Edward Colston/Trans rights/Stamp collecting

rick_chasey

florerider said:

rick_chasey said:

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

I don't buy into the thin-end-of-the-wedge argument because I think we should be able to take all instances in their own context. Churchill's statue is not going to be taken down. It is healthy that we've had the discussion about his problems with race which, let's be honest, hasn't really entered the public debate.

I'm not so certain about that. I heard very serious discussion yesterday about removing Nelson's Column as he owned slaves. At the moment it seems there's not a push for that but I can foresee a time where the narrative changes and people start pushing for it to happen.

I'm all for discussion. Really important the discussion is happening. As long as it's been done in good faith on both sides.

Quite agree Rick, but speaking as someone stuck at home shielding a very vulnerable son whose already had 7 weeks in hospital this year including 12 days ventilation, and 2 stays on wards with Covid, 2 tests etc, can they please not risk the rest of us via the R rate. There are some other matters of life and death associated with large gatherings.

Why not get up to date and do it on line and via social media and not break the law? Its not Vietnam and the 70s anymore.

Yeah I don't disagree. I guess it's hard to know what it's like to be on the other side of the racism, so I'm not gonna pretend I do.

Pross

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

And some people whose ancestors once upon a time were African would like that recognised, and that means, in a small part, looking at who stands in public spaces today in statue.

If they are British and their ancestors were African and not Caribbean, aren't they more like to have been slavers than slaves?

This has happened on several episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? I think Ainslie Harriot, Marvin Humes and possibly Thandie Newton discovered their ancestry was slave owners.

Ben6899

Jeremy.89 said:

tailwindhome said:

Click through to the article for some top quality definitely not a racist content

https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1270324957436919808?s=20

I feel like they cut off his quotes, which must have started with, I'm not racist but...

And why is he stood in the middle of the road?

florerider

rick_chasey said:

florerider said:

rick_chasey said:

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

I don't buy into the thin-end-of-the-wedge argument because I think we should be able to take all instances in their own context. Churchill's statue is not going to be taken down. It is healthy that we've had the discussion about his problems with race which, let's be honest, hasn't really entered the public debate.

I'm not so certain about that. I heard very serious discussion yesterday about removing Nelson's Column as he owned slaves. At the moment it seems there's not a push for that but I can foresee a time where the narrative changes and people start pushing for it to happen.

I'm all for discussion. Really important the discussion is happening. As long as it's been done in good faith on both sides.

Quite agree Rick, but speaking as someone stuck at home shielding a very vulnerable son whose already had 7 weeks in hospital this year including 12 days ventilation, and 2 stays on wards with Covid, 2 tests etc, can they please not risk the rest of us via the R rate. There are some other matters of life and death associated with large gatherings.

Why not get up to date and do it on line and via social media and not break the law? Its not Vietnam and the 70s anymore.

Yeah I don't disagree. I guess it's hard to know what it's like to be on the other side of the racism, so I'm not gonna pretend I do.

Thats a good point Rick, I'm not going to pretend I do, but I got a taste of it working in Japan and China. Its funny, but indicative, I could never get anything other than Peking Duck in Beijing, its what foreigners eat, no matter what they try to ask for.

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

And some people whose ancestors once upon a time were African would like that recognised, and that means, in a small part, looking at who stands in public spaces today in statue.

If they are British and their ancestors were African and not Caribbean, aren't they more like to have been slavers than slaves?

How far back are you going?

rick_chasey said:

bompington said:

rick_chasey said:

The practices the UK engaged in in Africa were absolutely rooted in racism. It was racism that formed and shaped the entire interaction with the locals, which was by all accounts, brutal.

Sure, there are many other instances of colonialism and slavery and all the rest, but this specific one, the one Britain had and celebrates, was the basis on which the entire racist discourse entered the UK in the first place.

Genuine request. Can you summarise for us (I am, err, working at the moment so don't have time for a degree course in Colonial Studies) the evidence that there was something qualitatively different in the racism of the British Empire to that of, say, the ancient Greeks or the Chinese (either ancient or modern)?

So in short, the idea of races didn't really exist in the same way until Darwin and evolution turned up. In fact, you can read lots of pre-Darwin literature from Europeans on Africans and if you deconstruct it you see that those racist assumptions aren't there. Academics tend to use literary deconstruction to work out what the underlying assumptions are in any given bit of writing, and lots of them have looked at this, and found the same.

That (theory of evolution) then made the intellectual space for the idea that different groups of people, different *races*, were on different parts of the evolutionary development.

That combined with the interactions of explorers with locals in Africa really cemented that idea. From that you then begin to get justifications for exploitation for things like the civilising mission, the white man burden etc.

As the 19th century goes on, more countries get in on the act and the that process of interacting with the locals keeps reinforcing those racist ideas in some kind of vicious circle. That culminates in some of the most brutal behaviour imaginable by every European power in Africa, but notably Germans in Namibia ) and Belgians in Congo.

There is also a theory which is considered credible (after a lot of initial hostility), that the kind of nazi thinking and behaviour was essentially just Europeans importing the behaviours and thinking they had been practicing and mastering in Africa. (Cards on the table, the guy who marked my dissertation was the guy who came up with this theory).

This doesn't point the finger at Darwin (necessarily) by the way, but in the same way you don't get drink driving without cars, you don't get racism as we know it without the theory of evolution.

Charles Darwin was born after the slave trade ended. You are arguing your colonialism hobby horse which came later.

Ben6899

blazing_saddles said:

Pross said:

The other thing to consider is that whilst the slavery of the times of Colston was predominantly black people taken from Africa to the plantations of the Caribbean, Deep South and South America slavery both historically and today isn't necessarily about colour. It's about exploiting the weak and vulnerable. Today it seems to be mainly Eastern Europeans and Asians being tricked, back in the days of the Roman Empire it was people from all other their conquered Empire black or white. Arguably much of the workforce on which the industrial revolution was based were little more than the slaves of the company employing them and were native to the country.

pangolin said:

I've considered it and you're talking rubbish

rick_chasey said:

Oh mate what is this?

Pross highlights the Roman's enslaving half the known world and the horror modern day people trafficking from Eastern Europe and Asia and he's dismissed as talking rubbish?

I guess I can't see it in such black and white terms either.

I must say - and I don't care about any statues, to be honest (don't have the energy for it) - I thought it was harsh to say Pross was talking rubbish. Of course slaves have been, and continue to be, all colours under the rainbow throughout history.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

And some people whose ancestors once upon a time were African would like that recognised, and that means, in a small part, looking at who stands in public spaces today in statue.

If they are British and their ancestors were African and not Caribbean, aren't they more like to have been slavers than slaves?

How far back are you going?

rick_chasey said:

bompington said:

rick_chasey said:

The practices the UK engaged in in Africa were absolutely rooted in racism. It was racism that formed and shaped the entire interaction with the locals, which was by all accounts, brutal.

Sure, there are many other instances of colonialism and slavery and all the rest, but this specific one, the one Britain had and celebrates, was the basis on which the entire racist discourse entered the UK in the first place.

Genuine request. Can you summarise for us (I am, err, working at the moment so don't have time for a degree course in Colonial Studies) the evidence that there was something qualitatively different in the racism of the British Empire to that of, say, the ancient Greeks or the Chinese (either ancient or modern)?

So in short, the idea of races didn't really exist in the same way until Darwin and evolution turned up. In fact, you can read lots of pre-Darwin literature from Europeans on Africans and if you deconstruct it you see that those racist assumptions aren't there. Academics tend to use literary deconstruction to work out what the underlying assumptions are in any given bit of writing, and lots of them have looked at this, and found the same.

That (theory of evolution) then made the intellectual space for the idea that different groups of people, different *races*, were on different parts of the evolutionary development.

That combined with the interactions of explorers with locals in Africa really cemented that idea. From that you then begin to get justifications for exploitation for things like the civilising mission, the white man burden etc.

As the 19th century goes on, more countries get in on the act and the that process of interacting with the locals keeps reinforcing those racist ideas in some kind of vicious circle. That culminates in some of the most brutal behaviour imaginable by every European power in Africa, but notably Germans in Namibia ) and Belgians in Congo.

There is also a theory which is considered credible (after a lot of initial hostility), that the kind of nazi thinking and behaviour was essentially just Europeans importing the behaviours and thinking they had been practicing and mastering in Africa. (Cards on the table, the guy who marked my dissertation was the guy who came up with this theory).

This doesn't point the finger at Darwin (necessarily) by the way, but in the same way you don't get drink driving without cars, you don't get racism as we know it without the theory of evolution.

Charles Darwin was born after the slave trade ended. You are arguing your colonialism hobby horse which came later.

Sure. But it is the colonialism bit that makes the slave trader but relevant to BLM, right? After all, when was the statue erected?

Pross

rick_chasey said:

bompington said:

rick_chasey said:

The practices the UK engaged in in Africa were absolutely rooted in racism. It was racism that formed and shaped the entire interaction with the locals, which was by all accounts, brutal.

Sure, there are many other instances of colonialism and slavery and all the rest, but this specific one, the one Britain had and celebrates, was the basis on which the entire racist discourse entered the UK in the first place.

Genuine request. Can you summarise for us (I am, err, working at the moment so don't have time for a degree course in Colonial Studies) the evidence that there was something qualitatively different in the racism of the British Empire to that of, say, the ancient Greeks or the Chinese (either ancient or modern)?

So in short, the idea of races didn't really exist in the same way until Darwin and evolution turned up. In fact, you can read lots of pre-Darwin literature from Europeans on Africans and if you deconstruct it you see that those racist assumptions aren't there. Academics tend to use literary deconstruction to work out what the underlying assumptions are in any given bit of writing, and lots of them have looked at this, and found the same.

That (theory of evolution) then made the intellectual space for the idea that different groups of people, different *races*, were on different parts of the evolutionary development.

That combined with the interactions of explorers with locals in Africa really cemented that idea. From that you then begin to get justifications for exploitation for things like the civilising mission, the white man burden etc.

As the 19th century goes on, more countries get in on the act and the that process of interacting with the locals keeps reinforcing those racist ideas in some kind of vicious circle. That culminates in some of the most brutal behaviour imaginable by every European power in Africa, but notably Germans in Namibia ) and Belgians in Congo.

There is also a theory which is considered credible (after a lot of initial hostility), that the kind of nazi thinking and behaviour was essentially just Europeans importing the behaviours and thinking they had been practicing and mastering in Africa. (Cards on the table, the guy who marked my dissertation was the guy who came up with this theory).

This doesn't point the finger at Darwin (necessarily) by the way, but in the same way you don't get drink driving without cars, you don't get racism as we know it without the theory of evolution.

I can't claim to fully understand that but the bits I understood I find interesting. In particular, I've never thought of the theory of evolution suggesting some races were less developed. I've always assume that the theory would simply be that races developed to survive the conditions within the part of the world where they lived.

EDIT On the last bit, isn't racism really an extension of the wider distrust / fear of those who don't appear to be like you that would have existed for millennia?

rick_chasey

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

And some people whose ancestors once upon a time were African would like that recognised, and that means, in a small part, looking at who stands in public spaces today in statue.

If they are British and their ancestors were African and not Caribbean, aren't they more like to have been slavers than slaves?

How far back are you going?

rick_chasey said:

bompington said:

rick_chasey said:

The practices the UK engaged in in Africa were absolutely rooted in racism. It was racism that formed and shaped the entire interaction with the locals, which was by all accounts, brutal.

Sure, there are many other instances of colonialism and slavery and all the rest, but this specific one, the one Britain had and celebrates, was the basis on which the entire racist discourse entered the UK in the first place.

Genuine request. Can you summarise for us (I am, err, working at the moment so don't have time for a degree course in Colonial Studies) the evidence that there was something qualitatively different in the racism of the British Empire to that of, say, the ancient Greeks or the Chinese (either ancient or modern)?

So in short, the idea of races didn't really exist in the same way until Darwin and evolution turned up. In fact, you can read lots of pre-Darwin literature from Europeans on Africans and if you deconstruct it you see that those racist assumptions aren't there. Academics tend to use literary deconstruction to work out what the underlying assumptions are in any given bit of writing, and lots of them have looked at this, and found the same.

That (theory of evolution) then made the intellectual space for the idea that different groups of people, different *races*, were on different parts of the evolutionary development.

That combined with the interactions of explorers with locals in Africa really cemented that idea. From that you then begin to get justifications for exploitation for things like the civilising mission, the white man burden etc.

As the 19th century goes on, more countries get in on the act and the that process of interacting with the locals keeps reinforcing those racist ideas in some kind of vicious circle. That culminates in some of the most brutal behaviour imaginable by every European power in Africa, but notably Germans in Namibia ) and Belgians in Congo.

There is also a theory which is considered credible (after a lot of initial hostility), that the kind of nazi thinking and behaviour was essentially just Europeans importing the behaviours and thinking they had been practicing and mastering in Africa. (Cards on the table, the guy who marked my dissertation was the guy who came up with this theory).

This doesn't point the finger at Darwin (necessarily) by the way, but in the same way you don't get drink driving without cars, you don't get racism as we know it without the theory of evolution.

Charles Darwin was born after the slave trade ended. You are arguing your colonialism hobby horse which came later.

Sure. But it is the colonialism bit that makes the slave trader but relevant to BLM, right? After all, when was the statue erected?

To follow up on this, slave trade is sort of pre-colonial anyway. But the literature of africans isn't that they're lesser people, more unfortunate...

rick_chasey

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

bompington said:

rick_chasey said:

The practices the UK engaged in in Africa were absolutely rooted in racism. It was racism that formed and shaped the entire interaction with the locals, which was by all accounts, brutal.

Sure, there are many other instances of colonialism and slavery and all the rest, but this specific one, the one Britain had and celebrates, was the basis on which the entire racist discourse entered the UK in the first place.

Genuine request. Can you summarise for us (I am, err, working at the moment so don't have time for a degree course in Colonial Studies) the evidence that there was something qualitatively different in the racism of the British Empire to that of, say, the ancient Greeks or the Chinese (either ancient or modern)?

So in short, the idea of races didn't really exist in the same way until Darwin and evolution turned up. In fact, you can read lots of pre-Darwin literature from Europeans on Africans and if you deconstruct it you see that those racist assumptions aren't there. Academics tend to use literary deconstruction to work out what the underlying assumptions are in any given bit of writing, and lots of them have looked at this, and found the same.

That (theory of evolution) then made the intellectual space for the idea that different groups of people, different *races*, were on different parts of the evolutionary development.

That combined with the interactions of explorers with locals in Africa really cemented that idea. From that you then begin to get justifications for exploitation for things like the civilising mission, the white man burden etc.

As the 19th century goes on, more countries get in on the act and the that process of interacting with the locals keeps reinforcing those racist ideas in some kind of vicious circle. That culminates in some of the most brutal behaviour imaginable by every European power in Africa, but notably Germans in Namibia ) and Belgians in Congo.

There is also a theory which is considered credible (after a lot of initial hostility), that the kind of nazi thinking and behaviour was essentially just Europeans importing the behaviours and thinking they had been practicing and mastering in Africa. (Cards on the table, the guy who marked my dissertation was the guy who came up with this theory).

This doesn't point the finger at Darwin (necessarily) by the way, but in the same way you don't get drink driving without cars, you don't get racism as we know it without the theory of evolution.

I can't claim to fully understand that but the bits I understood I find interesting. In particular, I've never thought of the theory of evolution suggesting some races were less developed. I've always assume that the theory would simply be that races developed to survive the conditions within the part of the world where they lived.

You must have seen the pictures of apes becoming humans, and then putting an african behind the European, right? Where did the whole monkey thing being racist come from?!?!

Pross

tailwindhome said:

This house believes that knocking down the statue of Colston has done more for the education of the nation than the 125 years it stood there.

Hopefully although let's revisit it in a year and see who really remembers it.

Ben6899

pangolin said:

Yes Pross our ancestors in factories were poor suffering slaves too. Get a grip.

Didn't you learn about the Industrial Revolution, at school?

coopster_the_1st

Rather ironic that a recent immigrant to the UK is the chief promoter on here for changing British history to suit his view despite him and his family living comfortably off said history, and how said history has shaped Britain into the highly diverse and successful country.

Ben6899

Pross said:

pangolin said:

Pross said:

The other thing to consider is that whilst the slavery of the times of Colston was predominantly black people taken from Africa to the plantations of the Caribbean, Deep South and South America slavery both historically and today isn't necessarily about colour.

Hahaha

Pross said:

It's about exploiting the weak and vulnerable. Today it seems to be mainly Eastern Europeans and Asians being tricked, back in the days of the Roman Empire it was people from all other their conquered Empire black or white. Arguably much of the workforce on which the industrial revolution was based were little more than the slaves of the company employing them and were native to the country.

Yes Pross our ancestors in factories were poor suffering slaves too. Get a grip.

So are you saying slaves were taken from Africa because they were black rather than because they were the readily available source of free labour? That had the population of West Africa been white the likes of Colston would have gone elsewhere to find their slaves? Sounds unlikely to me but if you genuinely believe that fair enough.

As for your second point you clearly don't know much about how the factories in the early stages of the industrial revolution worked. The workers were basically owned by the factory, they got paid a pittance and then all that money went back to the factory owners in rent and having to buy their food from truck shops. I'm not suggesting their conditions were as bad as those of plantation slaves but it's still an example of how the rich and powerful exploited the available labour force to get even more rich and powerful. 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in life threatening conditions just to have basic shelter and food to survive with no real opportunity to move elsewhere.

You're wasting your time, Pross.

bompington

coopster_the_1st said:

Rather ironic that a recent immigrant to the UK is the chief promoter on here for changing British history to suit his view despite him and his family living comfortably off said history, and how said history has shaped Britain into the highly diverse and successful country.

Hmmm, an immigrant! Must be dodgy! Who knows, perhaps he even had a lick of the old tar brush!

You really are contemptible.

Pross

rick_chasey said:

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

bompington said:

rick_chasey said:

The practices the UK engaged in in Africa were absolutely rooted in racism. It was racism that formed and shaped the entire interaction with the locals, which was by all accounts, brutal.

Sure, there are many other instances of colonialism and slavery and all the rest, but this specific one, the one Britain had and celebrates, was the basis on which the entire racist discourse entered the UK in the first place.

Genuine request. Can you summarise for us (I am, err, working at the moment so don't have time for a degree course in Colonial Studies) the evidence that there was something qualitatively different in the racism of the British Empire to that of, say, the ancient Greeks or the Chinese (either ancient or modern)?

So in short, the idea of races didn't really exist in the same way until Darwin and evolution turned up. In fact, you can read lots of pre-Darwin literature from Europeans on Africans and if you deconstruct it you see that those racist assumptions aren't there. Academics tend to use literary deconstruction to work out what the underlying assumptions are in any given bit of writing, and lots of them have looked at this, and found the same.

That (theory of evolution) then made the intellectual space for the idea that different groups of people, different *races*, were on different parts of the evolutionary development.

That combined with the interactions of explorers with locals in Africa really cemented that idea. From that you then begin to get justifications for exploitation for things like the civilising mission, the white man burden etc.

As the 19th century goes on, more countries get in on the act and the that process of interacting with the locals keeps reinforcing those racist ideas in some kind of vicious circle. That culminates in some of the most brutal behaviour imaginable by every European power in Africa, but notably Germans in Namibia ) and Belgians in Congo.

There is also a theory which is considered credible (after a lot of initial hostility), that the kind of nazi thinking and behaviour was essentially just Europeans importing the behaviours and thinking they had been practicing and mastering in Africa. (Cards on the table, the guy who marked my dissertation was the guy who came up with this theory).

This doesn't point the finger at Darwin (necessarily) by the way, but in the same way you don't get drink driving without cars, you don't get racism as we know it without the theory of evolution.

I can't claim to fully understand that but the bits I understood I find interesting. In particular, I've never thought of the theory of evolution suggesting some races were less developed. I've always assume that the theory would simply be that races developed to survive the conditions within the part of the world where they lived.

You must have seen the pictures of apes becoming humans, and then putting an african behind the European, right? Where did the whole monkey thing being racist come from?!?!

I get that the theory is used in racial slurs but hadn't realised the theory itself suggested that the races were different evolutionary stages i.e. I guess I'm looking at it backwards.

coopster_the_1st

bompington said:

coopster_the_1st said:

Rather ironic that a recent immigrant to the UK is the chief promoter on here for changing British history to suit his view despite him and his family living comfortably off said history, and how said history has shaped Britain into the highly diverse and successful country.

Hmmm, an immigrant! Must be dodgy! Who knows, perhaps he even had a lick of the old tar brush!

You really are contemptible.

I find people 'who bite the hand that feeds them' even more contemptible, especially as his views are intensifying the division in his host country

rjsterry

Pross said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

And some people whose ancestors once upon a time were African would like that recognised, and that means, in a small part, looking at who stands in public spaces today in statue.

If they are British and their ancestors were African and not Caribbean, aren't they more like to have been slavers than slaves?

This has happened on several episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? I think Ainslie Harriot, Marvin Humes and possibly Thandie Newton discovered their ancestry was slave owners.

Interesting as they are, I have a bit of an issue with those programmes. They tend to give a very lopsided view of the subject's ancestors. By the time they have got back to the early 19th or late 18th century they are 7 or 8 generations back so for one ancestor who owned slaves there are another couple of hundred in the same generation who may not have.

rick_chasey

coopster_the_1st said:

bompington said:

coopster_the_1st said:

Rather ironic that a recent immigrant to the UK is the chief promoter on here for changing British history to suit his view despite him and his family living comfortably off said history, and how said history has shaped Britain into the highly diverse and successful country.

Hmmm, an immigrant! Must be dodgy! Who knows, perhaps he even had a lick of the old tar brush!

You really are contemptible.

I find people 'who bite the hand that feeds them' even more contemptible, especially as his views are intensifying the division in his host country

Hahaha. Which annoys you more, that I was educated in the UK and this is the result of my British education, that I probably pay in more tax than you, or that I have a British passport?

I've even paid off my tuition fees.

Unrelated to you as you wouldn't understand, but the Dutch have a rep for being even worse than the UK when it comes to admitting the ugly bits of their own colonial past.

Jeremy.89

rick_chasey said:

coopster_the_1st said:

bompington said:

coopster_the_1st said:

Rather ironic that a recent immigrant to the UK is the chief promoter on here for changing British history to suit his view despite him and his family living comfortably off said history, and how said history has shaped Britain into the highly diverse and successful country.

Hmmm, an immigrant! Must be dodgy! Who knows, perhaps he even had a lick of the old tar brush!

You really are contemptible.

I find people 'who bite the hand that feeds them' even more contemptible, especially as his views are intensifying the division in his host country

Hahaha. Which annoys you more, that I was educated in the UK and this is the result of my British education, that I probably pay in more tax than you, or that I have a British passport?

I've even paid off my tuition fees.

Unrelated to you as you wouldn't understand, but the Dutch have a rep for being even worse than the UK when it comes to admitting the ugly bits of their own colonial past.

Pah! If there's one thing British exceptionalism has taught me it's that other countries empires weren't worth writing home about.

rjsterry

Ben6899 said:

pangolin said:

Yes Pross our ancestors in factories were poor suffering slaves too. Get a grip.

Didn't you learn about the Industrial Revolution, at school?

Have a whataboutery sticker.

Ben6899

rjsterry said:

Ben6899 said:

pangolin said:

Yes Pross our ancestors in factories were poor suffering slaves too. Get a grip.

Didn't you learn about the Industrial Revolution, at school?

Have a whataboutery sticker.

Just trying to help Pross explain what he meant by factories in the UK. In the form of a pithy one-liner which Pangolin seems to prefer.

No whataboutery here, but Pross wasn't talking rubbish.

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

And some people whose ancestors once upon a time were African would like that recognised, and that means, in a small part, looking at who stands in public spaces today in statue.

If they are British and their ancestors were African and not Caribbean, aren't they more like to have been slavers than slaves?

How far back are you going?

rick_chasey said:

bompington said:

rick_chasey said:

The practices the UK engaged in in Africa were absolutely rooted in racism. It was racism that formed and shaped the entire interaction with the locals, which was by all accounts, brutal.

Sure, there are many other instances of colonialism and slavery and all the rest, but this specific one, the one Britain had and celebrates, was the basis on which the entire racist discourse entered the UK in the first place.

Genuine request. Can you summarise for us (I am, err, working at the moment so don't have time for a degree course in Colonial Studies) the evidence that there was something qualitatively different in the racism of the British Empire to that of, say, the ancient Greeks or the Chinese (either ancient or modern)?

So in short, the idea of races didn't really exist in the same way until Darwin and evolution turned up. In fact, you can read lots of pre-Darwin literature from Europeans on Africans and if you deconstruct it you see that those racist assumptions aren't there. Academics tend to use literary deconstruction to work out what the underlying assumptions are in any given bit of writing, and lots of them have looked at this, and found the same.

That (theory of evolution) then made the intellectual space for the idea that different groups of people, different *races*, were on different parts of the evolutionary development.

That combined with the interactions of explorers with locals in Africa really cemented that idea. From that you then begin to get justifications for exploitation for things like the civilising mission, the white man burden etc.

As the 19th century goes on, more countries get in on the act and the that process of interacting with the locals keeps reinforcing those racist ideas in some kind of vicious circle. That culminates in some of the most brutal behaviour imaginable by every European power in Africa, but notably Germans in Namibia ) and Belgians in Congo.

There is also a theory which is considered credible (after a lot of initial hostility), that the kind of nazi thinking and behaviour was essentially just Europeans importing the behaviours and thinking they had been practicing and mastering in Africa. (Cards on the table, the guy who marked my dissertation was the guy who came up with this theory).

This doesn't point the finger at Darwin (necessarily) by the way, but in the same way you don't get drink driving without cars, you don't get racism as we know it without the theory of evolution.

Charles Darwin was born after the slave trade ended. You are arguing your colonialism hobby horse which came later.

Sure. But it is the colonialism bit that makes the slave trader but relevant to BLM, right? After all, when was the statue erected?

I don't think so, it is complicated though.

Pross

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

And some people whose ancestors once upon a time were African would like that recognised, and that means, in a small part, looking at who stands in public spaces today in statue.

If they are British and their ancestors were African and not Caribbean, aren't they more like to have been slavers than slaves?

This has happened on several episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? I think Ainslie Harriot, Marvin Humes and possibly Thandie Newton discovered their ancestry was slave owners.

Interesting as they are, I have a bit of an issue with those programmes. They tend to give a very lopsided view of the subject's ancestors. By the time they have got back to the early 19th or late 18th century they are 7 or 8 generations back so for one ancestor who owned slaves there are another couple of hundred in the same generation who may not have.

Of course, as you see with some that are direct descendants of William the Conqueror etc., there are probably a massive number of people in the country that if they had the research resources could trace back to similar. Trees become huge when you are going back what, 3 or 4 generations per century? I think with those I mentioned they were aware that they might find they had descended from slaves and were understandably shocked to find they actually descended from slave owners. It was Naomi Harris who I was trying to remember who was very upset on finding her descendant had been an overseer but ultimately you can't have responsibility for who your ancestors were or what they did (Jack Whitehall was pretty upset to discover his relative had played a leading role in putting down the Chartist Revolution).

rjsterry

Pross said:

rjsterry said:

Pross said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

And some people whose ancestors once upon a time were African would like that recognised, and that means, in a small part, looking at who stands in public spaces today in statue.

If they are British and their ancestors were African and not Caribbean, aren't they more like to have been slavers than slaves?

This has happened on several episodes of Who Do You Think You Are? I think Ainslie Harriot, Marvin Humes and possibly Thandie Newton discovered their ancestry was slave owners.

Interesting as they are, I have a bit of an issue with those programmes. They tend to give a very lopsided view of the subject's ancestors. By the time they have got back to the early 19th or late 18th century they are 7 or 8 generations back so for one ancestor who owned slaves there are another couple of hundred in the same generation who may not have.

Of course, as you see with some that are direct descendants of William the Conqueror etc., there are probably a massive number of people in the country that if they had the research resources could trace back to similar. Trees become huge when you are going back what, 3 or 4 generations per century? I think with those I mentioned they were aware that they might find they had descended from slaves and were understandably shocked to find they actually descended from slave owners. It was Naomi Harris who I was trying to remember who was very upset on finding her descendant had been an overseer but ultimately you can't have responsibility for who your ancestors were or what they did (Jack Whitehall was pretty upset to discover his relative had played a leading role in putting down the Chartist Revolution).

Well exactly. There's also a lot of guff about being proud of ancestors as if their actions can be inherited.

masjer

I think the person who'll benefit most from the BLM movement is Donald Trump. God, the thought of another 4 years.

mr_goo

Most of the grand buildings in Bath were built off the back off the slavers ( called Blackbirders in the day) operating out of Bristol.

Unfortunately we cannot rewrite history, but we can learn from it.

Did you know? That the Barbery pirates (Algeria/Tunisia) raided Ireland, South Coast of England for white slaves. Many were held hostage until ransom demanss were met. Many of those from Ireland didn't want to return as their lives of serfdom in North Africa was actually better than the poverty experienced at home.

Also many convicted felons from England were sent to the New World as white slaves to work on plantations in states like Georgia.

To be taken as a white slave to the new world was known as 'napping' and many thousands were children 'kids'. This is where the word 'kidnapping' comes from.

See you've learnt something today.

rjsterry

coopster_the_1st said:

rick_chasey said:

coopster_the_1st said:

bompington said:

coopster_the_1st said:

Rather ironic that a recent immigrant to the UK is the chief promoter on here for changing British history to suit his view despite him and his family living comfortably off said history, and how said history has shaped Britain into the highly diverse and successful country.

Hmmm, an immigrant! Must be dodgy! Who knows, perhaps he even had a lick of the old tar brush!

You really are contemptible.

I find people 'who bite the hand that feeds them' even more contemptible, especially as his views are intensifying the division in his host country

Hahaha. Which annoys you more, that I was educated in the UK and this is the result of my British education, that I probably pay in more tax than you, or that I have a British passport?

I've even paid off my tuition fees.

Unrelated to you as you wouldn't understand, but the Dutch have a rep for being even worse than the UK when it comes to admitting the ugly bits of their own colonial past.

What annoys me most is that your host country has given you and your family so much opportunity, and will only continue to do so, yet you only criticise and denigrate it.

Your anarchist views are now driving the division in this country and you are not going to like when the country stops being so accommodating and stands up to people like you. And the consequences will be thorough deserved based on what I have viewed of the likes of you in recent days.

Try and stick to the point rather than fixating on one person.

Jeremy.89

coopster_the_1st said:

rick_chasey said:

coopster_the_1st said:

bompington said:

coopster_the_1st said:

Rather ironic that a recent immigrant to the UK is the chief promoter on here for changing British history to suit his view despite him and his family living comfortably off said history, and how said history has shaped Britain into the highly diverse and successful country.

Hmmm, an immigrant! Must be dodgy! Who knows, perhaps he even had a lick of the old tar brush!

You really are contemptible.

I find people 'who bite the hand that feeds them' even more contemptible, especially as his views are intensifying the division in his host country

Hahaha. Which annoys you more, that I was educated in the UK and this is the result of my British education, that I probably pay in more tax than you, or that I have a British passport?

I've even paid off my tuition fees.

Unrelated to you as you wouldn't understand, but the Dutch have a rep for being even worse than the UK when it comes to admitting the ugly bits of their own colonial past.

What annoys me most is that your host country has given you and your family so much opportunity, and will only continue to do so, yet you only criticise and denigrate it.

Your anarchist views are now driving the division in this country and you are not going to like when the country stops being so accommodating and stands up to people like you. And the consequences will be thorough deserved based on what I have viewed of the likes of you in recent days.

He's not the one that hates how the country is today so much that he voted to try and take it back to the 70s though.

kingstongraham

coopster_the_1st said:

rick_chasey said:

coopster_the_1st said:

bompington said:

coopster_the_1st said:

Rather ironic that a recent immigrant to the UK is the chief promoter on here for changing British history to suit his view despite him and his family living comfortably off said history, and how said history has shaped Britain into the highly diverse and successful country.

Hmmm, an immigrant! Must be dodgy! Who knows, perhaps he even had a lick of the old tar brush!

You really are contemptible.

I find people 'who bite the hand that feeds them' even more contemptible, especially as his views are intensifying the division in his host country

Hahaha. Which annoys you more, that I was educated in the UK and this is the result of my British education, that I probably pay in more tax than you, or that I have a British passport?

I've even paid off my tuition fees.

Unrelated to you as you wouldn't understand, but the Dutch have a rep for being even worse than the UK when it comes to admitting the ugly bits of their own colonial past.

What annoys me most is that your host country has given you and your family so much opportunity, and will only continue to do so, yet you only criticise and denigrate it.

Your anarchist views are now driving the division in this country and you are not going to like when the country stops being so accommodating and stands up to people like you. And the consequences will be thorough deserved based on what I have viewed of the likes of you in recent days.

Don't worry, we're a diverse and successful country. We'll continue to be so.