Is it because I isn't black enough?

[Whorty]

You mean Miss Austen consumed a perfectly legal substance - sugar something that had been imported since 1069 when the Africans were only selling their brothers to the Arabs. It was refined in Venice and Columbus not Drake took sugar cane to grow in the Caribbean. The Europeans hadn't even got to Africa - we arrived in the late 1400s.

https://makingsenseofsugar.com/all-a...tory-of-sugar/

Its odd how the only people who are required to have any shame about the slave trade are Europeans. >90% of slaves in the new world were sold by their fellow Africans. The Arabs were buying slaves from African kings in the 700s they continued buying them into the 1800s in similar volumes to the Europeans - to the point the price of slaves doubled because of a shortage of people for the African kings to sell. The British finally stopped this age old trade and we are supposed to be the only one to apologise?

Before everyone exploited Africa for slaves they worked their way around the world. Ask Moses, Spartacus etc.

I'm all for slavery being bad but not for only the western nations to pay for it. We all should take responsibility.

Phew, glad we can agree on something ... although I might go for a word slightly more significant than 'bad'

[NigelJK]

... since 1069 when the Africans were only selling their brothers to the Arabs.

Its odd how the only people who are required to have any shame about the slave trade are Europeans. >90% of slaves in the new world were sold by their fellow Africans. The Arabs were buying slaves from African kings in the 700s they continued buying them into the 1800s in similar volumes to the Europeans ..

I'm making my way through The Silk Roads and it's very enlightening, and also properly cross referenced for those with an academic bent.
Some facts:
C100 AD Rome needed around 250,000 slaves per annum to function. Most of these were Caucasian.
C600 AD A migration of Scandinavians into Slav and Rus (now Russia) allowed then to hook into the Silk road and tap into the exploding market for Slaves, from the word Slav. Most of these were Caucasian, indeed the guidebooks of the time made a point of saying that those from Africa were not normally of the required quality. Venice was built almost entirely from the profits of this trade. This ran for some 200 years on an industrial scale.

I'm up to the Crusades, a pivotal part of which is keeping the Silk Road open to finance the fabulously rich cities on the route.

[NotAllThere]

...tap into the exploding market for Slaves, from the word Slav.

Interesting. Didn't know that, so I fact checked you and it's true! According to the BBC

The term slave has its origins in the word slav. The slavs, who inhabited a large part of Eastern Europe, were taken as slaves by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD.

[vetran]

Interesting. Didn't know that, so I fact checked you and it's true! According to the BBC

The term slave has its origins in the word slav. The slavs, who inhabited a large part of Eastern Europe, were taken as slaves by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD.

Indeed thanks every day is a school day.


This one surprised me when i first saw it.
https://www.dw.com/en/east-africas-f...ade/a-50126759

"Initially, the Arab Muslims in Eastern and Central Europe took white slaves to sell them to Arabia," Senegalese author Tidiane N'Diaye told DW in an interview. "But the growing military power of Europe put an end to Islamic expansion and now that there was a shortage of slaves, Arab Muslims were looking massively to black Africa.

Author N'Diaye estimates that 17 million East Africans were sold into slavery: "Most people still have the so-called Transatlantic [slave] trade by Europeans into the New World in mind. But in reality the Arab-Muslim slavery was much greater," N'diaye said.

"Eight million Africans were brought from East Africa via the Trans-Saharan route to Morocco or Egypt. A further nine million were deported to regions on the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean."

[NigelJK]

What is more interesting is that this is what the Vikings moved into when they migrated ...

[vetran]

But the key thing we should remember is its still there and far worse than in empire days.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...ons-one-in-200

The word “slavery” conjures up images of shackles and transatlantic ships – depictions that seem relegated firmly to the past. But more people are enslaved today than at any other time in history. Experts have calculated that roughly 13 million people were captured and sold as slaves between the 15th and 19th centuries; today, an estimated 40.3 million people – more than three times the figure during the transatlantic slave trade – are living in some form of modern slavery, according to the latest figures published by the UN’s International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation.

[vetran]

What is more interesting is that this is what the Vikings moved into when they migrated ...

Excellent soon I will soon get a few million quid from Scandanavia in reparations!

[NigelJK]

Well you'd be surprised but large numbers came from Britain, in particular women and children.

[Scoobos]

When are people going to realise that No Racism essentially means not making any differentiation based on race?

People can live the way they want as individuals, making any assumption like "he's black with a caribbean background" - he has to eat rice and beans and smoke weed - IS RACIST. The same way that when I lived in the caribbean, people thinking as a white man I shouldn't be eating at Smokehouses or drinking rum from the bottle at the mango tree, but eating at the ritz and drinking in Europubs.

Is Curried goat a "Black food", am I being culturally inappropriate to myself by eating it? As a yorkshire man, do I need to be eating bread and dripping? It's just mental.

People are people, some are gits, some are great, some are inbetween. "A bloke is a bloke".

Racism is fuelled , for me , by 2 distinct sides - those that think people of another race should live like they do or "integrate", or people who think that Idris (I hate him btw) has to eat rice and beans in a BBC program because he's a "heritage".

Actors should get jobs based on merit and suitability, like any other area or work and editing stories or scripts to match race, is for me, making an issue of race and therefore a racist act.

<off soapbox again>

[Scoobos]

But the key thing we should remember is its still there and far worse than in empire days.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/201...ons-one-in-200

Great point, I struggle with many members of "the new generational movement" on this point.

Bringing down slavery statues but funding JD Sports, Nike, Boohoo, Primark et al "because we can't afford to shop anywhere else on our wages"

Attacking people for sterotyping and disciminating and using hateful gender descriptors, then attacking BOOMERS and GAMMON for the current political and environmental problems - saying they acted knowing they would harm the younger generations, because they weren't willing to reduce their standard of living. Then during the covid pandemic (Boomer remover) going out on mass rallies and parties etc , knowing that their actions could harm the older generation.

Lot of hate in the world, seriously, I think the internet has a lot to answer for, its polarised rather than brought us together.