• Grimy
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    14 days ago

    Why is impressment considered racist? A quick google didn’t give me anything.

      • LePoisson
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        14 days ago

        It’s got an interesting history, go check it out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghaiing

        Origin is basically it was a place where a lot of dudes got forced into naval service. It happened in many different port cities, it’s just that the public conscious kind of just settled on Shanghai as where it happened a lot. Plus for some time Shanghai literally had a thing where British people there were not subject to local laws so as one can imagine it probably led to some less scrupulous folks taking advantage of that.

        Idk I haven’t really done a ton of research or anything this is all very surface level. Bad vibes indeed, getting knocked out by whatever drugs and waking up on a boat finding out you’re part of the crew sounds like a pretty bad time.

    • Mycatiskai@lemmy.ca
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      14 days ago

      Hoodwinked and Shanghai’d sound like the racist slang term for what impressment was.

      Impressment seems to be the dictionary term for the action of pressing people into navy service whether they like it or not.