The wealth and power of the British does not come from black slave labour. What about India or what about those in Asia who lived under British rule? Racism alone does not explain the extension of power into places like Canada or Australia either which were already under white rule.
Unfortunately the fact is the British empire was responsible for a lot more than slavery. Slavery in itself existed as one single atrocity of British rule but it wasn't uniquely so because slavery was pretty common all over the world at that time. I'd be interested to hear your view on the Spanish, Portuguese or French flags as they were responsible for fairly similar atrocities in those time periods?
When we talk of the slavery of the past though I find it more sad that people can be ignorant to the slavery which still exists in the world. Slavery was ended in the UK over 200 years ago so we can slag off the UK for its past but it is just that, the past. What about today?
Most countries east or south of Europe still participate in slavery in some form or another, or at least they have zero laws to protect against it. The UK is not part of that and hasn't been a truly remotely racist country for over a century.
The union flag therefore does represent our grim past but you must admit that it also represents the fight and successful changes that have been over the decades. Today the UK and its union flag represents one of the most tolerant, representative and most un-racist societies in the world.
Perhaps I should've made clear that in answering the question I was explaining why some folk believe the flag and the monarchy are symbols of racism, I don't for one minute believe it myself.
Fair enough, my post was directed at anyone who thinks that way anyway.Perhaps I should've made clear that in answering the question I was explaining why some folk believe the flag and the monarchy are symbols of racism, I don't for one minute believe it myself.
I've amended my original post accordingly.
I remember my mum telling me, that as her family were Italian (they moved to UK in early 1900's), all the men were rounded up and put in a camp on the Isle Of Man. About 6 weeks later they were all released as they ran an ice cream factory in Dudloi.Let's be honest, that's clearly anger about a war. But if those same people sent death threats or bricked the windows of the local Russian shop, yes that would clearly be racist for me. Similarly, it was racist when America rounded up all of the ethnic Japanese in WW2 and held them in camps. It wasn't not racist because they didn't also round up all of the other East-Asian looking people.
Typical Corbynite response, telling a Jew that he doesn't understand what antisemitism is.This has nothing to do with Corbyn, or left wing politics.
This ridiculous letter exposes the lie at the centre of BLM. The fallacy that racism is a simple matter of the struggle between oppressed blacks against oppressor whites, hence white guilt, and everything else is just gradations of oppression, right down to the nastiness shown to redheads.
This argument is not just naive and stupid, it's very dangerous, taken to its conclusion two extremes collide. In the United States it is not unknown for blacks to express hostility towards Jews because of the belief that Jews are the chief white oppressor, what with secretly running the world and what not. Which bizarrely dove tails with white supremacists chanting "Jews will not replace us", coz they know Jews are out to destroy the white world order, that would be the same white world order some blacks believe is run by Jews! Coz every true Aryan knows the "tribe" is out to dilute all those pure white bloodlines.
Jews are caught between a rock and a hard place. In such circumstances, given the terrible consequences of complacency, is it any wonder that establishment Jewish groups trashed Corbyn? Even hounding "unacceptable" Jews who dissented! Many Jewish groups and publications behaved appallingly during the Corbyn era, they lied and dissembled and you're still doing it now, but if I were in your place I'd probably do the same.
Typical Corbynite response, telling a Jew that he doesn't understand what antisemitism is.
The one aspect of all this that is straightforward and uncomplicated is Braverman. She is a vile bigoted racist using her own skin colour and ancestry as a fig leaf to excuse her highly objectionable opinions and actions.Agreed it’s complicated
I’m struggling to understand how Braverman is still in office with sending people to Rwanda against their will detaining them instead of processing applications
If it’s about the murder of innocents “Jewish” people then I understand but a special word for it “anti semite“ why ?
The Irish we wanted to rule Ireland so ”parliament“ starved the people to death it carried over to “no Irish or blacks here”
As you say “mind bogglingly complicated” divide and rule
The problem with the Union Jack is that it was appropriated decades ago by a series of vile fascist and racist organisations, starting the National Front in the 1970s, and has never been thoroughly reclaimed as a flag that represents everyone. How you sort that out I do not know. The London Olympics almost got us there, but this country seems a very different place now from the days of that brief moment of enlightenment and hope.
As for St George's Day, this is (or rather was) a predominantly Protestant country with no real tradition of celebrating saints' days. (This is why, for example, we don't celebrate Corpus Christi, and only have a few limited and local events on Shrove Tuesday, not general carnivals.) So setting up St George's Day parades and so on is artificial, rather than organic, and there is only limited interest. When I was a boy absolutely no one celebrated the day, and yet this was a time when 'traditional Englishness/Britishness' was firmly in place, racism was common, many people actually went to church and 'woke' was something you did in the morning.
I celebrated St George's day and loved it. I'm also of fairly recent Irish Catholic ancestry.The problem with the Union Jack is that it was appropriated decades ago by a series of vile fascist and racist organisations, starting the National Front in the 1970s, and has never been thoroughly reclaimed as a flag that represents everyone. How you sort that out I do not know. The London Olympics almost got us there, but this country seems a very different place now from the days of that brief moment of enlightenment and hope.
As for St George's Day, this is (or rather was) a predominantly Protestant country with no real tradition of celebrating saints' days. (This is why, for example, we don't celebrate Corpus Christi, and only have a few limited and local events on Shrove Tuesday, not general carnivals.) So setting up St George's Day parades and so on is artificial, rather than organic, and there is only limited interest. When I was a boy absolutely no one celebrated the day, and yet this was a time when 'traditional Englishness/Britishness' was firmly in place, racism was common, many people actually went to church and 'woke' was something you did in the morning.