The United Nations General Assembly has voted to recognise the enslavement of Africans during the transatlantic slave trade as “the gravest crime against humanity”, a move advocates hope will pave the way for healing and justice.
The resolution - proposed by Ghana - called for this designation, while also urging UN member states to consider apologising for the slave trade and contributing to a reparations fund. It does not mention a specific amount of money.
The proposal was adopted with 123 votes in favour and three against - the United States, Israel and Argentina.
Countries like the UK have long rejected calls to pay reparations, saying today’s institutions cannot be held responsible for past wrongs.
Not for nothing but many many different people have been enslaved, to this very day.
You know that’s just gonna sound like “All slaves matter” right?
feddit.org mods banning people because that is disrespectful to the grandioseness of Nazi Germany in 3… 2…
“Israel” strange coincidence !!! (ironic)
They’re just jealous
So it’s pretty definitionally oppression Olympics, but I feel like the slave trade is a decent contender. It lasted centuries; maybe more depending a bunch of history that’s still up in the air. The Holocaust (for example) only went on for a few years.
I’m not sure Ghana has hands as clean as they’re implying, though. The victims of the transatlantic slave trade had to (ahem) leave Africa entirely, and usually it wasn’t the Europeans catching and selling them on their own.
So it’s pretty definitionally oppression Olympics,
That is the reason so many countries abstained from the vote.
I’m guessing afraid to contradict the US probably fits in there, too.
It shouldn’t be the average taxpayer in these countries who has to pay for reparations (especially when many were descendants of peasants who were also often exploited in other ways), while the wealthy families who benefited the most evade responsibility, smuggling their blood-earned fortunes to tax havens.
We don’t recognise any non-white responsibility in any form of slavery here
Slavery has existed in many different cultures, and Africa has had slave trade after it was abolished in Europe and North America, but I think it’s fair to say that the transatlantic slave trade was the most cruel and inhuman form of slavery. The only form of slavery that may have been worse was the one Leopold II imposed on Congo.
It’s racism that made those forms of slavery even worse. I think racism makes everything worse.
I think the biggest contender for worst crime against humanity was the Native American genocide. That was also driven by racism. So was the Holocaust.
but I think it’s fair to say that the transatlantic slave trade was the most cruel and inhuman form of slavery.
I can think of other contenders, actually, but Sparta and Russia are both retconned as white. Maybe something in east Asia, or the Middle East. Any society with a supermajority of slaves is a good candidate to have some of the same rules in place.
I think the biggest contender for worst crime against humanity was the Native American genocide.
I mean, they also did that in Australia, for example, and there’s tons of similar events in prehistory we can see through sudden shifts in genetic makeup.
Genocides aren’t rare, and since the Americas were a bit more sparsely populated I’m not even sure that’s the biggest one.
I don’t see how any of that relates to the white washing of African people’s involvement in enslaving and selling other African ethnic groups but go on
You guessed it, it’s the usual map:
The EU abstained because bla bla TLDR: they don’t want to pay reparations.
I don’t think Estonia, Poland or Montenegro were very worried about paying reparations. Maybe colonial powers, but those are a minority in Europe.
I am so fucking disgusted (yet not surprised) by this dipshit traitorous worthless pile of shit government of Germany, bootlicking fascists all over the world. Once, in the 80s/90s I was naive enough to think we had learned our lesson. But turns out, Germans will happily flock back to fascism the moment being decent human beings slightly inconveniences them.
Yeah - I know - it’s a matter of brainwashing & capitalist propaganda, and this is not a problem unique to Germany, but I prefer to be disgusted at the mess in front of my own doorstep before complaining about others.
Leck Eier, Fritze.
The US would owe several times it’s worth in reparations for slavery, The War on Drugs, The destruction of the Middle East, Imperalism leading to the deaths of countless people, genocide of Native Americans, poisoning the world multiple times with chemicals, etc. The list is so long it isn’t funny.
I often say if you were to list all the atrocities and lives destroyed by the US it would be more than my lifetime just to read them all off. It is mind boggling.
AIPAC won’t let them.
Anyway, i’d wager Hiroshima and Nagasaki are the greatest crimes against humanity.Hiroshima and Nagasaki were smalltime. Rookie numbers. Sure, the VFX was awesome but they’ve improved on that one since then, too.
Are they? The trans-atlantic slave trade lasted centuries. Millions died, millions more were enslaved. It’s not a competition, but the amount of victims was easily in tens of millions there and honestly is death worse than chattel slavery?
Millions in the past vs 200 000 within a second in the recent past, but true, not a competition.
is death worse than chattel slavery?
I’d rather there not be slaves to ask, really.
Exactly, 200,000 dead in a second plus the cleanup and resulting health/environmental issues… comparatively speaking very low on humanities attrocities, it’s just the speed that stands out.
Japanese treatment of Chinese during shit like Unit 731 caused astronomically more pain and suffering with lasting effects on humanity. The North Atlantic slave trade caused more damage to humanity than the entirety nuclear weapons/energy/research/testing combined.
it’s just the speed that stands out.
Pretty much, yeah.
Japanese treatment of Chinese
and Koreans.
So Ghana proposed to punish itself and all of its neighbors for selling slaves to Europeans passing through towards Americas, or what?
It should be Haiti putting forward the motion, probably.
Why…? Haiti’s population is a fraction of Africas as a whole.
So is Ghana’s. Haiti was also founded by a slave rebellion.
Gravest crime so far
Not going to dispute this other than to say that it’s “the gravest crime against humanity in MODERN TIMES.”
In past times, enslaving the populations of entire conquered nations or villages was common. Bringing slaves back to Rome was a regular part of an Army’s return. Enslaving one’s neighbors has been extremely common across the globe, since the beginning of humanity.
Beyond slavery, there have been marauders like the Huns or the Khans, who would attack a city, and kill every single living thing, and then move on the the next one.
Unfortunately, there are lots of candidates for the award.
In past times, enslaving the populations of entire conquered nations or villages was common. Bringing slaves back to Rome was a regular part of an Army’s return. Enslaving one’s neighbors has been extremely common across the globe, since the beginning of humanity.
This is true, but not all Slavery is equivalent. All of it is obviously awful, but in the ancient world, conquering your neighbors provided an easy way to acquire more land and agricultural labor to feed a growing population of citizens. Enslaved people were not enslaved forever, and it was more akin to indentured servitude than chattel slavery. Rather, enslaved people would eventually be free, and become citizens of Rome, for instance, with more or less the same rights as any other citizen.
Chattel slavery, on the other hand, was inedibly unique, as far as historic slavery is concerned. People were now being enslaved, for life, based on the color of their skin, shipped off across a continent, and their descendants were also slaves upon birth, and those descendants were bought and sold as commodities on an open market.
Chattel slavery required the invention of modern notions of race to be invented, in order to justify it, which has had ongoing social impacts that extend far beyond the relations of production which birthed it.
Probably easy to convince someone its justifiable when life was so difficult.
Now we buy rotisserie chicken from Walmart, dump the trash in a landfill, and virtue signal people in the past who lived in a north korean style hellscapes.
I feel like creating an entire system dedicated to mass-murdering people industrially because of their origins or convictions is still the worst thing we’ve done as a species. Slavery is in the top spots, for sure, but it’s not “let’s create an industry solely dedicated to murder a specific ethnic group in the most efficient way possible” levels of crime against humanity.
Like, it has no economic benefits, it’s not for personal gain, it’s not because of lust or any human impulses, there is no reason to it apart from “let’s eradicate a part of humanity just because I said so”.
Valid.
Yeah, but it wasn’t hereditary in Rome, lots of slaves did manage to achieve freedom, anyone could end up a slave and it was always a minority of the population. It was still messed up and they still abused them really badly or fatally at times, but it wasn’t as bad as the American style of slavery.
Sparta’s style was closer, though, and there’s other examples; it’s not like the system was without precedent. It also raise the whole question of the medieval and Arab slave trades. There isn’t really a good demarcation between them and the Atlantic trade, and of course they themselves would have roots in classical times.
Beyond slavery, there have been marauders like the Huns or the Khans, who would attack a city, and kill every single living thing, and then move on the the next one.
There’s reasonable evidence the Mongols, at least, liked to kill civilians, but you have to be careful about taking the historical accounts of their enemies at face value. Unlike in many of the wars between agricultural civilisations, both sides didn’t have literature of their own for us to draw from.
Trans-atlantic slavery was worse because it maximally exploited the humans as cattle. A quick death is much more convient than a lifetime of suffering.
I’m not going to argue which is worse, slavery or watching centuries of your entire culture destroyed in a day, along with every person in your life, before dying yourself. There are no winners in that argument.
rome wasn’t even physically capable of enslaving that many people as the african slave trade did.
Not just Rome, but Egypt, and every other nation, or whatever they were back then.
“they did it so we can too” is not the flex you think it is.
That’s not what I was saying, and you damn well know it. I mentioned Rome, and you seized on that to make an illegitimate point, which I countered that Rome wasn’t the only civilization participating in slavery, and you took that as an opportunity to accuse me of being soft on slavery, which is really, really stupid.
Highly disengenuous.
that’s exactly the point you are making though.
“we can’t help africa because the romans did it too! and then everyone will want restitution!”
if I believed that, I would say that, but I don’t believe that, and I didn’t say that. I will not engage with a liar who places their own words in quotes, and attributes them to me.
Done with you.
no, just some of the infamous whataboutism.
no other empire has ever enslaved as much, or is still rich off of slavery. no “b-but rome”
I’m surprised the MAGA fucks in charge of this run away derailed freight train have not switched to the Confederate government flag.
Argentina, United States, and Isreal voted against.
and 52 abstentions, including the UK and EU member states.
canada, australia and new zealand also abstained
Them: “Hold my beer.”
I get it is extremely important to remember how bad the transatlantic slave trade was, but I think reparations after two centuries makes no sense. You cannot track responsibility 10 generations separated, you cannot track beneficiaries in a globalized world. Countries not involved in slave trade got indirect benefits through commerce, countries involved are instead not benefiting today from that historic trade. Slavery was common everywhere in the world for millennia. I find it hard to even begin to quantify a reasonable approach to a reparation framework that would work in the context of all the human tragedies in the last 5 centuries.
You don’t have to look at everything in terms of individual responsibility. We can clearly see that the injustices caused by transatlantic slavery, and imperialism more broadly, are very much still here. I think it would be nice to try to remedy this.
Of course, it’s non-binding, and the countries that should probably be paying reparations just happen to have all abstained (except for the rogue USA of course, voting against) so I don’t expect anything will happen. But it’s a nice idea.
black people live in slums in my colonial country and many of the exploited african nations.
start by letting them access to at least 20th century amenities and dignified work instead of finding every moral excuse not to.
this thread is full of sensitive westerners born on slave trader countries still rich on the spoils (and sometimes still benefiting from it).
I am a westerner, born in a non slave trader country that never existed before the 1860s. The country before was not a slaver country. The country before that was client state of a slaver country, but just for 20 years! The one before that was not a slaver country. Going event further the country before that was still not a slaver country. Then it was not even a country and still not a slaver one. This until the 1200s when we abolished slavery, so I guess that before then slavery was somewhat ok, but was white people slaves so I do not think that counts.
I think we never became rich on the spoils. We were definitely richer in the 1200s (we were so rich we paid for the slaves to be free!) and for some centuries after that. That was definitely our golden age I would say. Post war recovery after 1960 was also good, but mainly driven by local mechanical industries, not spoils I am afraid.
I am a westerner, born in a non slave trader country
contradictory so far
You will make many friends in the Baltics or the Balkans I am sure.
your lack of understanding of history does not constitute contradiction
your racism does not constitute understanding of history.
I have said nothing racists, so which part of history is incorrect?
the part where you think black people don’t deserve any kind of help for still being fucked by western racism, with the excuse you can’t keep track of it.
the “you are a white westerner” part was an educated guess based on that opinion.
are the descendants of the enslaved people still suffering from it? are the descendants of the enslavers still benefitting from it? yes?
then reparations should be paid.
I think at this point it would be better to focus on providing things like universal healthcare, education, and retirement, to everyone, keeping the cost of living in check, and working on ensuring opportunities for dignified labor and fair compensation are available to everyone, regardless of race or ethnicity.
That alongside rigorous policy measures to reduce (with a mind towards eliminating) things like workplace discrimination, redlining, racial profiling, etc.
There are some examples where the descendants of enslaved people can trace their heritage to their enslaved ancestors, and identify the descendants of their enslavers (often generationally wealthy business tycoons who own factories that pollute the neighborhoods of the enslaved people’s descendants…). The people of Africa Town near Mobile, Alabama are a prime example, and there’s a pretty good documentary about it.
In those cases, where there is a demonstrable chain of ancestry, yes, civil law should require the descendants of the enslavers to pay reparations to the descendants of the enslaved.
But so many times it happens that everyone wants to paint with a broad brush, where there’s no room for nuance, and say things like “all white people should pay reparations to black people.” And that’s just too clumsy and would never work.
One, because not all white people are generationally wealthy descendants of enslavers, so such a blanket policy of collective punishment meets the definition of racism. Two, because there’s no way to quantify in abstract terms how much money “every white person” owes to “every black person.”
It’s better to focus on making society better as a whole, filling in the gaps where racial disparity still exists (by lifting up the disenfranchised, not by tearing down the privileged), making the wealthy pay their fair share to the government’s coffers, making the government ensure robust social safety nets which benefit everyone who needs them, and only demanding reparations in specific cases where there is a direct link between the descendants of enslavers and the descendants of the particular people they enslaved.
It’s been too long, and who exactly are you going to blame or get reparations taken from? Hell; If memory serves it was other black people who were gathering up and selling the black people into the slave trade. What you gonna do? Give $40 a piece to 50,000,000 black people, along with an I’m sorry card?
How do you determine who is descended of enslaved and enslaver? How do you identify who is benefitting today for something that happened 500 years ago? How do you deal with people that descend from both enslavers and enslaved? There is a long thread about this. Ultimately it is not possible to do what you are asking. Should a farmer in Turkey pay for the benefit the ottoman empire got from slave trade to a white looking mixed american of west african descent? You realize how stupid that sound?
the states would be paying those reparations, not the people individually
european states should pay reparations to the nations they colonized and enslaved, and colonial states (the usa, canada…) should pay reparations to their colonized populations.
the states would be paying those reparations, not the people individually
Where does the state get that money? An eternal mystery
And where do ‘the states’ get their money? Taxes. You’d still be taxing the people to pay for reparations
so? why should they live in the comfort their enslavement created while the majority of third world countries contend with poverty caused by their continued imperialism?
Do you realize the immense hypocrisy in your argument? Collectively punish a group of people, who did no wrong, based solely on where they’re born because people hundreds of years ago were dicks.
reparations are a form of wealth redistribution.
do you think taxing billionaires is “collective punishment”? but, oh no, what if some of them inherited that wealth 🥺 it would be so unfair to punish them by taking it away 🥺 all of that for what, the crime of being born into wealth? oh no, those poor, poor billionaires 🥺
do you not realize the immense hypocrisy of yours?
collectively punishing the majority of the world today from consequences of their shit, just so they don’t have to take responsibility for it?
it may or may not be their fault as individuals, but the state of colonies and neocolonies is still their responsibility as a country.
‘If white, then pay reparations’ is their answer
Europeans and other monarchy-states are happier still feeding aristocrat and noble pigs, you mean? Yeah, I hear you.
I agree there are challenges with economic reparations but I do want to point out that the transatlantic slave trade was different from slavery as practiced throughout human history.
It was more cruel than even slavery practiced in ancient Greece and Rome (civilizations which Western nations like to harken back to).
European colonial powers firmly believed in and propagated a global race based caste system. This itself is a crime against humanity but they put into practice the subjugation of people with darker skin, defining them as less human as justification for their enslavement.
Throughout history many civilizations thought other peoples to be inferior or barbaric. But there has not been a global race based caste system based on complexion as colonial era Europeans practiced it.
Entire fields of false science such as phrenology and eugenics sprung from this dogmatic belief in skin tone defining ones worth. The culmination of this vile ‘purity’ ideology was Nazi Germany and even with the end of that movement, we have not seen the end white supremacist ideology.
This is a very unique problem that still has horrific reverberations to this day. I would not be so quick to absolve European colonial powers and their descendant nation states who still benefit from neocolonialism today. Reparations is a complex issue but I think verbal acknowledgment of accountability and an honest teaching of history would be a start in those nations that have been ongoing beneficiaries of these inhumane institutions.
To summarize, I’ll leave you with quotes representative of the worldview of one of the most revered figures in modern colonial/Western history:
"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."
"I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."
"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror."
"I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them… I believe that as the civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations."
Winston Churchill
The only reason they didn’t have an Atlantic slave trade earlier was that they didn’t have the technology to do so earlier, there was virtually no transatlantic trade beforehand.
I don’t think it was a particularly cruel time. My ancestors didn’t have transatlantic trade, but they were among the cruelest people on Earth of any time. They certainly would have been Atlantic slave traders if they were able to, no doubt.
While I agree in part with the sentiment, I think is totally unfair to consider ancient slavery in Greece or Rome as less cruel. It was not less cruel depending on the slave in question. Slaves in mines and agricultural estates were in worse conditions then anything in American south. But if you were an educated slave then your life was indeed better. That also means that was common for slaves in ancient Rome to be able to buy freedom. Slavery was everywhere in society, so the comparison is really hard to make.
There is indeed a racial component in colonial slavery that was not present in ancient Roman slavery. A slave could be from Germany or from Syria and there was no difference in treatment.
I would say that both late trans-atlantic slavery and nazism share a philosophical root in the eugenetic movement, but both grew in parallel with different motives: in one case a justification for economic exploitation, in the other an ideological tool to enforce unity in nationalism.
The transatlantic slave trade started before the concept of race and the eugenetic movement. During the 15th century the justification was more routed in religion and the idea of having prisoner of war being better then to kill the enemy. Still and excuse for economic exploitation, but maybe more akin to what the greeks and romans were doing.
I think it would be reasonable to consider reparations for individual descendants of slaves. There are plenty of people alive today that can prove their descendance from a slave.
Reparations to entire countries in Africa seems a bit absurd to me.
Actually they can easily restitute African countries for the immense damages they were caused.
But restituting the victims of slavery is inconvenient for the empire, while an atrocity like the Holocaust can be abused to fund and raise support for Israel.
That is easy because the Holocaust was between 1941 and 1945 and reparation were between 1952 and 1953. It is the same government, the same people, the same generation. The atrocity is clearly defined in time and space, and can be somewhat measured. Nonetheless, even in a “clear as day” situation, lot of opposition came to be part of this process, with this being a very difficult agreement to reach. Doing that 200 to 600 years apart, across multiple nation, multiple people, multiple culture, is borderline impossible and would settle anything. You cannot make it just for the hebrews with that reparations, you cannot with slave trade either. Same apply to WW2 reparation, Mongol conquest reparation (sound silly just to think about it), or induced famine in China and the Soviet Union.
“induced famine in china and soviet union” lmfao, are you fr
Transatlantic slavery is easily traceable to the countries which committed it and which suffered from it. The time period is irrelevant. In fact Israelis are primarily the Jews which didn’t suffer from the Holocaust because they went to colonize Palestine instead of staying in Germany. So your argument works against you.
Should today citizen of Portugal (under the 1976 Republic) be accountable for the legal (at the time) actions of the Portuguese Crown? Should the citizen of Benin be accountable for the atrocities committed by Dahomey to secure the slaves from nearby tribes? Are the people of Benin both beneficiary and responsible for that? How much? Should Brazil pay for the action of the Portuguese Crown? Should Italy pay because the Republic of Genoa bankers benefited from the loans and contracts with the Portuguese merchants? How much is an Italian descendent from a Venetian born in today Croatia responsible for the sins of Genoese banker that finances the Portuguese crown to pay the Imbangala people to capture slaves?
Yes they should at least pay some reparations. Now why is Germany sending money to Israel?
reply to the entire question if you can, and bring a reasonable justification about who and how much should pay to who. We have Italian descendent from Dalmatia, we have Brazilian descendent from Portugal, we have people from Angola descendent from Imbangala, Benin people descendent from Dahomey, that needs to pay how much to other people from Angola and Benin?
Countries in Africa are still suffering from the consequences of Western slavery. The entire countries as a whole, not taking into account the people. The only reason Africa is still underdeveloped is because of Western slavery and colonialism.
(Primarily black) communities in the West could also be given restitution funds to make up their deficiency in socio-economic status caused by past discrimination
Except that many of the descendents of the people who suffered most from slavery are now citizens of the countries which “committed it”, if by that you mean the countries which enslaved them. So telling the US to pay reparations to Ghana would in effect make descendents of enslaved people in the US pay reparations to the descendants of the people in Ghana who weren’t enslaved.
Add to that, as someone else pointed out, the people who actually captured Africans in Africa to sell to the European enslavers, were other Africans, often from rival tribes.
So not only would it mean US descendents of enslaved people would pay reparations to countries of descendants of non-enslaved people, but they’d actually be paying it to people who are in some cases the descendants of the people who captured their ancestors.
There’s no way to do this with precision, and people need to stop calling it racism every time someone points that out.
And guess what? The people living in those countries are still the most systematically disenfranchised and discriminated against of the population. Frequently getting the blame for all the problems caused by the right-wing politicians, white people keep voting in.
And the countries of their ancestors are still in shambles from the slavery and colonialism. So returning is not an attractive option.
That doesn’t change the fact that saying “the US should pay Africa reparations” misses the mark by a long shot.
And the countries in Africa are in shambles for many reasons, but the transatlantic slave trade is a relativey small part of that. Try colonialism more broadly, especially ivory trade and gemstone mining. Try the rivalries and warlords that colonial powers left in their wake when they left. Try harsher environmental conditions, harsher epidemiological condition, harsher pests and parasites.
There’s lots of reasons QOL in most of Africa is among of the lowest in the world, but transatlantic slave trade mainly affected the African diaspora, who today are mostly citizens of countries that you’re suggesting should pay Africa reparations. It’s an overly simplistic attempt at a solution which ignores reality in favor of convenient half-truths.
Also, I never suggested returning as an option. You’re just full of red herrings, aren’t you?
Somewhat a bold move for Ghana. Only a few years ago a few of their MPs were terrified of highlighting anything to do with either the Trans-Saharan or Trans-Atlantic slave trade because of the heavy involvement from some local ethnic groups in capturing, transporting, and selling slaves. Which is not honestly actuate considering the lies and economic pressure from the Europeans. Probably just turned the corner after their Year of The Return stuff was so successful.
Yeah, there’s more than a whiff of revisionism going on here. Not that they’re wrong about the specific issue.
I wonder why a colonized country still suffering from neo-colonialism didn’t want to accuse their colonizers.
Not the whole country, just a handful of MPs. But they were senior MPs and well-respected. These guys were genuinely worried about this.
And it was because they thought they’d be on the hook financially for reparations, which Ghana can’t afford. Especially for the groups who were coastal and “let” the Europeans get a foothold there. Basically a financial penalty for not themselves dying to prevent the Portuguese lamdbin Elmina (In before the Brits).
Also, they worried, IMO rightfully, about the Western propensity towards making blanket decisions that affect the developing world and not caring. UN level reparations policy might very well penalize source countries in some zero-nuance fuck up. Look at us. We are a zero nuance fuck up place right now.
Any “senior MP” is guaranteed to have been installed quite a while ago by the West. Ghana certainly wouldn’t be on the hook for reparations. In no way did (what’s currently) Ghana gain any kind of generational wealth from slavery. A few warlord mercenaries backed by European powers certainly did but that’s basically the same as a few corrupt people benefiting from neo-colonialism.
Any “senior MP” is guaranteed to have been installed quite a while ago by the West
Wow, how positively denigrating. “Those poor Africans can’t even manage their own elections,” hm?
Educated in the US or UK, maybe. Installed? LOL. Local elections in Ghana are hotly contested at times and tied to ethic group, family, and age more than anything external. I’ve seen plenty in person. There are plenty of average, and even well-educated Ghanaians that think slave castles should be torn down, not out of abhorance for the practice of slavery, but rather out of shame for having been a part of it.
And it’s been a pretty rapid turn since Ghana brought the issue of reparations to the UK parliament and didn’t get immediately shut down. So they have momentum that has quieted the more hesitant MPs. 6 or 7 years to pivot? Now it’s about the money.
Please don’t forget, this is the same county that buried their only skate park because it might “introduce homosexuality to the youth.” Don’t assume anything about their politics until you’ve spent time there experiencing it.
Yeah I wonder what happened that they couldn’t manage their own elections. Have fun with your block
…But they can and do…
Blocked! Ooooh no, so sad. This person that doesnt read well won’t continue to misunderstand normal things about the world.
Ahhhhhhh, my sadness knows no end /s
Here’s the biggest problem with reparations…
Most slaves were captured and then sold by other africans from competing kingdoms or tribes, to the europeans who would then take them across the atlantic.
Giving reparations to current africans would actually be like rewarding the original slavers.
I think this might miss the point of reparations
I thought the point of reparations is not to “pay off” a historical wrong, but instead is meant to help offset the generational of disadvantage caused by slavery and racism to those who suffer from that legacy today
we need all kinds of changes to end cycles of poverty and generational trauma, and reparations is just one tool among many to help with that - but it’s more about fixing the broken thing now than about absolving guilt
Well, sure. But a lot of developed nations already have a lot of programs aimed at doing that.
Also, as someone has said somewhere in this discussion, who exactly would receive reparations? It’s not exactly an easy thing to ascertain.
They do have these programs but they barely scratch the surface or even contra the damage currently being done to the communities in question.
It’s not exactly easy but it’s not exactly impossible either. Of course, not you necessarily, someone could keep declaring it impossible to do no matter much the subject is researched.
For example, we can see that the communities effected by this have had far less investment than places that benefitted. The way to fix a severe lack of investment is through significant investment. There’ll be more, of course, but that’s an easy one right there.
I’m definitely not against giving more money in these programs, or widen their scope. I do think we have a moral obligation to help, in general. If you are better off, that is.
But where do reparations stop? There’s hardly a place on this planet who wasn’t taken advantage of, or hasn’t taken advantage of another.
I mean, we’ve barely started. I don’t think it’s time to think about when we should stop. But, if we have to, it’ll be when it’s finished.
But a lot of developed nations already have a lot of programs aimed at doing that.
Programs like “we bomb the shit out of you”, “climate catasthropy”, “unlimited global apartheid on the world’s exploited masses”?
yes, I do think reparations has many problems with it - ideally it would be a matter of transitioning wealth accumulated through slavery from the people who benefited from slavery to the people who suffered under slavery. We are generations away on both sides, but it’s not like the effects haven’t certainly enriched some while hurting others even today.
Usually when I hear about reparations, the idea is to use tax money to do it, but at that point a lot of the people paying the taxes for reparations are also the victims of generations of slavery, so … I dunno, doesn’t feel like the most targeted or ethical approach.
And yes, who do we decide who receives reparations? Is it just for slavery, or are we going to recognize the way slavery and racism are intertwined and related?
What about reparations for other racist choices, like segregating Black communities and building interstates through their communities, polluting and robbing those communities of health, wealth, etc.?
Again, reparations is just one tool. I’m not sure you can really argue that racism has been properly dealt with or solved, or that reparations has no place in a program of racial and social justice, even if we can pick out logistical difficulties.
Further, why does it feel like you are against this project of justice, rather than for it?
I’m against reparations because, as you said, it would be unfair on both sides.
The people that would be taxed (the majority) probably never benefitted from it, at least not directly. I can give you an example. On my father’s side we made a family tree reaching all the way to the 17th century, and there were no rich landowners or noblemen. It’s highly unlikely they owned slaves. Should my family pay for reparations?
Now, if you can accurately trace slave owning people and their descendants are still wealthy, then by all means…
What I’m saying is it can’t be a blanket measure.
Also, if we europeans must pay, then the arabs better pay up as well.
And then you have the question of who receives the money. Africa is rife with corruption. I wouldn’t want the money to go to some corrupt government official. But how would you trace the exact people or families who should receive the money? What if the family who was enslaved mixed with the family/tribe/kingdom of the slavers? Then what?
I’m absolutely for helping Africa, but it just can’t be this fantasy notion of reparations because it’s not feasible.
Hm, my point wasn’t that reparations is unfair to both sides, but that there are better and worse ways to go about it.
Regardless, I think measures that aim to fix economic inequality and wealth distribution, and particularly efforts that are rooted in morally defensible arguments about repairing the harms caused by slavery and racism are noble and worthwhile. I’m even happy for imperfect versions of this where the US government pays reparations using tax money - it’s a much better use of my tax money (whether I personally benefited from slavery or not) than a lot of the villainous stuff the US currently does with my tax money.
Besides, the positive outcomes are alone worthwhile.
Typically I think of reparations as being sent to those who can show their lineage goes back to African slaves in the US, in which case it’s usually African-Americans who are the primary beneficiaries of reparations, not bureaucrats in Africa.
The way you are thinking about reparations makes me think you are not very keen on projects of social justice in general. Maybe you’re just jaded or cynical about the possibility for justice to be handled fairly, but I think we should be motivated to supporting and finding paths forward that help people whether they are perfect or not, and I just don’t get that vibe from you.
I am keen on social programs. Social welfare programs, which in fact I consider fundamental in a developed society.
I just don’t see reparations as a good social program.
Who generated the demand?
That’s an entirely different point. But they were already slavers before the europeans increased demand.
I would say the biggest problem right now would be finding African countries that can be trusted with using this money to actually improve lives of their citizens.
https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2024
Some are only fairly corrupt. Most are very corrupt.
This is just a complete lie what the hell
Which part? That Africans captured other Africans? Definitely not a lie… Europeans didn’t go to the interior. They showed up at the western coast, anchored offshore, and bought captives from mercenaries or tribal warlords who had brought conquered Africans from the interior to the coast specifically because there was a customer (horrible I know) to buy them – the European slavers waiting in their ships. Port towns grew wealthy and powerful as the “portal” to African slaves.
Slave Ship is a good (and brutally dark) book about this.
They did show up at the shores and took slaves. Then they found out they could sell guns and arm mercenaries to do it for them for even more effective slavery. And they killed anyone who resisted them.
Just because they armed and hired middle-men to do the dirty work on the shores (and only because it was cheaper for them to do this) doesn’t absolve them from being the cause these people were transported into slavery.
Next you’re gonna argue slavery only started in Africa when the first europeans started doing it, completely ignoring the centuries of arab slave trade before that, and centuries after europeans outlawed it, and which likely enslaved as many people.
The truth is, it was an awful thing with a lot of different parties involved for different reasons, throughout a very long period.
Slavery had always existed. Institutionalized slavery was an exclusively European invention. Frightening how little people know about it and how much they’re willing to defend it https://review.gale.com/2025/04/08/african-slavery-vs-trans-atlantic-slave-trade/
How convenient you chose to ignore the exact paragraph from that link that touched very lightly on what I said:
“In stark contrast, the trans-Saharan slave trade introduced chattel slavery where enslaved individuals were the property of their enslavers with no rights and their status was inherited by their offspring. This system stripped individuals of any agency and autonomy which reduced them to mere commodities.”
Arabs enslaved millions for a much longer period of time (all the way up to the late 20th century), raped the women, neutered the men, literally denying milions of a future generation from existing.
But I don’t see anyone asking them for compensations.
Strange you stopped reading there.
Indigenous African slavery was typically localised whereas the trans-Atlantic slave trade functioned on a more industrial scale by forcibly transporting millions of Africans to the Americas to meet labour demands of plantation economies.
Institutionalized slavery was an exclusively European invention.
Whoever told you this, stop listening to them. They are not to be trusted
Every historian ever.
You means the egyptians didnt have institutionalized slaving? Really?
Not in the same way. Even ancient Egypt considered slaves human and they had some rights, whereas trans-atlantic slavery fully reduced slaves to the level of animals. Egypt also didn’t start invasions primarily to capture slaves and use them on their plantations.
While you’re technically correct, trans-atlantic slavery had countries literally running their economies on slaves which is what I meant.
Well you’re conflating “how it happened” with “who’s to blame”.
Obviously the European slave trade was the prime mover for regional African warlords capturing would-be-slaves in the interior and of course this doesn’t absolve the European slavers of anything lol
I don’t understand why people just knee-jerk reply like this without actually researching what they’re denying. It’s a pretty well-known fact that most of the slaves in the Atlantic slave trade came from African warlords and slavers (or at least I thought it was). I don’t thin that’s a particularly strong argument against reparations though.
They were armed and trained by the West and acted as Western mercenaries. This is like blaming neo-colonialism on the countries suffering from it because the West installed a puppet government there.
“the West” as a concept didn’t exist in the 17th century.
“My source is I made it the fuck up” - you
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/mar/31/epiloguetothedebateonslav
The single most important - and also, alas, the most overlooked - causative factor is the gun. Once African tribes that formerly fought with bows and arrows or spears were introduced to the devastating nature of the musket, the cannon and the Gatling, all bets were off, so to speak.
Apart from directly hiring their own mercenary armies to go into the interior of Africa to kidnap slaves and pressgang them into the purpose-built slave forts, the European slavers would go to Tribe A and say to its leaders: “Look, we only came here to buy your gold, as we’ve been doing for years. But Tribe B has sent emissaries to us, asking us to sell guns to it. Now, we know that you are their immediate target, having fought them in terrible wars not so long ago. Because of our friendship for you, we have told them we have no guns. For now.”
The only part of your original statement that is accurate according to your article was that they were armed by the Europeans. People actually by the European-trained raiders making up a small part of the total slave exports as stated in your provided article.
Europeans slavers being manipulative doesn’t excuse the actions of those who sold them slaves, all it means is that human beings are all capable of great evil. It kind if reminds me of blockbusting in the US during the 20th century. Just because the real estate agents were playing on the racist fears of the white homeowners doesn’t excuse white flight.
I do kind of take issue with the original commentor trying to handwave reparations because of this fact, but we don’t need to try and whitewash (yeah I know) the actions of anyone involved.
The slavery was only possible because they were armed and agitated by the Europeans. Get out of here with your filthy victim blaming revisionism
It’s the truth. Sorry? Do you think the slave traders were parking outside Africa, ranging across the continent, and grabbing people with big nets?
no, it’s even more perverse. they were the ones creating the economical incentive.
They were armed and trained by the West and acted as Western mercenaries. This is like blaming neo-colonialism on the countries suffering from it because the West installed a puppet government there.
They were armed and trained by the West and acted as Western mercenaries. This is like blaming neo-colonialism on the countries suffering from it because the West installed a puppet government there.
Why are you using Cold War propaganda terms to describe something that happened before Marx was even born?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/mar/31/epiloguetothedebateonslav
The single most important - and also, alas, the most overlooked - causative factor is the gun. Once African tribes that formerly fought with bows and arrows or spears were introduced to the devastating nature of the musket, the cannon and the Gatling, all bets were off, so to speak.
Apart from directly hiring their own mercenary armies to go into the interior of Africa to kidnap slaves and pressgang them into the purpose-built slave forts, the European slavers would go to Tribe A and say to its leaders: “Look, we only came here to buy your gold, as we’ve been doing for years. But Tribe B has sent emissaries to us, asking us to sell guns to it. Now, we know that you are their immediate target, having fought them in terrible wars not so long ago. Because of our friendship for you, we have told them we have no guns. For now.”
That has nothing to do with my comment. I’m talking about your use of the word “the West” everywhere. You’re confusing entire centuries. This is back when Russia was a monarchist empire too, for example.
Why?
Why are you spreading racist propaganda over the entire thread to excuse Western slavery? What does the article I linked start with?
