We can’t change history, and nobody is suggesting we should try.
What we should do is acknowledge that history, and present to art and culture from that period in a context that recognises it.
I’d argue the City of Liverpool, through various initiatives, are doing an excellent job of this.
Your ancestors were enslaved?
Yep, most were at some point through history. You know, Romans?
And Saxons, vikings etc Like I said, where are you drawing the line?
I am Spartacus
Not you.
So, and just let me buckle myself in here, you think because you have ancestors who might have been enslaved by Romans a few thousand years ago, you can draw a comparison with people who’s ancestors definitely were enslaved a couple of hundred years ago.
By the way, if you can’t see that Slavery is a phenomenon with very recent repercussions, consider this. The debt that this country took out to compensate slave owners was finally paid off in 2015. Twenty fucking fifteen.
That’s an awful lot of money that is still sloshing around certain families.
Where are you drawing the line? At a time and place to suit yourself I’m absolutely sure. On the basis that the perpetrators and the slaves are now long dead. What’s the difference?
And a thousand years ago brits were being enslaved, not thousands (although they were then too)
The difference is that the repercussions of slavery are still being profoundly felt in our modern society.
Yes, Liverpool is a giant shining example of that.
There’s an inconvenient truth now isn’t it
Let me put it like this. I’ve seen a LOT of America. The people who’ve been fucked the hardest without question are the indigenous cultures. Forced off their fertile lands into hovels in the desert (it’s OK, we’ll give you a gambling license) It’s utterly hideous to drive rounds some of the south west states. We literally stole the country off so many once proud nations. But as that was before the serious growth of slavery, is it less of a crime and so less important? That theft and that treatment is alive and wrong today. Slavery certainly isn’t.
You’ll be good enough to elucidate on the repercussions of slavery being felt today, thanks. Aside from countries were slavery is effectively still legal and practiced. I’m curious on this one.
Wrong.
Every worker on minimum wage, while CEOs and others make millions, is a slave to the system of neoliberalism.
And please don’t come back with the “they can get a different job” bollocks. That would be beneath you.
this thread reeeeeeeks of privilege. Suggest everyone take a step back and re-analyse their current perspective on this.
whilst my ancestors were persecuted for who they were and at least one was murdered per his political affiliation which lead to my family fleeing on a boat to Canada, pretty hard to draw a line between that and where this discussion started regarding cancel culture and slavery.
And this, in a nutshell, is why we can’t move on and consign it to the past.
If you, and people like you, don’t understand how the slave trade has shaped Britain and continues to impact on its socio-economics and structural racism, then there can be no closure.
in a nutshell, it’s not just Britain. they were just the best at it for a period of time. Colonialism was not just an English game, it was played by many countries of Europe during a time of massive global expansion. The Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, French all took shots at it. Look at a globe and you can see how far the “trade winds” reached with the migration of “workers”
example… Grenada–India relations - Wikipedia
what’s most important is transparency as to HOW we got to today, and recognize the evils that preceded us so we don’t go down that road again.
This discussion has been going on a long time. Here is an interesting book from 1991.
What are you trying to say here?
I think they’re both saying the same thing, just different ways to get there.
I wouldn’t advocate mining….
I never try to say anything.
Slavery has been going on since we descended from the treetops.
It is a natural lizard brain desire to overpower and conquer other tribes and nations.
To reduce it to racial lines is, to be fair, a bit trite.
Slavery is primarily about power, wealth, sex and dominance. Not just about the colour of someone’s skin.
Revising history to tell the stories from different perspectives is a good thing. But it must depict and include all perspectives, all histories, however uncomfortable they might be.
Interesting article in the WSJ
