White child tortured by jeering Chinese crowd

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Britain invented the Triangular Trade. Credit for outlawing it before the US, but they were no angels.

[Svartalf]

I'd love to be from a country with a strong racist past so I can share in the white shame.

Who was it who said shortly after the penal laws were passed that to be Irish and Catholic was the wort possible crime in the eyes of the law?

[Svartalf]

Britain invented the Triangular Trade. Credit for outlawing it before the US, but they were no angels.

You sure they invented it? For all I know, we might have, or the Spanish since it was they who first had the idea of importing blacks, and they had the America to Europe leg of it down pat even before that.

[Animavore]

Cromwell?
Sounds like something that prick would say.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Britain invented the Triangular Trade. Credit for outlawing it before the US, but they were no angels.

You sure they invented it? For all I know, we might have, or the Spanish since it was they who first had the idea of importing blacks, and they had the America to Europe leg of it down pat even before that.

Yep, they invented it.

[hadespussercats]

How long ago were you in Ireland? It was like that when I was a child growing up. Not any more.
Anyway I never said we weren't racist. I said we don't have a history of it. We weren't running around enslaving people, stealing their land, raping, pillaging etc... like the rest of Europe. We were practically slaves ourselves.

2004. So, a while ago-- but not that long. We traveled all over, but stayed with family in a tiny town near Galway. I just remember feeling so sorry for this one man, walking up the main drag in Galway City-- thinking he must be feeling the way I did the first time I walked around Harlem. Except in Harlem, I was the only one noticing me-- this guy had people literally craning their necks, slowing down cars, to watch him just going about his business.

And your clarification makes sense. I've heard the "blacks of Europe" designation before. The Irish were too busy being victimized to build up much of a history of victimizing other people.

But I was just remembering my brother-in-law's uncle Joe-- a dairy farmer. He had three border collies that were black and white, and he named them Sootie, Jacko (like Michael Jackson), and Tiger Woods. He remarked at one point that in the summer he got "as black as a nigger."

Funny. But... pretty racist.

(Yeah, I know-- just one guy...)

[hadespussercats]

I'd love to be from a country with a strong racist past so I can share in the white shame.

A little off topic, but how do you guys in the U.K. overcome slavery? How did blacks get to be considered equals in your culture? We learn a lot about our own kicking-and-screaming struggle into equality here, but nothing of European history regarding similar matters. Or at least I didn't. Or if we did, I wasn't paying attention that day in school.

I can't remember for certain, wiki would know, but I believe that real slavery never was legal in the UK. Although I think there were things that came very close to it, like bonded labour or something. But those things just got outlawed in parliament one by one, many years before US slavery.
But when did blacks get to be considered equal? Well, we are still waiting for that generally, although they are MORE than equal in the BBC.

Of course Britain had slavery. Where do you think the British colonists in North America got it from?

Aren't you British? How is it even possible that a British person "can't remember for certain" whether or not Britain had slavery?

And England was pretty interested in helping the American South during our civil war-- until the North made the abolition of slavery enough of a central issue the British had to confront what they'd be supporting...

[Svartalf]

Well, to be honest, the british were interested in the cotton, sugar/rum and tobacco coming from the South, not by what the North had to offer... and they did not confront what they'd be supporting, they just didn't feel like going to war to break the northern blockade.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well, to be honest, the british were interested in the cotton, sugar/rum and tobacco coming from the South, not by what the North had to offer... and they did not confront what they'd be supporting, they just didn't feel like going to war to break the northern blockade.

Then somebody had the bright idea of growing cotton in Egypt. The sugar and rum were already coming from Caribbean so they just needed to get tobacco going. The Spanish were happy to oblige.

[mistermack]

Of course Britain had slavery. Where do you think the British colonists in North America got it from?

Aren't you British? How is it even possible that a British person "can't remember for certain" whether or not Britain had slavery?

The question was about Britain. Not the colonies. Slavery was legal in the colonies, but not in Britain.
Slavery virtually disappeared in Britain after the Normans took over. That is true slavery, where you could buy and sell a slave.
But like I said, there were various forms of bonded labour that persisted.
Slavery was abolished throughout the empire in 1833, with a few exceptions.

I can't remember because the Norman Conquest was a long time ago, and 1833 was quite a long time ago as well.
Britain took part in the slave trade via the colonies. The colonies didn't get the practice from Britain. But British traders traded slaves from Africa to the colonies. That's common knowledge. I was talking about slavery IN Britain. Because that was the question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_britain

[Animavore]

How long ago were you in Ireland? It was like that when I was a child growing up. Not any more.
Anyway I never said we weren't racist. I said we don't have a history of it. We weren't running around enslaving people, stealing their land, raping, pillaging etc... like the rest of Europe. We were practically slaves ourselves.

2004. So, a while ago-- but not that long. We traveled all over, but stayed with family in a tiny town near Galway. I just remember feeling so sorry for this one man, walking up the main drag in Galway City-- thinking he must be feeling the way I did the first time I walked around Harlem. Except in Harlem, I was the only one noticing me-- this guy had people literally craning their necks, slowing down cars, to watch him just going about his business.

And your clarification makes sense. I've heard the "blacks of Europe" designation before. The Irish were too busy being victimized to build up much of a history of victimizing other people.

But I was just remembering my brother-in-law's uncle Joe-- a dairy farmer. He had three border collies that were black and white, and he named them Sootie, Jacko (like Michael Jackson), and Tiger Woods. He remarked at one point that in the summer he got "as black as a nigger."

Funny. But... pretty racist.

(Yeah, I know-- just one guy...)

Well Irish people have always said "black as a nigger" when I was young. I never saw it as racist because there was never any malice in saying it. In fact when I was a teen and was listening to hip-hop and gaining sympathy for black people my auntie said it and my cousin said she shoudn't say that and my auntie just looked at her and said, "What?" like she couldn't see the problem.
It's compicated.

[mistermack]

The word nigger was not considered racist or insulting in this country when I was a kid.
In fact the word racist didn't exist, as far as I recall when I was little.
There were too few black people for it to be an issue.

Originally, the word racist was used to describe people who held theories about races being different. People who were obsessed by racial theories, like the South Africans, or Nazis.
It gradually over the years got a wider meaning.

I remember when I was young, my little box of watercolour paints had the colour "nigger brown" clearly labelled. It was just a shade of dark brown, a bit darker than chestnut.
I got through lots of paint boxes, and they all had nigger brown. It wasn't a racist paint box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger#.22 ... _furniture

[Lozzer]

The word nigger was not considered racist or insulting in this country when I was a kid.
In fact the word racist didn't exist, as far as I recall when I was little.
There were too few black people for it to be an issue.

Originally, the word racist was used to describe people who held theories about races being different. People who were obsessed by racial theories, like the South Africans, or Nazis.
It gradually over the years got a wider meaning.

I remember when I was young, my little box of watercolour paints had the colour "nigger brown" clearly labelled. It was just a shade of dark brown, a bit darker than chestnut.
I got through lots of paint boxes, and they all had nigger brown. It wasn't a racist paint box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger#.22 ... _furniture

Old ladies still stagger into my mother's clothing shop and ask for cardigans in 'nigger brown'

[Seth]

The word nigger was not considered racist or insulting in this country when I was a kid.

Maybe not to you, but then again, you're not black, so your perceptions are somewhat more than a little skewed and inaccurate.

[hadespussercats]

Well, to be honest, the british were interested in the cotton, sugar/rum and tobacco coming from the South, not by what the North had to offer... and they did not confront what they'd be supporting, they just didn't feel like going to war to break the northern blockade.

Yes-- that's why the Brits were looking to support the South. Also, the sense I've gotten is that the British felt they had more culturally in common with Southern gentlemen, which added to the sympathy. My point was that the British didn't exactly recoil from the fact that the South was fighting in part to preserve slavery-- so long as that aspect of the war remained tacit. Once Lincoln made the issue of slavery overtly central-- the Emancipation Proclamation was, in a large part, PR-- that forced the British to acknowledge Southern slavery, and step back from offering support.