was prepared to remove troops from the South, thus ending the pressure on them to actually enact the equal rights amendments to the constitution. Cue nearly 100 years of segregation.

It makes me think that history illustrates the problem of "white saviour" complex in a nutshell. Politicians make all the right noises, but when it comes to a political moment where they need to compromise with the other side for their own political gain or survival, suddenly other things are more important than a commitment to righting injustice if they're not actually the ones on the receiving end of the injustice themselves.

Tyro - your point that the US has a massive race issue whereas in Europe it's more of a xenophobia issue makes a lot of sense to me. Despite the UK's colonial past and involvement in the slave trade etc, the vast majority of people in the UK would have had no or very little experience of living with people of a different race in this country until comparatively recently. I don't think that conflating the history of black people in the UK with that of the US helps at all.

Politicians make all the right noises, but when it comes to a political moment where they need to compromise with the other side for their own political gain or survival, suddenly other things are more important than a commitment to righting injustice if they're not actually the ones on the receiving end of the injustice themselves.

Absolutely. And this isn't unique to 'white' people. All human societies have done these sort of things at one point or another. If an alternative historical timeline had an Asian or African population that was the dominant power, they would be enacting similar behaviours to consolidate their political and economic powers.

I think your post is a deliberate attempt to divert attention from theoriginsof BLM. And why its Tranatlantic journey strips it of much of its original meaning

BovaryX why can't you say "Yes, this is all true* the history of racism in the Americas is intricately entwined with European history, just because Britian gets to stay at arms length and didn't actually have to directly deal with the consequences of the transportation of enslaved people they had initiated, funded and benefited from doesn't mean they get to reframe history and cherry pick the parts they want to acknowledge.

You seem to be getting very angry when all I am saying is take into consideration a long history of racism which our government and economy has directly benefited from. Alabama's big plantations on the western part of the state were not even developed until after 1819 when the native tribes were finally forcibly removed. Those plantations (funded from London) quickly produced massive amounts of cotton for the English markets and were part of the direct development of northern towns and the enrichment of London's financial center. So 200 years ago, not long historically. You can't understand BLM without understanding the context of a social structure that always regulated black bodies. In my own West coast city, neighborhoods had covenants preventing black, Jewish and Asian people from buying or renting property into the 1950s. Harlem became a large black community because black people were preventing from purchasing or renting anywhere else in NYC. You can just talk about current cases of police brutality but this behavior has a long, long history, one we don't get to opt out of because it's uncomfortable.

one we don't get to opt out of because it's uncomfortable

TangibleTuTu

I find your determination to discuss events from two centuries ago a deliberate distraction from the point I am making about the origin of BLM. Its context was specific to the US. Those who claim that there is any comparison between policing in the UK and the US are either profoundly ignorant. Or deliberately mendacious. Its Translatlantic journey has stripped it of its meaning. Because the UK police rarely exert lethal force.The concept of collective guilt is, imo, a bankrupt and reactionary thesis. Its history is bloody. By the way? Do not coopt me into your wish to hoist an ancestral burden of guilt. I am not white. Neither am I a Liberal, in its current iteration. And I am not remotely interested in white, liberal guilt.

For anyone to say that race in the UK is just about "ethnicity" obviously doesn't have any black family members.

The modern context of racial groups based on skin colour is historically rooted in around the 1400s. Even in the USA in the early years of colonization Africans were indentured and could legally buy their freedom and buy land. Land was abundant and the need for labour so high that gradually servitude became permanent for black people and slavery associated with skin colour.

This gradual change can be traced in English colonial law, when the Virginian English colonial law for example changed that said children of an enslaved person had to take their legal status from their mother not their father in 1662. the act "Negro womens children to serve according to the condition of the mother," passed by theGeneral Assemblyin the session of December 1662, Virginia's colonial government attempted to better define the conditions by which people wereenslaved or free.

This was to stop what had been happening, which was the sons of enslaved African mothers inheriting their English colonists father's property. So black people were gradually moved legally from indenture to permanent servitude based on skin colour. Even free black people were prevented by law from voting in 1724 and 1735. This is all before the creation of the USA.

The extensive system of literally keeping large numbers of black people corralled and forcibly enslaved, took a social willingness to accept violence against black people as necessary and normal by white people.

The idea that this is an American phenomenon is quaint and shows you don't know much about British history. Those black communities in the ports of England were constantly physically attacked and brutalized. "Such semi-orchestrated violence culminated in the 1958 Notting Hill riots when hundreds of white people attacked black people on the streets and in their homes over a period of days."
The police are following the lead from the wider society they live within. History is messy and can't be nearly divided as if there hasn't been extensive racial violence against black people within the UK.

may I remind you that the USA was built on British Colonies, that the White Supremacy and race relations that you accuse Americans of was imported directly from Europe and very much from the UK.

Yes, and no. Slavery as it existed in the early modern period changed it's nature significantly in the Americas, and in some ways that was a reversal of the direction that it had been moving in Europe for several centuries.
The concept of race existed in Europe undoubtably but was not tied to skin colour, but something loser to ethnicity or even the emerging idea of something like a national identity.
Slavery as an institution is ancient and almost ubiquitous in human history, and I think that's really the key to understanding it, and the fundamental problem of Critical Race Theory. It's never really been about race, it's about an economic structure and the rights or freedoms or autonomy of those at the bottom. And there have always been gradations just like there have always been people being exploited at the bottom. The slavery of the ancient Greeks wasn't the same as that of the ancient Persians, the slavery of early medieval period wasn't the same as that of the late medieval period which wasn't the same as the chattel slavery of the Americas. The people employed by the factory owners of the Industrial Revolution, or working in mines living in mining town houses and owing their pay to the shop the mine owners sold them their necessities from weren't called slaves, but they are on a continuum with those other forms of slavery. The modern poor American who is in a shit job in an Amazon warehouse and can't move or leave for fear of losing health insurance and can't afford to improve his lot or that of his kids through education is also in a continuum. And in every case these labourers are there to benefit someone at the top.

This is problem about talking about slave reparations. Lots of people are owned lots. Reparations is just a little readjustment for a few of them within an system that is fundamentally exploitative.

Should say *lot's of people are owed lots" rather than owned