• NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Britian only finished off paying the bill for freeing the slaves to begin with not long ago and our economy is shite at the moment so I doubt they’ll receive much support here. They should be happy with what we’ve already spent and go after the countries that carried on after we banned it.

    • alyaza [they/she]@beehaw.orgOPM
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      1 year ago

      “They should be happy with what we’ve already spent” does not follow from “Britian only finished off paying the bill for freeing the slaves to begin with” because “paying the bill for freeing the slaves” was paying the people who previously owned slaves compensation for them no longer having free chattel labor, not the people who were (and are descended from) the people who served as chattel labor.

      or, to put it another way: none of the people who suffered, or who are descended from the people who suffered, have gotten anything “you’ve spent”―if they did, why would they be asking for reparations in the first place? they’d have in a sense already gotten them if what you were saying was true, and obviously they have not.

    • Irina@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      Britian “paid” to free slaves by paying slaveowners, not by paying reparations. “what [you]’ve already spent” means nothing here.

      • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Exactly, we paid to free them and expended military resources trying to prevent other countries that didn’t progress as fast as us (including black majority African nations it should be added) from continuing. I was paying for this out of my taxes until tue other year despite not being born until 1986 and having no family wealth from the trade. I’d say we’ve done and spent enough at this point. Take it up with the Spanish, Dutch or even the original African nations that sold them to begin with.

        • Irina@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          The British Government paid British slaveowners. The British government could have made ownership of slavery illegal without paying the slaveowners, but they chose to pay the slaveowners. None of that has anything to with reparations to the enslaved people. Also worth noting that in this case, Barbadians were enslaved by the British, not the Spanish or Dutch

          • NuPNuA@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Better that than a massive civil war that left the country divided to today like the Yanks dealt with it.