Bristol 'should apologise for slave trade'.

[munkeeunit]

Certainly from the black people I know I can't ever remember anyone saying they wanted an apology. I know some black people who've said they are very offended whenever a white person apologies for the slave trade, and see it as quite patronising and naive really.

(although it's also often seen as good start, as long as that's not all it is.)

But, then, that's just me and the people I know personally, and people I know personally are likely to have a similar opinion to my own, my own opinions largely being borne out of the historical and modern abuses carried out in Ireland.

 

[munkeeunit]

My elderly neighbour used to trot the pointlessness of apologising as an excuse for his own racism..

Yes, this is a real danger of PC, it delivers on a plate a foil for racist attitudes dressed up in the langage of white cultural equality, and relativism etc, which is, in a nutshell, the entire stragey of the BNP's attempts to 'normalise' itself.

 

[editor]

There's a position - not necessarily mine, but a not unreasonable one - which says that as a citizen of one of the countries which continues to benefit from the relationships slavery created, you too benefit from them and can't just disaossicate yourself from the past just because you were in no sense actually responsible.

What about, for example, slave descendants who settled in the UK many generations ago and, as British citizens, continue to 'benefit from the relationships slavery created?'

Should they apologise too? Aren't they as 'guilty' as their fellow Brits?

 

[munkeeunit]

Ireland and Africa are similar in that they both remain crushingly underpopulated as a result the legacy of the potato famine and slavery. The difference being that Africa remains crushingly economically underdeveloped, while Ireland has been absorbed into the inner circle of exploiter nations, as has Wales.

It's this type of modern analysis of modern inequalities which set Africa apart from Wales and Ireland, for example. It is also a reson why to apologise to Africa for what happened 200 years ago is a a denial of it's ongoing underpopulation and underdevelopement, whch also applies to the economically subjugated status of the Carribbean nations in the here and now.

Our inner-cities may be relatively rundown. But white and black working class alike (no-matter how hard it is to swallow by a left largely still thinking in terms of 19th century cloth cap working class), are highly priviliged in relation to most of the world today, and are, like us all, now part of the inner circle of modern day exploiter nations.

(To echo and expand upon what the Editor has pointed to above.)

 

[Sunspots]

However genuine, however well-intentioned, I don't see what practical difference an apology would make.

Then what?

Everybody (-black, white, purple, etc...) would all still get up the next day and shuffle along in the same modern rat race. Grrrrreat.

Apologising for the past is ultimately just a gesture, and a divisive one at that. We need to concentrate on what's keeping us all screwed down now, not yesterday.

 

[Zaskar]

However genuine, however well-intentioned, I don't see what practical difference an apology would make.

Then what?

Everybody (-black, white, purple, etc...) would all still get up the next day and shuffle along in the same modern rat race. Grrrrreat.

Apologising for the past is ultimately just a gesture, and a divisive one at that. We need to concentrate on what's keeping us all screwed down now, not yesterday.

Nuff said really.

Surely this can only serve those with professional apologising interests?

 

[Idaho]

Ireland and Africa are similar in that they both remain crushingly underpopulated as a result the legacy of the potato famine and slavery.

I don't think the low population density in Africa is really a product of the slave trade. More to do with agricultural problems, malaria and the timing of European colonisation.

 

[munkeeunit]

Yes, Africa remains underpopulated for a whole host of modern reasons, which an apology for slavery doesn't even begin to touch.

 

[bristol_citizen]

Certainly from the black people I know I can't ever remember anyone saying they wanted an apology. I know some black people who've said they are very offended whenever a white person apologies for the slave trade, and see it as quite patronising and naive really.

(although it's also often seen as good start, as long as that's not all it is.)

But, then, that's just me and the people I know personally, and people I know personally are likely to have a similar opinion to my own, my own opinions largely being borne out of the historical and modern abuses carried out in Ireland.

I actually attended the debate at the Empire Museum and I'd estimate at least one third of the audience was black. (How often do you get over 150 black people to a political meeting in Bristol?) Many of them spoke from the floor passionately about the need for an apology and the vote at the meeting was overwhemingly in favour of an apology.
The characterisation of this issue as being forced upon us by a politically correct (whatever that means) white, liberal, hand-wringing minority is neither accurate nor useful. This is a big issue to the black community. And attitudes towards it are clearly falling along race lines.
Also is anyone aware that Bristol's Consortium of Black Groups (who represent a wide range of the city's black people) have already put out a statement saying they intend to boycott the city's bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade celebrations for similar reasons they put forward for wanting an apology?

 

[munkeeunit]

I actually attended the debate at the Empire Museum and I'd estimate at least one third of the audience was black. (How often do you get over 150 black people to a political meeting in Bristol?)

Rarely ever at all.

Fair enough, and as I said, that's just me and those I know,

I know there's others who feel deeply passionately that they want an apology, and the same still applies to Irish (usually felt most strongly up to 3rd generation Irish / Black, and so on, I think, and then fades more).

Many people in Ireland are still ready to bear arms again (any time the English / British like), so in that respect an apology for slavery is being very polite, and I wouldn't oppose it.

It's still not enough, for anyone.

 

[Skate]

What about, for example, slave descendants who settled in the UK many generations ago and, as British citizens, continue to 'benefit from the relationships slavery created?'

Should they apologise too? Aren't they as 'guilty' as their fellow Brits?

Do you mean the benefit of British citizenship alone or the benefit from the relationships slavery created as shared with fellow Brits? I'm particularly interested in the debate as I'm a slave descendant.

I do feel that too many are ignorant of the fact that slavery didn't end when it was "abolished" - people still raise their eyebrows in disbelief when I tell them that my great grandfather was a slave here during the first world war. incidentally legend has it that he may have been so in Bristol, but certainly in South Wales.

I don't feel the need for a city to apologise for that so I think I'm with Anthony Grayling on this one. I personally avoid benefitting from slavery because I've educated myself enough to recognise who and what slavery has enhanced so I think that raising similar awareness in order to encourage people to manage their own accountability is much more of an effective priority than demanding an apology out of the blue.

Mind you, if it means getting a one way ticket back to the West Indies I'll apologise all you like. It's shit here

 

[Sunspots]

So, it now appears that an apology was issued back in 1982:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4770141.stm

...and, of course, it sorted everything out, and everybody lived happily ever after.

Like I already said, what practical difference would an apology make to people's everyday lives?

 

[munkeeunit]

Maybe there should be a 5 year rolling apology, just so that no-one forgets Bristol has apologised, and yes everyone lives happily ever after, and nobody lives on a $1 a day in sweatshops under armed guard, due to the magic of that routinely reasserted bureaucratic utterance.

 

[Sunspots]

...and yes everyone lives happily ever after, and nobody lives on a $1 a day in sweatshops under armed guard...

Well, exactly.

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

Isn't there a museum in Bristol about this, or a recent exhibition.

I think an apology is OK, but needs to point out the context of slavery over the years, African pirates did it, internal slave traders did it to other tribes and were willing to sell slaves, Muslim traders did it.
Somali and Yemenies still call each other slaves.

Taking what you wanted was what people did in those days - all over the world.

 

[Sunspots]

Taking what you wanted was what people did in those days - all over the world.

Thankfully, that doesn't happen any more...

 

[munkeeunit]

Taking what you wanted was what people did in those days - all over the world.

People will say exactly the same about today. Structural Adjustment Policies and the Plan For Africa are the new and next big carve ups already here and on it's way. Iraq, Iran. Everyone is back on the take like never before. Once the scale of the criminality of our current period is fully analysed in retropect, I'm certain it will rank alongside slavery as a protracted and inhuman period of history.

Above all else slavery was an economic project, as is neo-liberalism.

 

[Maggot]

I don't feel the need for a city to apologise for that so I think I'm with Anthony Grayling on this one. I personally avoid benefitting from slavery because I've educated myself enough to recognise who and what slavery has enhanced so I think that raising similar awareness in order to encourage people to manage their own accountability is much more of an effective priority than demanding an apology out of the blue.

What has slavery enhanced and how do you avoid it?

 

[munkeeunit]

If it's slavery past I guess you can research the financial evolution of companies and avoid those which are worst. If it's economic slavery present, none of us can realistically detach ourselves from the cheap clothing and food, in particular, we increasingly depend on. We are all complicit in the here and now, as was everyone during slavery past. Time we faced that.

But it would be intersting to hear more from Skate.

 

[RubberBuccaneer]

People will say exactly the same about today. Structural Adjustment Policies and the Plan For Africa are the new and next big carve ups already here and on it's way. Iraq, Iran. Everyone is back on the take like never before. Once the scale of the criminality of our current period is fully analysed in retropect, I'm certain it will rank alongside slavery as a protracted and inhuman period of history.

Above all else slavery was an economic project, as is neo-liberalism.

True might was right, then as is now.

 

[aylee]

Exactly. Where will all these apologies end!??

Stig of the Dump wants an apology from Homo Sapiens for wiping out his mates.

 

[munkeeunit]

The cell wants an apology for being colonised by the mitochondria.

(now I'm just talking bollocks, couldn't resist, sorry )

 

[Skate]

What has slavery enhanced and how do you avoid it?

Enhanced was probably the wrong word to use - slavery isn't exactly an enhancement to anything - but I was trying not to use the word "benefit" repeatedly in my post

One of the more prominent examples of that of Tate and Lyle, particularly regarding the Tate galleries. It may seem obvious to some that one founded the other but yet it isn't to many: I wasn't aware of this until recently.

The plantations from which Tate and Lyle's sugar came from were operated by the Atlantic slave trade. The profits which Sir Henry Tate made from Tate's Cube Sugar (Lyle developed the famous syrups) bought 65 paintings with which he founded the original Tate Gallery in 1897.

I doubt you'll find any of this in any vaguely official history of theirs. So I tend to refer to the Tate Modern as the "Slavery Modern" - a modern spin on an old shame.

Avoiding non-fair-trade products is a habit I got into long ago, but I haven't gone to the Tate since I discovered their history. Admission is free but that's irrelevant to me: I don't want to be associated with it and I can live without it.

I wouldn't want a city to apologise but I wouldn't mind in the least if a company did although it wouldn't provoke me into having anything to do with them.

Incidentally (or not!):

Out of the eater came forth food,
And out of the strong came forth sweetness

According to Hebrew, this riddle was apparently told by Samson to the guests at his wedding.

To cut a long story short, after the Philistines have finished with him, Samson ends up as slave himself.

 

[GarveyLives]

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7 June 2020: Members of the public decommission and dispose the statue celebrating and honouring Bristol white supremacist, Edward Colston, a member and former deputy governor of the Royal African Company, who was responsible for trafficking thousands of enslaved African people, and made himself a fortune in doing so.

 

[William of Walworth]

Very good article (IMO) about the Colston statue deposition here. David Olusoga has lived in Bristol for a good while I think :

The toppling of Edward Colston's statue is not an attack on history. It is history

Includes Colston Hall paragraph :

Colston Hall, Bristol’s prime concert venue, and one of the many institutions named after the slave trader, announced that it was to change its name. In response, a number of otherwise reasonable decent people announced that they would be boycotting the hall.
Think about that for a moment. Rational, educated, 21st-century people earnestly concluded that they were taking a moral stance by refusing to listen to music performed within the walls of a concert hall unless that venue was named after a man who bought, sold and killed human beings.

 

[Smangus]

As a Neanderthal I'd like an apology from you Homo Sapiens out there for ruining my hunting grounds. Honestly , coming over here , killing our Mammoths and stealing our Elk, fecking long shank bastards

 

[weltweit]

Apologies can have worth.

What did Blair apologise for, I forget?

But he didn't apologise for slavery, perhaps it could have led to calls for compensation?

 

[rutabowa]

Hm in retrospect it looks like Donna ferentes was 100% right in this thread. Dunno if I would have thought that in 2006 though.

 

[GarveyLives]

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7 June 2020: Members of the public decommission and dispose the statue celebrating and honouring Bristol white supremacist, Edward Colston, a member and former deputy governor of the Royal African Company, who was responsible for trafficking thousands of enslaved African people, and made himself a fortune in doing so.

An uncomfortable dose of reality soup ...

"Contrary to our view of history, pro-slavery thinking in the 1820s and 30s was the norm, from politicians to monarchs ..."

Britain's role in slavery was not to end it, but to thwart abolition at every turn

 

[Dogsauce]

Hm in retrospect it looks like Donna ferentes was 100% right in this thread. Dunno if I would have thought that in 2006 though.

The 2006 comments all read a bit Daily Mail to me, all whataboutery, ‘black people did it too’, ‘nothing to do with me’. Same arguments fash use now. I guess people have moved on a bit.

I understand an apology costs nothing and doesn’t fix things in a material way, but couldn’t imagine getting cross about it.