UKC

Pedantically accurate I guess, but it *was* big business, and it *did* kill a lot of Africans. 

Where is the sacking of Starkey on Coel's Wokeometer? Completely justified, or outrageous curtailing of free speech by "The Woke"?

Does something have to be entirely successful for it to be classed as genocide?

Genocide wouldn't make business sense though, would it?

Edit: so the intention of the slave trade was not to kill all Africans, but to steal them and sell them

Is Starkey a racist because he said ‘damn blacks’ or because of his argument about the non genocide? Or both?

Not an isolated incident, though. He has a record of making provocative/ intolerant/ racist statements

It sounds like he was getting tetchy with his interviewer to me, but that's because I'm a mid 50s white man, used to other grumpy old white men.

It might be that because DS is racist, he used the words "damn blacks". I doubt it works the other way around.

If Starkey is a woke alt-righter then this is just another example of the neo-marxist space lizards working on creating and bringing to life a hybrid clone of Hitler mixed with Stalin's genes in order to destroy our civilisation. The World has gone mad!!!

If Starkey is The Left, then it's ok for him to be sacked as he is a Fascist, and, well, The Left, innit?

Presumably the phrase has to be seen in  its  wider context to be racist.

If he'd denied genocide " because there are so many blacks around" that would be racist. 

Since "damn" hasn't really been considered profane since the days of Rhett and Scarlett  I can't see its use being especially problematic or adding much to the racist content of the sentence I quoted above.

Frankly, my dear.........

I realise that he has a history of being provocative which he might see as part of his job.

I just wasn’t sure whether people were offended by his use of the words ‘damn blacks’ or by his argument against slavery being genocide.

Personaly I think he was wrong to use the words that he did but I don’t find his opinions on slavery and genocide offensive.

What has he been sacked from? He hasn’t had a teaching role for a long time and I think TV and radio producers got tired of him a long time ago.

Anyone who gets defended by Toby Young deserves no mercy.

He held an honorary fellowship at Fitz, Cambridge.

Harper Collins 

David Starkey dropped by publisher and university positions after racist remarks

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/jul/03/david-starkey-dropped-publi...

The interviewer was a complete fan boy so seems unlikely.

I think what he said was pretty shocking and made me think he's probably actually racist.

I rather think it was his way of expressing himself that made people assume he is a bit of a racist.  

It sounded like he wasn't pleased that "so many damn blacks" survived.  

I reckon when even a Tory (Javid) says someone is racist then its probably true.  

To "assume" seems to be enough these days.

I think he is correct in that slavery was not genocide, but I found the phrase "damn blacks" shocking and, well, damning - I assumed it was the issue.

I'm not sure statements make one a racist, they just, in context, indicate one's opinions to others.

Jk

Well I suppose maybe he didn't mean to say "damn blacks"

No.  

Sounds racist to me.  

Agreed....

I could understand the genocide comment from a pedantry position but referring to 'damn blacks'.....!!!!!

Tip of the iceberg and he has sailed close to the wind many times before....

Of course it was not genocide, the black Africans had a value, like a crop to be harvested, in the USA they bred successfully so the US states were not that bothered about banning the slave trade, however in the West Indies slaves died faster than they could breed, so fresh stock was needed, so genocide would have made bad business sense.
The more I learn about the whole business the more repugnant it is, and from the sound bite I heard, Starkey is a git, but I will read more over the weekend, because with this weather I will not be climbing.

Aplologies Andy, had not read post 3.

This is a misunderstanding of what genocide is. The definition is contested of course, but extermination by mass killing is not the sole criteria for genocide. The intention to destroy a whole or part of a race/ ethnic group through systematic destruction of language, culture or way of life (including threat to life/ security of life) are also aspects that can meet the threshold for genocide in the international court. It is debatable that slavery was genocide but the fact that slaves were not exterminates does not preclude it being genocidal. 

That’s how I interpreted it as well.

One word making all the difference to what he said/meant.

I can think of no possible use of the phrase "damn blacks" that does not indicate that the speaker holds a view that certain people should be held in lower esteem, simply for the nature of their skin. 

If you can think of one, I'm sure we'd all love to hear it.

Edit: got distracted and hadn't seen your response above before posting, guess we are on the same page 🙂

I can’t which is why I asked the question.

However, all the reports that I’d read just stated what he’d said without any reference to which bit(s) were considered racist.

sorry, posted this before I saw your edited post.

Thanks, that is interesting, I should have known that.

Just to add - totally agree with this. The phrase ‘damn blacks’ was the most shocking and telling thing about Interview. It demonstrates the casual dehumanisation and demeaning language that is actually often associated with justifications for oppression and indeed genocide. 

Or elucidated it perfectly. At least he has the right of reply if he feels misunderstood or misrepresented. Not a privilege the thousands thrown to the sharks enjoyed.

Jk

I don’t think that he really cares what people think about him given his past responses to accusations of racism and his silence on the present issue.

He may be correct that it wasn't genocide (in fact I'm not even sure he's right on that) but the suggestion that it wasn't genocide simply because many survived is monumentally crass and stupid.

Also, what was the context? Was he responding to a question about slavery as genocide, or did he just pull the comparison out of his arse as though it somehow makes slavery alright?

Of course it adds to the statement. 

"otherwise there wouldn't be so many blacks" sounds iffy as is, add in the "damn" and it suggests that he's stating that there are too many.  

No, slavery wasn't genocide. I don't find that part of what he said offensive. Millions died but as is stated elsewhere that wasn't the intention, just a by-product of the inhumanity involved.

Being generous, he might have been employing the rhetorical style where one temporarily inhabits a persona based on a point of view being discussed, so as to make one's statements more dramatic. However, this would normally be clearly established or emphasised in context, which doesn't seem to be the case here, and, if one insisted on doing this when discussing such an inflammatory topic, it would at the very least be sensible to readily apologise and explain that it was not intended as a personal opinion

The UN definition of genocide is "any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group"

Given that current estimates are that around 12m Africans were transported, of which around 10% died en route alone, that slave children were forcibly removed from their parents to be sold around 50% of the time, and that slavery involved a deliberate attempt to destroy African culture and development, it seems to me a pretty clear attempt to destroy various african communities as cultural groups, as well as mass murder.

If you think "People" is about more than bodies on the ground, that it includes culture and heritage, then I'd say the slave trade was genocide.

Does this meet the strict definition of genocide? Does it matter?

On a broader note, what good does it do for black people in the UK to fixate on a slave trade that ended nearly 200 years ago?  I can't see either the relevance of it or the benefit of fixating on it.  I think there's a risk that if you're a young black person in the UK continually being told that you live in a racist country, that the odds are stacked against you, that your ancestors were enslaved etc, it will have an adverse impact on your life chances.  I really don't see what good it serves anybody.

I guess intent matters to the definition. In that case I would argue that slavery is worse than and different to genocide, since at some level those committing genocide view their victims as something more than a commodity to be bought, sold and discarded when dead.

On the other hand it could also be quite repressive not having the black history of Britain taught in any depth. Not exploring how slavery, empire and industry were so connected that the story of Africa, the system of slavery and growth of modern Britain are all intertwined, so that it is not a history of ‘us and them’ but a shared past, of good and ill. If we do not acknowledge and come to terms with the past then we are trapped by it for the future.

Of course it matters. The truth matters. If words are being misused that matters and should be called out, the truth should be discussed and you move on.

The issue should be whether "damn blacks" justifies sacking.

It's pretty obvious for Christ's sake.

Technically the slave trade wasn't genocidal, here's the definition from the ICC.

Genocide: The Rome Statute defines the crime of genocide as any of the following acts. committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or. religious group: • Killing members of the group.

It's a mixture of sackings and resignations according to wiki

"In July 2020, while being interviewed by Darren Grimes on a podcast, Starkey said "Slavery was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn't be so many damn blacks in Africa or in Britain would there?"[58][59] The comments were rebuffed by Former Chancellor Sajid Javid who called them "racist" and said that they serve as "a reminder of the appalling views that still exist". The Mary Rose Trust accepted his resignation from the board of trustees[60][61] and the Historical Association announced on Twitter that it would withdraw the Medlicott Medal it had awarded him 20 years previously.[62] Starkey's alma mater issued a statement distancing itself from his comments[63] and later accepted his resignation as an honorary fellow[3] whilst Canterbury Christ Church University, where Starkey had been a visiting professor, removed him from that role in response to his "completely unacceptable" remarks.[64] History Today also removed him from their editorial board.[65] Cambridge University and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, both accepted his resignation on 3 July 2020. Lancaster University has confirmed that it has launched a formal review of Starkey's honorary graduate status.[66] HarperCollins announced it would terminate an ongoing book deal with Starkey; it is understood that they will no longer publish the two remaining books, including the second part to Starkey's autobiography. His previous publisher Hodder & Stoughton has also said that they "will not be publishing any further books by him".

Of course it does. Clearly a prejudicial remark.

I agree it's not always helpful to portray people as victims, but equally we should learn from history and to do that we need to know the truth.  

There’s no need to blaspheme!

I asked a question to get the opinions of UKC.

Like one might reasonably do on an Internet forum.

If Starkey thinks that slavery wasn’t genocide he might be wrong but does that make him a racist?

Is this even a question?! 

Its more the other part of what he said.

It's the comment about how many "damn blacks" survived that makes him particularly racist in my opinion.  

Of course you could try a little thought experiment here regarding the genocide bit.  

If someone said in an interview that the Holocaust wasn't genocide because so many of the damn Jews survived would that be acceptable?  I don't think so. Quite rightly people would expect him sacked.  

You can argue all you like about different definitions of genocide, it doesn't make any difference to me. Starkey is a racist and deserves sacking. 

If you're going to talk about misuse you should probably respond to the post not the last line. "Genocide" has a definition, but it's fuzzy in terms of what exactly it means. It certainly doesn't need to be successful, for example, yet we rarely refer to things as "attempted genocide" even if that's the more correct term. This is especially problematic in the context of the slave trade; as they were fundamentally limited by their capacity back then. Had it been feasible for the slavers to enslave the entire nation, I suspect they would have tried.

More pertinently to this; your definition of genocide will also depend on the extent to which you think 'cultural genocide' is a thing. That is, where you're not just targetting the people, but their history, their beliefs etc. Think of what the Conquistadors did in Latin America, for example.

Getting hung up about categories and definitions and thinking that 'Truth' lies in labels and not in an understanding of events is kinda disingenuous.

Focussing on the definition is missing the crux of his argument. He's saying that the issue has been settled; that slavery is irrelevant to today's Britain. He goes on to say "we settled this issue nearly 200 years ago" his proof of this is that there are "so many damn blacks" in Britain.

... Yeah, that's a racist comment. His fellowship positions are partially about the publicly representing those institutions. He made his own positions untenable. He wasn't actually sacked though.

UN definition of genocide. Other definitions are available. Bold bits mine.

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

Killing members of the group;

Whole or part - yes

Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

All of those transported - yes, also broken families left behind

Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

Broke up families when sold to different owners - yes

  I agree that the "damned blacks" is a plainly  unacceptable phrase to use. To have a debate about the relevance of slavery in the modern context shouldn't be regarded as a problem.

African isn’t really a group, and definitely wasn’t at the time.  Slavery was not an attempt to destroy African culture, it was part of African culture, done by Africans.

Slaves aren’t a group either, in that sense.

I think the bit which could be challenged is the group and intent part. The western slave traders in most cases brought the slaves from African rulers. I doubt the western traders knew, or cared, what specific tribe a slave was from and so wouldnt have been intended to destroy that specific tribe.

It is possible that some of the rulers were deliberately wiping out opponent tribes by killing many and selling the rest into slavery.

So by your definition the Rwandan genocide wasn’t a genocide because it didn’t try to destroy the whole of Africa and it was perpetrated by other Africans? I’m trying to follow your logic.

Africa had a history and identity before Europeans came along. The fact that local and regional African rulers participated in the slave trade is true of course, but the scale and enduring nature of the slave trade was not indigenous to Africa. The overwhelming driving force was the economy of providing slaves for voracious appetites of the european powers - trying to avoid this fact is historically incorrect and morally dubious. As for slavery not trying to destroy the culture, language, control of bodies etc. of those who were enslaved - I can only suggest you do some research. 

starkey is a filthy racist. end of

Definite intent to finance and reward genocide below. 

That bit of slavery sounds very definitely like genocide.

The question is whether it is accurate or not. Whether the west atlantic slave trade counted as genocide or not is something that several history/legal phd thesis could probably be written about. I certainly dont know the answer.

Which getting back to Starkey is the problem. He didnt try to address it at all and just dismissed it on the grounds there are so "damn many" alive now.

Participated is not a realistic way of putting it.  Slavery wasn’t something Europeans did to Africans, we bought slaves they were selling.  It was already part of the culture(s) of those we bought slaves from.

African tribes certainly have committed genocide against each other, but that wasn’t against “Africans”, in Rwanda it was against tutsis.

Missed your last bit - I said slaves aren’t a group, not that the things you’re talking about weren’t done.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that slavery was the main cause of a number of genocides.  

Will the Sir be having cod or haddock?

I’d agree with that, that was always part of slavery as practised everywhere.

Yeh yeh - the Africans were selling off millions of their people before us innocent Europeans even arrived. If anything they should be thankful that we were such great consumers who in no way generated any pressure, excess demand or indeed shaped the very fundamental nature of the transatlantic system. How stupid of me. So you’re saying slavery wasn’t anything to do with Britain, really, and we should be jolly proud of having ended such a dreadful African custom. I’ve been enlightened. Thanks...

I find the sematics of this very interesting.

I think it's the sentiment that makes it slightly racist, not the addition of an adjective .

Been told upthread that this is obviously wrong but anyone who starts his  post with "of course"  gets the same notice taken from me as the knobs who finish up with "end of".

What if the phrase had been " damned black people"?  I get the feeling that referring to black people simply as "blacks" already gets some people's backs up so maybe if it had been modified to  "damned black people" it wouldn't have caught as much flak.

Doesn’t sound like it!

It was part of British culture too in 1700, and Ottoman and Ethiopian and Spanish etc etc.

I don’t have a problem with someone voicing an opinion on any holocaust.

Free speech and all that.

Damn blacks would take some explaining.

Which he wasn't sacked from.. he resigned (before they got there first). Canterbury Christ College Sacked him from what ever honorary position he held.

Given the man has a record of misogyny and racism it makes you wonder what was so honorary about him in the first place

If my dad had been expressing those thoughts  ( though he wouldn't) he would have said "blinking blacks", How does that fit in on the scale of racist offence.?

Yes, there was demand for slaves from other powers - you missed Portugal, arguably the most important precursor to british involvement. There were also countries participating in what I would consider genocide after the british ended their formal involvement with the slave trade (e.g. Belgium in the Congo) - however you seem to be trying to argue that British involvement in the slave trade was minimal, whereas I would argue that in the rapid explosion in numbers, scale, consistency, duration and legacy of the slave trade was during the 1700s Britain was exceptionally culpable. Equally, this is an important part of british history and not one that should be glossed over by saying it was ‘Africans doing it to Africans’ as you stated above. That is so simplistic that I have to assume you are being disingenuous in order to hide your real message?

I don’t think that it really matters whether he said blinking, damn or f*cking blacks.

It just seems odd not to say blacks and leave it at that.

Maybe I’m reading too much in to what Starkey meant, maybe he was being his normal provocative self or maybe he meant it in a derogatory way. I obviously don’t know and his silence on the matter doesn’t help me to reach a definite decision.
My dad wouldn’t have called them blacks at all, he had a whole other range of words.

Bold bits mine

In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

I don't think white slave traders viewed their cargo as being human. Their motivation was not the destruction of a nation or religion or ethnic group, it was simply greed

You’re imagining what I’m saying instead of reading it.

I read your words e.g.

Quote “Slavery was not an attempt to destroy African culture, it was part of African culture, done by Africans.”

Does this not imply the british were neutral participants in a ‘foreign’ cultural practice? Or am I misunderstanding the meaning of your words? Does this not imply that you believe ‘Africa’ is an homogenous cultural entity. Again, claiming I have not read your words appears disingenuous and I can only assume this is a deflection from your true message?

I’m 49 and read about slavery as a child and it was covered at school. I understood it to be abhorrent. My daughter is 18 and she learnt about it at school and understands it to be abhorrent.  

That’s good and encouraging. Thing is, slavery is part of british history along with empire and migration. Abhorrence is fine but learning how it has shaped identity and british culture, as well as the experience of migrants through the centuries is a different thing. Out of most students key stage 3 curricula I wonder how much integrated historical perspectives there are. The reformed gcse has a really good module on migration and empire and only 8% of centres do it. 

My dad would have called them coloureds  and been regarded as being politically correct in his day ( in the positive sense)

And yet they were human. Denying them their status as humans is surely part of destroying their identity. I doubt the nazis saw the Jews as human either, they saw them as cattle to be transported, labour to be worked for the reich, vermin to be exterminated etc. 

No, see post at 18:28.

No, see post at 18:48

I’ve no idea what you think my true message might be, as far as I can see you’re just an argumentative sod.

Coloured - a term my mother still uses today.

“as far as I can see you’re just an argumentative sod.”

I will agree with this - I like to argue and challenge perspectives I am perplexed by or disagree with.
 

So what is your point then? You seem to have started by suggesting that slavery could not be viewed as genocidal as it was part of a continuum with earlier forms of slavery. You go on to argue it did not constitute a de facto systematic policy of destroying groups of people because no such groups existed, and it was practiced by peers rather than outside forces. When I pointed out the impact and culpability the British hold and that this was a radical step change in slavery you have somehow changed this around to say that you never said those things and I’m argumentative. I think I’m just confused as to what you’re actually trying to say?

I'm not disagreeing with you, however the primary motive of the slave trade was profit, the destruction of the enslaved people's society or religion or nationhood was a by-product NOT the intent. 

No, I didn’t.  I said slaves aren’t a group, is that what you mean?  They’re a mix of people from lots of groups, not a group.

Nope, I didn’t.  There is no “African” group, there are many.  Genocide against Africans doesn’t make sense, genocide against Tutsis does, cause they’re a group.  I’ve already corrected you on this, that’s why I’m calling you argumentative.

This was about the definition of genocide, not British culpability for slavery.

As Proudhon put it: "If I were asked to answer the following question: What is slavery? and I should answer in one word, It is murder!, my meaning would be understood at once. No extended argument would be required to show that the power to remove a man's mind, will, and personality, is the power of life and death, and that it makes a man a slave. It is murder."

I didnt learn about it at school at all.  Mid 40s.  

Well slaves are a group - you seem to be suggesting that once they are enslaved their previous identity is null and void. They were from tribal groups who were enslaved. As you have pointed out these subjugated groups were probably identified by other African groups - whether the British knew or cared is beside the point, the British were the consumers driving forward the demand, the companies were the venture capitalists maximising the profit from the process and this led to systemic slavery and destruction through work. I’m not sure if I have anything more to add.

The way I look at things like this is an either/or.  Either he’s publicly racist or he’s too bloody stupid for any sort of public role.  He’s damned either way.  So if doesn’t really matter if he’s racist or not.

That's fair enough - it's as good a topic as any to study in depth.  I would reject the need for it be taught if the argument is that it's a shameful part of our history that isn't well known.  My original question still remains unanswered though - who benefits from the current fixation on slavery?

I think he's probably just got fed up with becoming more and more sidelined as the world moves on and his reactionary take on things makes him look less and less like a historian and more and more like history himself. So he thought he'd try one last throw of the dice and see which way the wind blew. Presumably he would have at least known it would get a reaction one way or another!

Quite misjudged though really, given the exact formulation of his words - I'm not sure even Tommy Yaxley would try and defend that specific sentence in public, and therein lies David's error. To succeed in such circles these days your words have to be just weasly enough that you can claim some kind of innocence of intent (happens on UKC all the time!).

I think people benefit from knowing how easy it was to treat people badly by othering them.  

Terry Pratchett

I think we’re in accord that fixating in anything in isolation is probably not beneficial. I feel that acknowledging the importance of slavery/ empire in our history, the connections with british state power/ culture/ identity and the long term legacies are different from being fixated in the historical event in isolation. Any content in a school history syllabus should/ will be framed around enquiry questions that actively promote conceptual awareness and critical thinking rather than dealing with the content for its own sake. 

Yes, nobody is going to claim this one was part of a a serious and measured discussion...

ironically you spelled semantics incorrectly..end of

I agree with that. Slavery is one of a number of topics that can be studied to cover this. 

Learn about slavery, the slave triangle, the density of packing the ''cargo" onto slave ships, abuse of slaves on plantations. Mid 50s.

Slavery wasn't practiced everywhere. British slave traders also went into Africa and kidnapped Africans to use as animals as well as ensuring the African tribes that did sell slaves were stocked up on guns to kill the many tribes that were opposed to slavery. 

British slave traders did NOT go into Africa and kidnap Africans. Europeans generally couldn't survive in Africa because of the insect life amongst other things, and consequently stayed at the coast.

What they did was go to the ports (such as Lagos in Nigeria) and buy slaves already prepared by AFRICANS, for which they traded guns (amongst other things).

These guns the local AFRICANS were specifically wanting were then used to enable these AFRICANS to fight other tribes - for whom they had no qualms regarding what happened to them. Those they didn't kill were then enslaved, taken to the jails at the port, and sold for yet more guns (and other things). This was quite a profitable business for some AFRICANS, but misery for those (mainly inland) who didn't have access to the arms dealers.

As for "many tribes that were opposed to slavery" - I doubt it. Slavery in one form or another had been going on for centuries before Western Europeans started buying them, and any tribe that had military superiority over a neighbour had practised it in some manner from time immemorial. Indeed, a couple of centuries before NORTH AFRICANS had been raiding England (and Wales, Ireland, and the Atlantic coast of Europe) to capture slaves to take back to Africa.

Maybe anyone from such as Lagos in Nigeria should face even more questions regarding their history than those from Bristol. After all, Bristolians didn't actually enslave anyone, whereas the inhabitants of Lagos and the surrounding area most certainly did.

Slavers from European countries kidnapped Africans all along the coast to be slaves but the trans Atlantic slave trade was built on deals and pressure on some tribes to start wars and raids to kidnap Africans from other tribes to be used as animals using guns supplied by us. You suspiciously try to make out as if everyone did slavery so no one is to blame when this is obviously untrue. 

dealshttp://abolition.nypl.org/print/african_resistance/

People and organisations are increasingly unwilling to be associated with anyone who espouses such ideas, and I think this vile man has got nothing less than he deserves. I hope I shall never come across him again on TV, radio or in print. Good riddance to Kendal's shame.

To not know your past can have a profound effect on your future. A much older but very good friend of mine (who is black)  once said many years ago, "sometimes I wonder where I am from and what my name is". I must have looked confused, he explained with, "my surname is the surname of the plantation owner in Jamaica who bought my ancestors". I understood at that point that it wasn't a case of being "fixated" with slavery, but that he felt a whole slice of his life was missing. As we get older a sense of where you've come from can be very important.

Slavery was not genocide like the holocaust wasn't genocide. 

To be clear it was. 

however in the West Indies enslaved people were worked to death faster than they could breed

Are you suggesting that Javid cannot define racism because he is a Tory? Not a very clever arguement as it displays that you yourself are predjudiced and believe that PoC should only every vote the way you expect them to. The race traitor argument itself is racist. Neither is it correct because people of ethnicity are able to define what constitutes racism for themselves. 

Believe it or not (if you let your predjudice blind you) are many Tories, young and old who actually care about the fight against racism and work hard to promote the cause. 

Why have you repeated what I said?

Javid happened to be the Tory that said something.  

My comment was about Tory politicians, nothing to do with  his ethnicity.  

You are the one that made it about him being a "person of color" a dreadful American phrase.  You are the one bringing prejudice into this and playing the race card. 

As for anti racist Tories, that's nice to hear, but I have to say it surprised me that anyone with such principles would support your idiot in charge.  Picaninie smiles ffs.  

Its Tories I'm prejudiced against.  I don't care what ethnic background.  

They need to raise their game then, because after Windrush and Grenfell their glorious leader is Boris "Dog-whistle Piccaninny Watermelon Smile Letterbox" Johnson.

He who said when asked that he would not "take a knee" because he is a man of substance who does not believe in mere gesture politics*, a week after he performed press-ups (well, perhaps just the one) for the Mail on Sunday to prove he is "as fit as a butcher's dog", and a day or two before he stood outside No. 10 once again applauding the NHS that he has so egregiously betrayed.

Like Trump he may or may not actually be a racist, but my god he is willing to wink at the racists now and then to retain their support at the ballot box.

* - Credit where credit is due though, it is at least a better answer than Dominic Raab's assertion that that's just a thing from 'Game of Thrones' or somefink innit.

You're right; and my use of the word 'Africans' is essentially lazy shorthand, because this is a forum, not an academic treatise.

However, Given that there were multiple groups; I'd argue that increases the strength of the genocide claim; we have no idea what cultures were wiped out - or put on an inevitable path to destruction - by the actions of Europeans.

And as much as slavery was part of African culture, as well as a host of others throughout history, this does not dilute the responsibility of European (primarily British and Portuguese) slavers. Both in practical terms (there would not have been millions killed and put into slavery without the Western market) and in ideological terms: the - arguably - bigger crime of marrying slavery with (pseudo-)scientific racism; of founding a new world order on the belief that certain people were categorically, fundamentally and unchangably subhuman. That bullshit echoes down the centuries.

I didn't 

No he probably meant "f*cking", but that might have made things a little too clear for you.

You don't think Africans are just a bigger group, than Tutsis?

What's your cut-off point for numbers of people not being a group, are Poles not a group of people in Europe?

If they die that's ok.  If that's not genocide,( and I grant  it doesn't fit all definitions of genocide although it does some), what would you call it?

An equivalent example would be Nazi Germanys treatment of much of the population of Eastern Europe,, as ubermensch it was perfectly acceptable to work them to death on mass, and generally treat them with utter disregard for any norms ... how do you define that?

Well it looks very similar to what I said at 15.29 on Friday.

Of course slavery isn’t genocide. This insistence the left has on redefining words to try and compel agreement is tiresome and counterproductive.

Doesn’t alter the fact Starkie is a tw*t and removing him long overdue, nor that slavery was a Bad Thing, obviously.

jcm

Nobody with two brain cells to rub together is arguing that slavery = genocide, in some Newspeak-esque act of word redefinition, stop inventing strawmans so you can conjure up a left wing bogeyman.

If you'd actually put some effort into reading various posts in the thread, lots of people are looking at the details of the Atlantic Slave Trade and arguing that they meet the criteria of genocide. That's called critical engagement with the material.

You're entirely welcome to engage and dispute with the arguments being proposed, but to dismiss them out of hand as a linguistic slip is deeply shallow on your part and adds nothing to the conversation.

Interesting isn't it.....what people are taught. I'm mid 50's and did lots of stuff at school to do with slavery in both primary and secondary. Maybe a regional thing....I went to school in liverpool...

I wento to school near-ish Bristol and geography covered Bristol's role as a port in various industries. The human geography aspect explicitly covered Bristol's role & wealth as a slave port.

We still have an area of the city known as Blackboy Hill so it's kinda hard to miss tbh.

There is quite a lot of history so it's unsurprising if most schools don't teach most of it.To GCSE, we did Kings and Queens, Railways, WW1, race relations in SA and USA. Quite a good spread I'd say.

No but the triangular slave trade's insatiable demand for slaves drove the enslavement of Africans to a rate never seen before or since. It's not like these enslaved people were just knocking around; they were enslaved *for* the Atlantic slave trade. The fact it was Africans initially capturing the poor bastards does nothing to absolve the white slavers.

I think the fairly straightforward way to answer this (though it's also extremely difficult) would be to say "do significant numbers of the people you're talking about self-identify as belonging to group X?" with all the History, Culture and Tradition that implies.

Nationhood was a pretty loose concept until the 1800s; in Britain, there's strong evidence that most English people would more readily identify as, say, Bristolian, or Lancastrian, rather than British, prior to the Napoleonic wars.

If you accept my first premise (group requires self identifying) then given that Africa is a continent, not a country, I'd be very surprised if any significant number of Africans self identified as "African". Given the above, I don't think they would even identify themselves with reference to a nation state.

However, this is beyond my area of expertise so happy to be corrected.

I don’t think that’s true.  Historically you could be enslaved as a debtor, or for committing crime.  The Africans who took their neighbours as slaves looked like them.  They were inferior because they were weak, not because of intrinsic qualities.  Slavery was not based on race, except that sub Saharan Africans died less and so were more useful in the plantations.  They sold sub Saharan African slaves eastwards for the same reason.

Slavery.  The buying and selling of humans.  That’s bad enough isn’t it?

Ethnic cleansing.

Africa is a vast land mass with lots of peoples, and of course far more disconnected then than now.  China’s a group, size isn’t the issue.  

As I understand it African tribes and kingdoms attacked weaker neighbours and took slaves from them.  If they took a whole group I’d call that genocide (I imagine that happened, good way to get rid of a whole enemy tribe), but if they raided, like the Barbary pirates or Irish, etc then it wasn’t.

Some Europeans and some Africans, working together created and ran the transatlantic slave trade. Europeans aren’t a group either really and they destroyed their neighbours’ cultures, others destroyed theirs, including Africans.  That was life for millennia.

What do you mean by increases the strength of the genocide claim?  Why is genocide worse than slavery?

I’d think that’s a good way of doing it, allows for smaller and larger groupings (clans/tribes within groups) too.

Of course it increased demand.  Why are the buyers of slaves more blameworthy than those who took them from their homes in the first place?

Or since is a silly thing to say, it’s been suppressed, and given that the worlds population has massively grown over time you’d expect the last things to be the biggest.

Thanks for your reasoned contribution.

It does. Though there is a limitation; it implies you can't be wrong about which groups you belong to. If you remember the Rachel Dolezal case that's... controversial, though irrelevant right now.

What I meant when I said 'strengthened the genocide claim' was roughly: If "genocide" is about wiping out groups, and there were multiple small groups, and it doesn't make much sense to claim that there was a genocide perpetrated against 'Africa', in much the same way that it wouldn't make much sense to call the Holocaust a genocide perpetrated against Europeans. However, once you shift your focus to a more granular level, calling 'slavery' genocide becomes a more grounded argument, because the damage done to smaller scale communities was much larger. When you're talking about the trafficking of tens of millions, if that's focussed on a smaller area, you're potentially wiping out tribes/groups/small countries back then (slavery uprooted roughly twice the current population of Scotland, close to 10 times the population of Scotland in 1800), and thus calling it genocide becomes more credible.

To be clear, I don't know if the Transatlantic Slave Trade was a form of genocide. Because it's really complicated, the Slave Trade was nuanced and the meaning of the word 'genocide' isn't that clear. My point was twofold. First, that you can't dismiss the claim out of hand; calling the transatlantic slave trade genocide isn't insane, or beyond the reasonable use of English. Secondly, to argue that the reason the Transatlantic Slave Trade wasn't genocide because there are 'so many damn blacks still around' is just bullshit (I can't be arsed to dignify that statement with a more polite term), and fundamentally indefensible.

To give that argument more credence than it possibly deserves (and to again highlight that point about nuance and groups) it's equivalent would be, in an imaginary world where the French wiped out the English tomorrow, arguing that it clearly wasn't a genocide cause there's so many 'Damn whites' still around. Or even 'damn Europeans'. It's starts from a position of ignorance and logical fallacy, and it can't get any further than the crap it's founded upon.

Two points.

When you bring up the role of Africans in the Slave Trade. It's easy to read that as whataboutism. That you're trying to lessen the role played by the British and Portuguese. I don't think you are trying to do that, just point out that it's not as simple as black and white (poor pun, sorry).

Fundamentally though, I agree with those say that the British bear a far greater portion of the blame. First, because  without the the demand (and the weapons), then there wouldn't have been the supply. Second, because the claim that slavery was the natural position of the Black on the basis of Scientific Racism was essentially an invention of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

People are right to point out that slavery of various kinds goes back basically as far as we have written records. What was unique about the Transatlantic Slave Trade was the quantity of people moved, and construction of arguments grounded in "fact" that Africans were fundamentally sub human and therefore it was correct to keep them as slaves.

Because if no one is there to buy them, why would you bother taking them from their home in the first place?

If there's no market for rice, farmers wouldn't plant it, would they?

Equally, if there were no farmers willing to grow rice, there wouldn't be any market for it. I don't see much purpose in arguing about whether the African enslavers or the white purchasers were more deplorable.

jcm

I'm struggling to remember where I wrote that that was the case. European slavers were as culpable for slaves being taken as the Africans who took them. Just how as a meat eater I'm as responsible for animals dying as the guy on the killing floor.

Seriously that's your argument? There was barely any population in the Caribbean and American fields where the plantations were (although Europeans did "clear" a few irritating natives off to claim them though), so blaming the increase in trade on natural population growth is literally incredible. How have you ended up deciding to die on Minimising The Slave Trade Hill?

But you only need one, farmer to supply a market, if there is no market then why bother?

I wasn't arguing either is more deplorable, simply that production is a consequence of demand. Without demand very few people carry on producing anything.