This is getting silly now. We’ve agreed for thousands of years that children aren’t responsible for the sins of their fathers. This attempt to resurrect Babylonian era values is absurd. Critical thinking is clearly absent in modern schooling.
It has nothing to do with punishing children for the sins of their fathers, it’s about paying people for the work they did. Living descendants of slave owners still benefit today from the unpaid labour, to pay reparations isn’t a punishment, it’s the smallest possible attempt to make the victims of slavery whole.
it’s about paying people for the work they did.
Okay, so pay slaves for the work they did. But we can’t, because they’re long dead. So that’s not what you’re asking at all. You’re asking for people who never owned slaves to pay people who were never slaves. Not all British white people are wealthy as a result of historical slavery. In fact, most British were dirt poor and never owned any slaves at all. Today, their ancestors remain dirt poor. You’d ask them to pay recompense for something for which neither they nor their ancestors are guilty.
I’m white and of Irish descent. My ancestors were subject to genocide under the Irish Potato Famine. Am I morally owed restitution? Further back, my ancestors were subject to slavery along the North African coast and Middle East for hundreds of years in the Barbary slave trade. Am I owed reparations from the numerous countries involved in that? To me it quickly becomes apparent that any feigned moral outrage begins and stops at white people. Everyone’s ancestors are guilty of atrocities if we go back far enough. Everyone’s ancestors were subject to atrocities as well.
we can’t because they’re long dead
If someone died today who was owed £100,000 for some work they did, would the debt be written off, or would it become owed to their estate?
most British didn’t have slaves
Did you forget what thread you were commenting on? This is about the royal family, not some random East Londoner from the 17th century.
am I owed restitution
I would say so, yes. But it’s not “moral”, this is nothing to do with morals, it’s to do with the reality of the situation - Irish people have historically been victimised for the benefit of others, especially the British, and so I would 100% be in favour of the UK making some sort of payment to try and mitigate that problem. I do have to say that, morally speaking, (but not technically) I think it’s lower on the priority list, because white Irish people have a pretty decent quality of life now, and imo it would be better to try put money where it would be most needed before paying overdue debts to more prosperous people
The UK government was still paying off former slaveowners as recently as a few years ago
Paying off the loan they took out to compensate the slave owners for their "property" to be more precise.
As repugnant as that was, it was still preferable to the terrible waste of life the USA endured fighting a civil war over slavery.
Yes they made a financial commitment to various states, companies, and individuals to compensate slave owners for their financial loss when Britain ended the slave trade. I think that was pragmatic and commendable. I don’t see how that addresses me comment.
Honest question: Is there any legitimate expectation of them actually paying up?
Probably not, and even then it'd be taxpayer money, which is totally unfair.
Is there precedent for this? What happened in the US for example? Or Belgium? Or Portugal?
Wasn't Belgium one of the countries that had the biggest hand in slave trade? I remember reading they were horrific. Yet, they're barely spoken about in the same sentence.
That’s nothing. You should hear about what the Vikings did. And the Romans. And the Sumerians.
There’s a actual difference here in two ways. Firstly racialized transatlantic chattel slavery was a massive break from the slavery that had been practiced before in the form of those three adjectives. But also the European mainland suing Scandinavia for reparations, the entirety of Europe, Middle East, and North Africa suing Italy for reparations, and Iraq and Iran suing Iraq for reparations are materially different from some of the poorest countries in the world suing the royal family of a wealthy nation that still has an empire for reparations.
So the morality of the exercise hinges on the wealth of the accused?
Who gets reparations from them?
For Sumeria, you could just shuffle money around rural Iraq and Iran.
Guess we should be demanding reparations from Italy and Türkiye
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Earlier this year, the Guardian revealed that direct ancestors of King Charles III and the royal family bought and exploited enslaved people on tobacco plantations in Virginia.
Research by the playwright Desirée Baptiste unearthed a document instructing a ship’s captain to deliver the enslaved Africans to Edward Porteus, a tobacco plantation owner in Virginia, and two other men.
Support for the research was part of Charles’s process of deepening his understanding of “slavery’s enduring impact”, the spokesperson said, which had “continued with vigour and determination” since his accession.
“It is part of our shared history that caused enormous suffering and continues to have a negative impact on Black and ethnically diverse communities today,” the company stated on its website.
“There’s no doubt that those who were making the investment knew that the South Sea Company was trading in enslaved people, and that’s now a source of real shame for us, and for which we apologise,” Gareth Mostyn, chief executive of the Church Commissioners, told BBC radio earlier this year.
Adrian Odle, a lawyer and commission chair, told the Telegraph that British institutions are compromised by their ancestral guilt, saying “every property that the royal family is in possession of has the scent of slavery”.
The original article contains 638 words, the summary contains 204 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The Royal family responded "But we already made reperations to the slave holders!"
Good luck with that 🙃
Inconvenient truth. Africans captured and sold other Africans to slave traders. The 'white devils' did not sneak into the African interior and steal them away, they waited for them to be brought to the coast. Still an awful practice, but the question has to be asked, "Why not demand reparations from modern day African nations?"
For one, modern day African nations are not a small group of ultra rich white assholes who are still benefitting from the slavery.
It helps when the scope of the action is clear and direct and includes specific people.
Ahh, it's what I thought. It's not about truth and justice, it's about shaking people down for money.
Do you think fining people who have wronged others is 'shaking people down for money'.
Stupid comment. So, using your logic, it would be OK to fine you for something your great great great grandfather did. I'm confident that not a single 'internet couch activist' would accept that.
If I had inherited insane wealthy due to the horrible actions of my ancestors, then losing part of it to repay the victims of that tragedy is perfectly fine. It isn't like I earned it through my actions, and I would expect that if someone stole something from me and gave it to someone else then I should still get it back.
Way to be selfish though, hope it lets you sleep at night.
Very noble of you to state what you would do IF yada yada yada. I call BS.
At least my speculation is helping victims instead of shilling for the fucking royals.
Nah, I couldn't give two shits about the royals. I just don't want to see a ridiculous precedent set.
Why not? Do you think Germany paying restitution long after WWII set a precedent that applies to you?
Do you just fear acknowledging the wrongs of the past?
Fun facts:
We finished paying off our World War 1 reparation debt in 2010.
Although we're going to pay Namibia 1.1 billion, although those are explictely not reparations officially, because we also don't want to set a precedent on the matter.
(and needless to say we're still actively paying for the Holocaust)
If you only go after the people with money, then yes. Then it’s not about justice or morality at all. It’s about money.
Nothing you wrote absolves anyone of their participation in the slave trade, you simply implicated an additional guilty party.
True. So you agree that African nations hold the greatest responsibility?
Barbary pirates in North Africa actually came to South West England and took slaves.
Still though, the barbary pirates don't exist as an entity any more, the Royal family unfortunately does.
What a garbage! I'm sorry, but how out of touch can one get?
Are you asking yourself how out of touch you are? Because you should.
Not just the wealth overseas they stole, they stole from all of us as well.
Abolish the monarchy, take it all back and pay us and the others their ancestors stole from our wealth and land back.
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