No you are making the distinction between the US that OWNS its slavery past and the rest of the countries. As if a talkshow counts as Ownership. Fuck that shit.
You have no idea what the discussion is in France or whatever as well.
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It also doesn’t hurt that the UK shit more overseas than within its own borders.
For better or worse, the US faces a more complicated situation than most countries because it has so many citizens who are descendants of slaves. If these people were somewhere else, Americans wouldn’t have to grapple nearly as much with the tragic legacy of slavery in America.
This doesn’t mean the US has “owned” anything. Clearly, many issues persist and they’re talked about all the time.
I think it’s regrettable that in Europe, there are so many people who are woefully ignorant of their countries’ histories because the legacy of their countries’ actions aren’t visible on a day-to-day basis. But travel to their former colonies, places where they traded slaves, etc. and you can still see the effects of their actions today.
Thats why I asked what actions were taken by these countries as far as reparation payments so the US could learn or possibly model from it. I didn’t mean to leave France off the list of UK, Belgium and Spain… so + France.
What were the payments for reparations in France to the former Slaves and how was it counted/handed out? How was the whole situation of reparations handled there ?
Agree. I cant speak for other countries, but in the UK there are discussions about this and reparations to Caribbeans nations. That doesnt make it ok.
But yeah, the US is in a different situation because thats where slaves ended up and has a more complicated relationship with race relations through Jim Crow laws and whatever.
European civilization in general should come to terms with the legacy of stealing people.
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Getting back to the issue raised by the OP, I think Western civilisation is doing fine. It’s the longest-living, healthiest, richest generation ever. It’s also the most peaceful, though that can change rapidly- but it always could.
After the Great Divergence of the last 200-300 years, we are seeing a Great Convergence, where the Rest is catching up to the West, but aside from selected areas (Japan, Singapore) still has a long way to go.
Global Warming/Environmental Destruction is the kicker, but I’m mildly optimistic about that.
Still, a world where obesity is a bigger health threat than famine is better. (Yes, I’m aware of people starving in Yemen and northern Ethiopia, but those are more man-made problems.)
I have a good friend who is French-Senegalese. His Senegalese father went to France to study and my friend told me some interesting, sad and funny stories about how his father’s French classmates were surprised to learn a) how little they knew about their countries’ activities in Africa and b) how much of what they had been taught was not accurate/true.
Out of sight, out of mind and see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil are human nature.
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Fifty years of Affirmative Action and a two-term African-American president don’t count?
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Nope
France has never left West Africa
You’ll make a good commissar.
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Ofcourse not.
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Suggest Deontay Wilder
Which, based on my friend’s first-hand experience, would probably come as a surprise to a surprising number of French people.
But, again, the bigger point is that France has the luxury of not dealing daily with its legacy of slavery because it primarily brought slaves from Africa to the Caribbean. If large numbers of the descendants of those slaves were living in France today, the French people’s relationship with the history of their country would be very different. It would be a lot harder to remain ignorant of what their forefathers were involved in.
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I wouldn’t say they don’t “count” but it’s not clear that the policies have had much of an effect. As I see it, in the two party system in the US, one party has been dismissive of the real challenges faced by African-Americans while the other has sought to turn them into a lock-in voting bloc by convincing them that they will always be victims of America’s tragic past.
I don’t know. It’s a very complicated situation and a humble reminder to all living human beings that our actions today have the potential to have effects on our descendants long into the future, well after we have passed on.
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Meanwhile in France theres no hope of a black President and the treatment of the Chinese French community reminds me of the US back in the 1980s…France has a long way to go also. France should fix France before worrying about US racism…unless they’ve somehow made reparations then I’ll put them well ahead of the US in that matter.
Don’t put words in my mouth.
Any discounts for white people who can document ancestors who died fighting for the North to end slavery?
I’m sure that 2020 will be considered the turning point for the whole world - not just the west. The system of exploiting our nature at some point has to crash. I’m sure we will still increase production for a couple of years - but by capita the game is over.
We need to decrease population back to 1-2 Billion if we want to have a life like we had in the west for everyone in the future. Not possible with limited resources to go on as we do.
It’s crazy how exact the Club of Rome predicted the development in 1972 - pinpointing 2020 as the year evolution will start to go back.
Now the west hasn’t understood that in a world with limited resoucres, growth is finite. You can’ have as many children as you like, that’s a human right and so on. So if we don’t want the bubble to implode like crazy - we can only hope on China taking over Africa and the Middle East / India and introduce a 1 child policy. The believe in the human right of unlimited reproduction - fostered by religion in order to increase the combat force against other countries has to be over.
That’s one point. The second point is that the distribution of wealth in the West now with Covid-19 visibly for everyone has shifted way too much. This destructs the morale because why should you work if your chances of having a decent life get lower and lower? In China on the other hand - morale is high, students buckle like crazy and that’s how they will surpass us. While in the west - the wealthy have taken over more and more - they simply forgot that in order to succeed you need to give at least a kinda fair share to the working class.
While in the west everyone kinda studies what he wants - China will much more focus the studies on demand to improve. Take Germany - infrastructure keeps on eroding. The average time you need on the fastest train between big cities in Germany is only marginally faster than in 1936 (Berlin - Munich - it took over 70 years after WW2 to finally undercut the times of 1936). Unlimited internet via mobile phone without cap is unheard of in Germany.
Cut back of staff in healthcare while exploding the staff number working in various administrative functions (state and private) or finance (finance does not produce any wealth - it just distributes it - right now from those who work to those who already own a lot).
Covid19 has just shown - how western politics hasn’t done anything but following panic. It’s the same with change to renewable energy. The west simply doesn’t manage to build infrastructure anymore. Yes we build pipelines for gas or oil - a technology that is from 20th Century. Yet we cannot manage to build a proper electricity grid ready for the 21th Century - which would mean invest into huge solar power plants in the African Sahara - and get the electricity into Europe… We will just watch as China will do just that. China has a strategy and works for it - the west has no more strategy at all - just individual companies trying to gain monopoly.
For the next 10-15 years maybe living standards in the west are still better than in China - but it’s reversing soon because we don’t invest anymore into infrastructure. By the time we decide to build something - it’s already operating in China. While in the west they will now start the legal process before building begins…
And then we focus on fake inflation - cause we managed to get rid of housing costs in the Consumer Price index to fool the working class while getting cheaper and cheaper products from Asia. The middle class is destructed while in China the middle class thrives.
Soon the median (not mean) wealth of Chinese will surpass Germans! USA is a long way to go - but then I personally feel quality of life is higher in Europe than in the US…
Very likely - China median wealth per adult has already surpassed European median wealth (in 2019 it was 21.000 vs 24.700 and we all know how values in China exploded vs Europe - especially with Chinese median people owning stocks while European median inhabitant puts the money on the bank account…).
The west will fail to react to climate change and can only hope China saves the world before it’s all over (I believe anyhow that we will need to resort to climate engineering pumping up dust into the atmosphere). But resources in kinda anything just are depleted more and more.
The industrial revolution and the aftermaths are coming to an end. Every civilization has had huge setbacks over time. 2020 is the beginning of the setback for the whole world. Just China will increase it’s share and still keep on growing…
And it’ not that we are not working hard. We are working harder than anytime before. Just we do more and more bullshit jobs. (read David Graeber Bullshit Jobs to understand it). Let’s see if China can avoid the bullshit jobs trap (Communism in general was even way worse in inventing bullshit jobs)
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Or Chinese who worked on the Railroad? Or do all races including new immigrants Hispanic, new black africans, Chinese, Vietnamnese, Irish pay reparations? Or only Irish cause theyre white? What if theyre black Irish immigrants to US?
What about an interracial person who is a descendant of slaves and slave owners? Do they have to pay themselves?