This relates to the BBC article [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66596790] which states “the UK should pay $24tn (£18.8tn) for its slavery involvement in 14 countries”.

The UK abolished slavery in 1833. That’s 190 years ago. So nobody alive today has a slave, and nobody alive today was a slave.

Dividing £18tn by the number of UK taxpayers (31.6m) gives £569 each. Why do I, who have never owned a slave, have to give £569 to someone who similarly is not a slave?

When I’ve paid my £569 is that the end of the matter forever or will it just open the floodgates of other similar claims?

Isn’t this just a country that isn’t doing too well, looking at the UK doing reasonably well (cost of living crisis excluded of course), and saying “oh there’s this historical thing that affects nobody alive today but you still have to give us trillions of Sterling”?

Shouldn’t payment of reparations be limited to those who still benefit from the slave trade today, and paid to those who still suffer from it?

(Please don’t flame me. This is NSQ. I genuinely don’t know why this is something I should have to pay. I agree slavery is terrible and condemn it in all its forms, and we were right to abolish it.)

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
    11·
    1 year ago

    Your ancestors came here, as a privileged class

    According to family legend, the first to immigrate was fleeing wars around the time of Bismarck. He arrived in new York as a teenager: penniless, illiterate, and not knowing anyone. He worked for years as a farm laborer before being able to buy his own land and bring over his family

    • Huxleywaswrite@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      First of all, anything that starts “according to legend” is typically not presented as fact.

      More importantly though, your family arrived here white, after systems influenced by white supremacy had established a privileged system in their favor. He arrived with absolutely nothing, and in one generation he was able to afford to buy land and move his family here after him. Do you know why he was able to do that? I’ll give you a hint, people of color couldn’t. What your family were allowed to do as immigrants, was possible because people who came from families of slaves were not allowed to.

      I told you the first time, my family was poor white trash too, amd we benefited from it. So did yours.

      Kind of telling that you didn’t want to respond to anything else I said, just try to prove that you’re family had it worse.