Should We Still Be Apologising For What Happened In The 18Th Century?

[anotheoldgit]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6974237/Cambridge-staff-carry-two-year-probe-universitys-links-slave-trade.html

/// Students have been campaigning to 'decolonise the curriculum', complaining that it is too dominated by white writers. Cambridge has also been accused of failing to attract enough black students. ///

After all are we still not a white majority country and what should Cambridge do to attract more black students, if in fact it should bother at all?

[Spicerack]

One good thing is that all the old white dons who've been filling the heads of gullible students with this tosh could be hoist by their own Marxist petards.

[woofgang]

Shrug

[jno]

are they still spending the profits made by their ancestors' slaving?

[spathiphyllum]

"Should We Still Be Apologising For What Happened In The 18Th Century?"

What our ancestors did has nout to do with us. Anyone who thinks it does is a fool.

So in answer to the OP, no... But, who is 'we' ?

[pixie374]

No. It is patronising to expect people who weren't alive then to be apologised to, by other people who weren't alive then.
We can rebalance now, but we can't change the past.

[xenoblast]

Certainly, it is hard not to take a dim view of European colonialism, entailing – as it did – theft, racism, cultural destruction, slavery and sometimes genocide. Yet merely recognizing the violations of colonialism does not automatically lead to the conclusion that the states that once practised it should now apologise for their historical misdeeds.
Today’s generation cannot and should not be held accountable for the behaviour of their predecessors. Indeed, from a liberal perspective, the idea of holding people responsible for the crimes of their ancestors is deeply unsatisfactory. A potential solution to this for those that advocate apology is to acknowledge that the current generation did not do wrong, but their state did. In this sense, political leaders, as representatives of the culpable entity, should apologise on behalf of the state and its citizens for the state’s misdeeds.

[cassa333]

But it’s all about the metoo movement and hierarchy of oppression.

How oppressed you are as a section of society denotes how much of a voice you are allowed to have. White indigenous people have (or should have according to activists in this area) no voice. Then it is a race to the bottom of the heap on the oppression dial.

When two or more oppressed sections get into an argument you then have to decide who’s oppression trumps the other and end up with a sectional war of words that gets out of hand.

They should stop all this carp and work on equality of opportunity and let everyone make the most of what is available now rather than focusing on the past.

[-Talbot-]

//I hope this process will help the university understand and acknowledge its role during that dark phase of human history.'//


That dark phase... he says, as if there is no slavery today. Of course the perpetrators of that slave trade are not the right kind of people to get het up about are they.

[andres]

There was a thread only a few weeks ago on the subject of slavery. I wish someone would point out to the black students that it was a two way thing. The Islamic marauders from Africa raged through Europe ,capturing and enslaving white people and taking them back to Africa. European slaves were highly prized and sold in auctions.
In fact the Islamic flag was raised on one of the Channel Islands. and several people from Cornwall were taken in the middle of the night into slavery. Thankfully the marauders were driven off .
Those black student bemoaning what happened to some of their ancestors need to be told just how cruel and sadistic the Morroccan and Algerians were .
If the students are not happy stop taking them in our Universities.

[dave50]

If enough black students aren't applying, whose fault is that? Certainly not the university's.

[jim360]

It doesn't hurt to understand our history better. But apologise? No. We didn't do it, we weren't alive back the. It is not our place to apologise for past mistakes: only to ensure we do not repeat them.

[ummmm]

Jim sums it up perfectly well.

[youngmafbog]

jim, I agree 100% with you.

We should be focusing on the slave trade that is currently happening and is a total disgrace.

[ToraToraTora]

when are the dinosaurs (birds) going to apologise for all the egg stealing in the Jurassic period?

[youngmafbog]

Damn Magpies are still at it today!

[Peter Pedant]

completely garbled account

the question doesnt make sense
and so the answers dont make sense

Cambrdige offeres courses to student whom they think will benefit by those courses
Students have generally said their courses or parts of them are crap and need to be changed for many years

[Peter Pedant]

why dont we have a thread
AOG reads newspaper headline and understands it shock!

thousand of ABers gathered in the streets to express shock and surprise that a long time ......