A historic guilty thread

peterwalkley · 11 Jun 2020 at 13:23

Can't change the past. Question is what are we doing today that 10 generations from now we'll be slated for ?

Gray2233 · 11 Jun 2020 at 13:30

peterwalkley said:
Can't change the past. Question is what are we doing today that 10 generations from now we'll be slated for ?

If Twitter still exists we'll probably have people going back to see what someones great, great, great, great + grandparents might have said in order to cancel them.

Beerbaron · 11 Jun 2020 at 13:32

Cant change the past, we can only learn from it.

Maybe we are doing things now which might be deemed as racist in many years time.

plasmahal · 11 Jun 2020 at 13:34

Where do you draw the line? How far do you go back?

As already mentioned, britons were subjugated many times, where is the outrage at that.

200sols · 11 Jun 2020 at 13:43

plasmahal said:
As already mentioned, britons were subjugated many times, where is the outrage at that.

Errr nobody cares about white people..

Orionaut · 11 Jun 2020 at 13:58

plasmahal said:
Where do you draw the line? How far do you go back?

As already mentioned, Britons were subjugated many times, where is the outrage at that.

The need to create a global scale Navy was initially driven by the fact that north African raiders (Muslims, not Blacks as such) were routinely taking huge numbers of people from England/Britain, particularly Cornwall.

Slave raiding, and the response to it, didn't just drive Britain to become global Naval superpower,. It drive us right into the industrial revolution too!

adolf hamster · 11 Jun 2020 at 14:40

paying for the sins of our fathers is a dangerous road.

there's no limit to how far back you go with it, and eventually everyone's ancestors were a dick to someone else's ancestors at some point in human history.

i'm sure that like any other citizen of the uk at some point some of my ancestors would have profited either directly or indirectly from slavery but likewise i'm sure that their ancestors at some point were slaves themselves.

yes we should remember history in both its glory and gore, but we should only do so as a learning experience so that the future will be better than the past.

a1ex2001 · 11 Jun 2020 at 14:58

adolf hamster said:
paying for the sins of our fathers is a dangerous road.

there's no limit to how far back you go with it, and eventually everyone's ancestors were a dick to someone else's ancestors at some point in human history.

i'm sure that like any other citizen of the uk at some point some of my ancestors would have profited either directly or indirectly from slavery but likewise i'm sure that their ancestors at some point were slaves themselves.

yes we should remember history in both its glory and gore, but we should only do so as a learning experience so that the future will be better than the past.

I agree with this we shouldn’t be apologising for our fore fathers as we are not them so it is just an empty meaningless collection of words. But I do agree we should consider which historic figures we celebrate, the statue in Bristol is a clear case of a man who profited massively from the slave trade and we shouldn’t celebrate that that his blood money made the city pretty. Some of the other cases are getting very tenuous though, the Baden Powell statue in Bournemouth for example doesn’t seem to have much in the way of a racist link beyond some I’ll advised praise of Hitler before the war and some actions in the Boer war that were standard military practice for 1000’s of years.

Diddums · 11 Jun 2020 at 15:08

It seems that everyone's gotten to the point of running out of stuff to be offended by in our current generation, that they're now looking at previous generations for stuff to get offended by.

Two thoughts:

If all bad deeds from our past are erased, how are we going to learn from it?

And if Twitter didn't exist, how much of this would be happening?

There's no denying that some of our ancestors and forefathers did horrible, awful things. As a South African, I have seen it first hand. The way black people were treated was abhorrent, but it wasn't me who did it. It wasn't anyone on this forum it was people from many, many years ago. Sure, if you find someone trading slaves or whatever now then by all means drag them over the coals for it but can everyone stop pick'n'mixing crap from all walks of life, days gone past, good people, bad people, all to suit their agenda?

That'd be great, thanks.

Raz · 11 Jun 2020 at 15:15

Racist post. We don't live in a black and white world.

Hagar · 11 Jun 2020 at 15:19

My ancestors built ships in Maryport from late 1700's until steamships became common.The river was not wide enough to launch them.

Like others, a couple of generations later all the money was gone. They were called Gentlemen of independant means in the census, I believe.

adolf hamster · 11 Jun 2020 at 15:27

a1ex2001 said:
I agree with this we shouldn’t be apologising for our fore fathers as we are not them so it is just an empty meaningless collection of words. But I do agree we should consider which historic figures we celebrate, the statue in Bristol is a clear case of a man who profited massively from the slave trade and we shouldn’t celebrate that that his blood money made the city pretty. Some of the other cases are getting very tenuous though, the Baden Powell statue in Bournemouth for example doesn’t seem to have much in the way of a racist link beyond some I’ll advised praise of Hitler before the war and some actions in the Boer war that were standard military practice for 1000’s of years.

statues are a tricky one, someone at some point considered their deeds worthy of a monument, and whilst they might not stand up to modern scrutiny that makes them no less a key character.

some of history's most impressive monuments were built in some cases quite literally by slave labour, should we tear down the Colosseum? the pyramids? or should we accept them as the products of their time that they are.

Quartz · 11 Jun 2020 at 15:36

Orionaut said:
For all you White folks, how would you feel if you found out today that your forbears traded and profited from "Black Ivory", and what would you do now as a consequence of learning this.?

Everyone has a slave-owner and even a slaver in their ancestry. That's whites, blacks, yellows, olives, reds, everyone.

Tom_ed1987 · 11 Jun 2020 at 15:41

We should all be campaigning for every single ornate facade of every Victorian building in London & elsewhere to be concreted over, for it was all created off wealth generated by the exploitation of 'blacks', is an ongoing celebration of such, & thus deeply offensive. Don't agree? Racist...

Maccy · 11 Jun 2020 at 16:00

Moving this to GD as the comments already show that it's not SC worthy.

However back on topic, it's a sad time we're in currently but I would be a touch disappointed to learn if my family were involved in the slave trade. Having said that, I realise that times are much different now compared to X hundred years ago when it was considered more acceptable.

fez · 11 Jun 2020 at 16:18

Junglist said:
Seeing as my family are from Jamaica I think it's very unlikely we'd have been slave traders but more than likely the traded goods. Actually, due to where my family in Jamaica are from there is actually a very high chance that my ancestors were with the Maroons But it's really hard to do a family tree as my uncle has been trying for years and records in Jamaica are iffy at best of times.

Regarding the question what people did in the past has nothing to do with what we do today, for the most part. If someones family traded in slaves it doesn't mean that their living ancestor today would/does share the same view as them. I think it's really weird expecting a white person to apologise to me for something they haven't done to me when I, personally speaking - though it's likely at some point my family were, haven't been enslaved. Same as the whole white guilt thing. Why should there be white guilt if it wasn't something they've themselves done. I'd understand apologising the behalf of something your grandparents of parents done (more so in America) but beyond that point? meh.

We can all look back at history and think "Well, that definitely wasn't right, how could they think it was" but it doesn't mean people today need to apologise for it. If anything I find the apology a bit offensive as how can you apologise sincerely for something you didn't do? Just insulting intelligence isn't it.

I'd say most if not all people agree it was a horrible thing that shouldn't have happened - that's enough for me.

Thats far too sensible. We need to create a very complicated "guilt" chart that shows how each country has been nasty to each other and then we need to break that down even more to show how different groups within each country have been nasty to each other and then we can all decide who to be sorry to for people we never met or had anything to do with. Then that will fix everything wrong in the current world.

The thing that baffles me most is that the ideal is that people see no colour or race and no one treats anyone differently and yet we are currently pushing an agenda that puts white and black people into distinct groups and literally reduces them to a group identity.

sigma · 11 Jun 2020 at 16:35

Ironically a lot of people are proud of positive (in their mind at least) historical things that had nothing to do with them.

CosmicClown · 11 Jun 2020 at 16:41

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade

Never hear them talk of this do ya.....

Nooooo…..only blacks have been enslaved throughout history....

European slaves were acquired by Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to the Netherlands, Ireland and the Southwest of Britain, as far north as Iceland and into the eastern Mediterranean.

Junglist · 11 Jun 2020 at 16:48

fez said:
Thats far too sensible. We need to create a very complicated "guilt" chart that shows how each country has been nasty to each other and then we need to break that down even more to show how different groups within each country have been nasty to each other and then we can all decide who to be sorry to for people we never met or had anything to do with. Then that will fix everything wrong in the current world.

The thing that baffles me most is that the ideal is that people see no colour or race and no one treats anyone differently and yet we are currently pushing an agenda that puts white and black people into distinct groups and literally reduces them to a group identity.

Agreed. Before belonging to any 'group' be it black, British or Bristolian, I am myself before all of that and most importantly. What other black, British or Bristolian people do, both good or bad, is not exactly a representation of myself.

CosmicClown said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade

Never hear them talk of this do ya.....

Nooooo…..only blacks have been enslaved throughout history....

European slaves were acquired by Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to the Netherlands, Ireland and the Southwest of Britain, as far north as Iceland and into the eastern Mediterranean.

When has anyone ever claimed that? I thought it was quite common knowledge that other cultures enslaved people from the U.K, or whatever it was called at the time. I know that in particular the Vikings made a good living from it

gailjon · 11 Jun 2020 at 16:55

Junglist said:
Seeing as my family are from Jamaica I think it's very unlikely we'd have been slave traders but more than likely the traded goods. Actually, due to where my family in Jamaica are from there is actually a very high chance that my ancestors were with the Maroons But it's really hard to do a family tree as my uncle has been trying for years and records in Jamaica are iffy at best of times.

Regarding the question what people did in the past has nothing to do with what we do today, for the most part. If someones family traded in slaves it doesn't mean that their living ancestor today would/does share the same view as them. I think it's really weird expecting a white person to apologise to me for something they haven't done to me when I, personally speaking - though it's likely at some point my family were, haven't been enslaved. Same as the whole white guilt thing. Why should there be white guilt if it wasn't something they've themselves done. I'd understand apologising the behalf of something your grandparents of parents done (more so in America) but beyond that point? meh.

We can all look back at history and think "Well, that definitely wasn't right, how could they think it was" but it doesn't mean people today need to apologise for it. If anything I find the apology a bit offensive as how can you apologise sincerely for something you didn't do? Just insulting intelligence isn't it.

I'd say most if not all people agree it was a horrible thing that shouldn't have happened - that's enough for me.

Well said, and probably what the majority of the population feel like as well.

Apologising for something that you had nothing to do with is an empty gesture that does nothing to help any situation.