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.)

  • @dhorkEnglish
    4•1 year ago

    I am against reparations because it trivializes the immense harm that was done, and makes it seem like it can be made up for with a cash payment, like when someone wrecks your car. I feel the harm was so immense that the guilt can’t properly be bought off in indulgence payments, and any attempt to try will fall short of the goal, while cutting off all further debate in the topic among overly transactional people. After the reparation payment, some people can say “See, racism is over! We paid it off and are debt-free!”

    And then we get a situation like exists in much of the US South right now, where the Supreme Court pronounced racism over and ended the Voting Rights act, then State GOP Majorities picked right back up doing a lot of things that the act prohibited.

    The debt won’t truly be paid until the descendants of those slaves are truly treated as equals to the descendants of the slave holders. A cash payment simply isn’t enough, we need to improve society. Investing that money into education, and ensuring that regressive policies don’t infest our local education system, is a start.