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Submitted by ROK

Above is a clip about Dr. Yosef Ben Jochannan’s perspective on the race card. Should we stop trying to be Rhodes Scholars? Hear who was John Rhodes. Also Dr. Ben spoke of our pregnant women being split open using horses so that the babies dropped out of their bellies.

My problem with those who would say that we are using this kind of information to spread hate should understand that these are facts. They are part of the historical record and if the white man did not inflict such atrocious acts on the black man, we would have nothing to talk about today. In the circumstances, the hate started with them. Yet our attempt to get it out of our psyche is being resisted by them. What does that tell you? It isn’t over yet!

Further, how we could be sure that they are still at it? The Rhodes Island Scholarship that has become so prestigious and that we line up to get, is named after a white man that massacred 50 million black people in South Africa according to Dr. Ben. His testimony is on the clip.

Dr. Ben is also insinuating that the first Jews were from Ethiopia and were black, so how come we associate Jews with a particular race of people? When we look at our economies for example, we see the damage that IMF did to those who accepted it and Barbados that did not, is doing far much better; although not the best.

HIV/AIDS and all the diseases that are targeting us were white man made. All the drugs that the big drug companies convincing us to fill our bodies with seems coincidental to the new wave of asthma, heart diseases, diabetes, etc. in our young children; would make it seem that the killings are still going on but in a different way.

The Rwanda genocide is a rather strange event. Even the Rwandans don’t seem to be able to understand what got into them to cause that slaughter. If this was sparked by the media, who authorised it? I am hoping that people watch the video and wake up. This is not a call to arms but a call for each black man and woman to do his/her duty to preserve our people. We are still under threat of extinction. Stop taking the drugs. Farmers need to start gathering their own seeds and we have to stop importing chicken eggs to be hatched.

We still have a lot going for us that we need to preserve. We still have our golden apples, sour-sop, mangoes, ackees (ginip), fat pork, guavas, dunks, sugar apples, yams, sweet potatoes, green peas, etc. but those crops like carrots, beets, lettuce, sweet peppers and the ones we get out of the supermarket that our farmers buy seeds to grow, we should try to get rid of them; purge the plants and start gathering the seeds and growing and developing a natural strain and ban the importation of seeds to corrupt our crops.

Apart from food security, we have to deal with health; those doctors with test kits need to stop buying them. Throw them through the door (gradually). We need to develop an herbal industry based on the herbs that grow naturally here. We need to look and see what is not yet corrupted and preserve them. It is one great conspiracy based on greed that started way back then. There are indicators to tell us that the conspiracy is still on. For example, the difficulty with black businesses getting loans from the banking system; the way the banks bounce checks and refuse to give businesses overdrafts; the suspicion with which the black man is viewed in general even by our own. Finally, the way our country is dictated to by the imperialists.

All of this is based on racism and unless we stand up against it, we will never be unshackled.


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  1. @ROK
    Where in my submission of August 24,2009 @2:45 am did I state that “we” – black people – hate white people?

    Please quote the sentence.
    Yardbroom


  2. Anon,
    You ‘dissin’ my man ROK very cruel doe. Personal agenda or wah? I cud see you don’t like my man, calling he an uncouth mutt and all but we’re all entitled to our opinion, ya know? Even de dumb n’ ignorant.

    Dah santa claus face saying a lot. I telling you, as woman. It sayin nuff. Criticise what he is saying if you must, not his ‘snow’ man. If you live long enuff, you will ‘snow’ too. Tru dat.


  3. @BonnyPeppa

    Ya 2 sweet. But I don’t know why you give that it a response for. “It” because I don’t know the genda.

    ssmmmooooooooccccch


  4. @Yardbroom

    Did I say you said that? I thought you said that you don’t hate white people. If I inferred that you said that I am sorry, but I was making the point that as a people we more angry and more seeking justice than hate.


  5. ROK // August 24, 2009 at 6:13 PM

    @Yardbroom

    …… I was making the point that as a people we more angry and more seeking justice than hate.
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    How do you seek justice from dead people?

    … and if it is not dead people, who exactly is it you seek justice from and what did they do you?

    …. check Wiesenthal!!


  6. @John
    “How do you seek justice from dead people?”

    I really did not plan to respond to you but just in case somebody pick up on your response and believe it, let me how the Jews get reparations after Hitler died?

    One thing I would like to say though, you like you join the campaign to ensure that black people don’t get any kind of satisfaction from that holocaust.

    I have problems with people making statements as you did; and especially as one who claim to do so much research, I am flabbergasted. What Wiesenthal what? Don’t be stupid.


  7. @ROK//August 24, 2009 at 8:38 PM

    “What Wiesenthal what? Don’t be stupid.”

    ROK, do u always have to be so caustic & denegrating whenever u are debating something on a thread?
    I am sure that u can debate a lot better than that! After all, you are the one carrying the fight to the FTC. I am sure your debating skills are better then.


  8. Correction to the above.

    sorry that should have been “denigrating”.


  9. @ Themis when i first heard that i laugh my ass off, i still don’t believe he, but ya got to think: If they are so much TOP scientist in the world looking for the cure and them ent find it yet, maybe the cure is not in science?

    Maby aids is all a lie as DoBoui suggested to stop the educated black folk from reproducing, leaving only the ‘poor’ ones to reproduce. LOL time will tell.

    @John
    “How do you seek justice from dead people?”

    We don’t.

    We want justice from the systems put in place to subdue us.


  10. Here are three of Wiesenthal’s quotes which I think should give cause for reflection.

    “We know that we are not collectively guilty, so how can we accuse any other nation, no matter what some of its people have done, of being collectively guilty? ”

    “What connects two thousand years of genocide? Too much power in too few hands.”

    “When history looks back, I want people to know that the Nazis could not kill millions of people with impunity.”

    Wiesenthal went after the perpetrators of specific crimes all of whom were living and he did not do it for Jews, but for humanity.

    Starting in 1794 with France, for the first time in human history, countries began to outlaw the slave trade and slavery.

    This must be a triumph for humanity although unsavoury practices common in the time of slavery remained.

    Some of them are still with us.

    Both the trade in human biengs and their exploitation as slaves are still alive and flourish in some countries and it is against these injustices that we can and should seek justice against any perpetrator.


  11. @Ready Done

    “ROK, do u always have to be so caustic & denegrating whenever u are debating something on a thread?”

    Let me apologise but when I get to the FTC I deal with facts and people that do their research.

    Now he must know something about reparations and that there are precedents but not only was his first post ridiculous, he come back again.

    So what would you think about such submissions? I should have ignored him and that in the first place.


  12. @John

    At RD’s urging, I am going to deal with your post differently. Since you find it hard to do the research, let me help you a bit, starting with Jewish reparations. I will not be arguing anything, I will just post the facts. Of note is that reparations is not only about money but also about the expression of remorse among other acts. For easier reading I will do it in more than one post. This is number one:

    In September 1945, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jewish leader Chaim Weizmann submitted a memorandum on behalf of the Zionist Jewish Agency to the governments of the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain and France “demanding” (in the words of the Encydopaedia Judaica) “reparations, restitution and indemnification due to the Jewish people from Germany” The western Allies lost no time in responding favorably to Weizmann’s demands.See 1. The American government was particularly eager to have the Germans pay up. As a result, the German government set up by the western Allies at Bonn in 1949 never had any real choice but to acknowledge the alleged collective guilt of the German people during the Hitler era and pay what was demanded.

    Indeed, a major provision of the treaty of May 1952 by which the United States, Britain and France granted “sovereignty” to the Federal Republic of (West) Germany obligated the new state to make restitution. West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer laid the emotional and psychological groundwork for the reparations program when he solemnly declared to the Bundestag on September 27, 1951:

    The Federal government and the great majority of the German people are deeply aware of the immeasurable suffering endured by the Jews of Germany and by the Jews of the occupied territories during the period of National Socialism … In our name, unspeakable crimes have been committed and they demand restitution, both moral and material, for the persons and properties of the Jews who have been so seriously harmed …

    Mark Weber
    http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v08/v08p243_Weber.html


  13. @John

    You giving me a lot of work because I had to type this out. However, this is part of a discussion on reparations for Native American Indians. This book, called Race, Racism, and Reparations
    by J. Angelo Corlett, discussed the pros and cons but this section is most informative:

    Even if it were true that a full-blown policy of reparations would involve reparations to Native Americans by not only the US Government but by the governments of Spain Portugal, England, France, The Netherlands, among others, and even if it proved overtly difficult to figure out the extent to which each Government contributed to harms against Native Americans, this would hardly show that clear cases of US harms to Native Americans ought not to be compensated by the US. Moreover, though the parties to a putative case of reparations would involve those who themselves did no harm to the victims in question, such “innocent” parties who currently reside on or “own” lands that were once resided on by Native Americans are in violation of the principle of morally just acquisitions and transfers:

    Whatever is acquired or transferred by morally just means is itself morally just; whatever is acquired or transferred by morally unjust means is itself morally unjust.


  14. @John

    This one is precedence. Imagine that this was inspired by the Civil Rights movement in USA. Starting with Reagan 44 years after WWII, payment of reparations to Japanese went right up to George Bush. This is a wiki source:

    Beginning in the 1960s, a younger generation of Japanese Americans who were inspired by the Civil Rights movement began what is known as the “Redress Movement”, an effort to obtain an official apology and reparations from the federal government for interning their parents and grandparents during the war, focusing not on documented property losses but on the broader injustice of the internment. The movement’s first success was in 1976, when President Gerald Ford proclaimed that the internment was “wrong”, and a “national mistake” which “shall never again be repeated”.
    The campaign for redress was launched by Japanese Americans in 1978. The Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) asked for three measures to be taken as redress: $25,000 to be awarded to each person who was detained, an apology from Congress acknowledging publicly that the U.S. government had been wrong, and the release of funds to set up an educational foundation for the children of Japanese American families.
    In 1980, Congress established the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians (CWRIC) to study the matter. On February 24, 1983, the commission issued a report entitled Personal Justice Denied, condemning the internment as “unjust and motivated by racism rather than real military necessity”. The Commission recommended that $20,000 in reparations be paid to those Japanese Americans who had been victims of internment.
    In 1988, U.S. President (and former California governor) Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which had been sponsored by Representative Norman Mineta and Senator Alan K. Simpson — the two had met while Mineta was interned at a camp in Wyoming — which provided redress of $20,000 for each surviving detainee, totaling $1.2 billion dollars. The question of to whom reparations should be given, how much, and even whether monetary reparations were appropriate were subjects of sometimes contentious debate.
    On September 27, 1992, the Civil Liberties Act Amendments of 1992, appropriating an additional $400 million in order to ensure that all remaining internees received their $20,000 redress payments, was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush, who also issued another formal apology from the U.S. government.
    Some Japanese and Japanese Americans who were relocated during WWII received compensation for property losses, according to a 1948 law. Congress appropriated $38 million to meet $131 million of claims from among 23,000 claimants. These payments were dispersed very slowly, the final dispersal occurring in 1965. In 1988, following lobbying efforts by Japanese Americans, $20,000 per internee was paid out to individuals who had been interned or relocated, including those who chose to return to Japan. These payments were awarded to 82,210 Japanese Americans or their heirs at a cost of $1.6 billion; the program’s final disbursement occurred in 1999.
    Under the 2001 budget of the United States, it was also decreed that the ten sites on which the detainee camps were set up are to be preserved as historical landmarks: “places like Manzanar, Tule Lake, Heart Mountain, Topaz, Amache, Jerome, and Rohwer will forever stand as reminders that this nation failed in its most sacred duty to protect its citizens against prejudice, greed, and political expediency”.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment


  15. @John

    I will continue this tomorrow. All I can say is that we need to come out of denial and face facts and I can’t see how we could be getting into fighting off slavery today to get satisfaction for the holocaust of yesterday. In any case the circumstances are different and the enslavers of today are still alive. Simply, there are two different causes of action and one does not exclude the other.


  16. Hi ROK,
    I have accepted your explanation in good faith.
    Yardbroom


  17. ROK,
    Wait, is it you that wear de suspenders? You from FTC? Well dog my cat. You so cuteeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
    Makes me wanna x-haleeeeeeeeeeeee.


  18. ROK

    So if the Japanese internment is accepted as the way to go exactly which Government is going to pay $20,000 (or more) to what persons who were enslaved?

    All of those enslaved prior to emancipation are dead.

    …. and if the compensation is to come to their living descendants I can only identify some of my ancestors who were slaves, but not all.

    … and that is only because I have been looking at genealogy over the past 15 years and have done my research.

    I reckon many people will not be able to identify their slave ancestors.

    Do you know the name of any of your slave ancestors and how many?

    BTW what did the British Government do about the Germans it interned on the Channel Islands?

    Were they compensated?


  19. Bonny

    Man you got me here full of goose bumps. Wahlossss yuh killing mah softly.

    Smmmmoooooooooocccccchhh


  20. @ John

    In 2002, in order to have the US imposed embargo lifted, the Libyan Government offered USD 2.7 billion to compensate the families of the 270 victims of Pan Am Flight 103 bombing; that is 10 big ones per family. To this date no one can say with certainty that any agency of Libya was responsible (and certainly none were formally charged in the proceedings). Pan Am, hoverer, easily proven to be guilty for lapsed responsibility in ensuring the security of its customers folds and escapes legal action. One man was incarcerated. His guilt to this day cannot seriously be established. History has recorded that the Libyan Government and by extension, its people were responsible for this terrible thing.

    The true criminals here are clear – the people who establish guilt and those who record history. Now tell me, are there no racial signatures in the way things turn out?


  21. @John

    “So if the Japanese internment is accepted as the way to go exactly which Government is going to pay $20,000 (or more) to what persons who were enslaved?”

    John, I was quite clear that I was making a case for reparations by showing precedent. I was also quick to note that reparation is not only about money.

    I really don’t know where you coming from at all. The fact that you could leave out the considerations I placed on the table to ask that question, would seem to me that you trying to make out a case for no reparations in the face of the precedents.

    I want you to deal with this part of my last post:

    “In any case the circumstances are different and the enslavers of today are still alive. Simply, there are two different causes of action and one does not exclude the other.”

    I will put my references into some context a bit later.


  22. @John

    “All of those enslaved prior to emancipation are dead… and if the compensation is to come to their living descendants I can only identify some of my ancestors who were slaves, but not all.”

    John, please read the thing carefully because it speaks to the history too. So if you could identify at least one of your ancestors based on accurate historical records, you need not go any further.

    Another noteworthy point is that we are dealing with sovereignty here, and as in the case of Germany, the government accepted even though they were pushed by international pressure. However, a Government may find itself bound by the principles of law in order to remain credible both within and outside its sovereign boundaries.


  23. Mr ROK says: “The real problem is that white people in denial and that stirs up even more passion and anger, but still, not hate. If white people of today were not so guilty and in denial, the atmosphere would be a bit different.”

    So tell me, Mr ROK, and this is extremely important … the eight year-old white girl I watched giggling with joy in the surf at Long Beach last Sunday, giggling so much it made me smile and I don’t know her from Heydrich … of what, exactly, is she “guilty?” From what is she “in denial?”

    Serious questions.

    Oops, I mentioned Heydrich. Does that mean you will follow your past record, Mr. ROK, and identify me as a Jew? Does that mean you will follow your past record and threaten to GET ME?

    Mr ROK says: “we are not haters.”

    Mr Negroman says that a decent Canadian lady murdered on this island was “white trash”. The owner of this blog allows that comment to stand, repeatedly.

    Mr ROK has nothing to say about that.

    Mr ROK says: “we are not haters.”


  24. Jack Bowman

    “the eight year-old white girl I watched giggling with joy in the surf at Long Beach last Sunday, giggling so much it made me smile and I don’t know her from Heydrich … of what, exactly, is she “guilty?”

    That little white girl will one day be guilty of growing up in a world in which she would gain special preference as a result of atrocities perpetuated on others by little white boys and not recognise that this special place that she is in came at great expense to others.

    Mr Negroman however is out of place.


  25. @ Jack Bowman that statement was made long ago, and you should stop repeating it, i starting to take offence of you putting that in my face all the time so.

    what is white trash?
    do you yourself think the said woman was white trash? if not what is the best way to discribe her? (i takeing it that you knew her)
    Are you white trash?
    Are you a Jew?
    Are you a racist?
    What do you want? an apology from negroman?

    If you don’t know what you want you shouldn’t be making a fuss.

    what is the reason for your rude behaviour?


  26. @RD

    It seems obvious that JB is provoking reaction so that he could have BU labelled as a hate blog, which so far has not succeeded and that is why he is still plugging away hoping to get a census from BU contributors about Negroman’s submission. I have to wonder what is his Plan B.

    The best thing to do with him is ignore him and I would encourage all of BU family not to respond to him don’t care how outlandish he gets. Treat him like rediffusion in the background. Allow him to continue to show his true colours.


  27. ROK

    John, please read the thing carefully because it speaks to the history too. So if you could identify at least one of your ancestors based on accurate historical records, you need not go any further.
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    The problem with relying on historical records to identify you as the descendant of a slave, particularly the church records, is that many slaves were not baptised and did not get into those records until after emancipation.

    Often they have no surname and only the christian names the church gave them and whereas prior to emancipation they were labeled with their social status, slave/free negro/mulatto after emancipation the records from what I remember become “colourless”.

    What I think this means is that there will be no accurate historical records for many Barbadians and linking a surname to a slave may very well be impossible in many cases.

    I have tried it and it is very difficult.

    It requires analysis of a great deal of data and still there is an element of guess work.

    Sometimes however, you can be lucky.

    Alot of people will lose out using this method of identification …. unless you guess at their familial linkage to a slave.


  28. @ ROK and every one for that matter i just want to point out that Jack Bowman has the MO of a racist, & one from the ‘silent army’ side, this is how they operate, they WILL pretend to be your friend as long as you keep the subdued mentality but once you try to change your mind set they will look for any chance to exploit a weakness and shut you down, eg. the $25 that they use to shut down Garvy and the said ‘white trash’ statement made ONCE a long time ago.

    For those who don’t know the KKK calls them self the silent army.


  29. Which government exactly was responsable for the trans Atlantic slave trade?

    Was it England, America or Britain?

    The American senate apologised for slavery the other day, Is that enough to prove that they accept the responsibility.


  30. @ Ready Done

    You chasing Jack Bowman from this blog now with your “allegations” like how Livinginbarbados let himself get chased.

    You know very well that these fellows can’t take no pressure. Lol.


  31. @Sea Cat

    The discussion in BU is robust and not for the thin skinned or the pompous. If you can’t handle our best advice is to stay away.


  32. Ready Done // August 26, 2009 at 6:04 AM

    Which government exactly was responsable for the trans Atlantic slave trade?

    Was it England, America or Britain?

    The American senate apologised for slavery the other day, Is that enough to prove that they accept the responsibility.
    +++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    None of the above!!!

    The transatlantic slave trade begun with the Spanish and Portuguese, then the Dutch probably.

    The French and English were Johnny come latelies!!

    It only worked because Africans were willing to sell Africans from the early contact with Europeans.

    ….. check Wiesenthal on collective responsibility.


  33. …. Sorry, that Anonymous was me.


  34. Slavery worked because there was a “market” for slaves; it does not matter how willing Africans were to sell Africans.

    Everyone knows it does not matter what you are selling, without a market your business is doomed to failure.


  35. Ok so Africans sold slaves.

    What was the treatment of slaves in Africa?

    I mean did the slave sellers know that the slave would be treated ‘sub-human’ by the new oweners or did the slave selling Africans treat the slave more like indentured servants?


  36. Another question was it actual ‘governments’ that bought slaves, or can the actual buying of slaves be linked to the governments of the times.


  37. Well said Yardie, it was the market! It is the same market that is opposing meaningful minimum wage stipulations.

    I believe that this King Ja Ja character in Barbadian folklore was a collaborator with the slavers who was inadvertently enslaved, is that correct? If so why should I accept responsibility for that oath? The Crown and Church of England supported slavery. Barclays Bank was built as a result of it. That is the collective responsibility John should be talking about. Wiki Barclays Plc and you will see no mention of the slave trade. Hmm


  38. Here is a quote out of wikepedia.

    “A market is any one of a variety of different systems, institutions, procedures, social relations and infrastructures whereby persons trade, and goods and services are exchanged, forming part of the economy. It is an arrangement that allows buyers and sellers to exchange things.[1] ”
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++

    A market is characterised by willing buyers and sellers.

    Today there is a market for slave labour bigger than what existed in the time of slavery.

    The law is all that stops the interchange … in some countries.

    Remember the Indian labour for the world cup ….. that could be characterised as slavery ….. and then there is “white” slavery.


  39. @ John
    I address “you” pointedly again.
    On August 18, 2009 at 4:15 am

    I wrote: “A free people” engaging in war and its aftermath being compared with “captive slaves” with no control over inflicted barbarity and cruelty, on this issue reason and logic have wings.

    You responded on 18 August, 2009 at 10:59, addressed to me. Quote:
    “Logic and reason will always sprout wings if they are not grounded in fact.”

    I asked you then, and I ask you again from my statement you quoted above, what is not fact?
    Having made such a “serious” accusation, what is factual incorrect?


  40. Yardbroom

    King Charles I was tried for treason, found guilty and executed in 1649.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England

    That was the penalty then for treason and execution was by beheading. Many feel the trial was not fair.

    After any of the slave uprisings which did occur in the late 1600’s up to 1702, the persons involved were also tried, found guilty and executed.

    I doubt very much if the trial of the slaves involved was fair or just, but I would have to see the laws of the land at the time to say whether it was unlawful.

    I recall reading that the first to rebel were the indentured servants, not sure if it was 1649 or the early 1650’s.

    If your source for the 1675 uprising is the same book I read that in perhaps you could say what happened to the indentured servants that were identified as the leaders.

    What I am saying is that at that time the penalty for treason was execution to be carried out by beheading.

    Before this period, the penalty for treason for men was disemboweling.

    The women got off “lighter” and were burned at the stake … consistent with the witch trials in America in that time period although I must admit treason was/is different from witchcraft.

    The fact which I believe is relevant is that King and commoner once found guilty of treason, fairly or unfairly, received the same penalty as proscribed by law.

    However I did not make any such accusation against you, I merely used your words to point to a flaw in point made in the debate you refer to as recent by another blogger.


  41. John
    You state you made no such accusation against me. However, Yardbroom was at the top of your post, I took your statement as undermining the “facts” of my post.

    So be it.

    In the three English Civil Wars between (1641-51) and during the reigns of Charles 1 and Charles 11. We had conflicts between a variety of vested interest groups – free people not slaves – engaged in Civil War.

    (1) Parliamentarians and Royalists (1642-46)

    (2) King Charles 1 against Supporters of the Long Parliament (1648-49)

    (3) King Charles 11 Supporters against Supporters of the Rump Parliament (1648-51)

    On conclusion and during the wars barbaric atrocities were committed.

    Can you compare the atrocities then committed to that of captive slaves – living in bondage – who with no redress to Law, no one to represent their cause, no party to which they were attached, but yet were unmercifully and in the most barbaric fashion maimed – leg and tongue cut off – disfigured, burned alive, burned to ashes, by any individual who felt the inclination so to do, who owned them. To teach them a lesson.

    Is there any “comparison” in reason and logic to the “factual examples” I have outlined.

    John
    You sought to give parity to evil by stating: “The same English who beheaded those slaves also beheaded their own King.”

    The barbarity was committed not in England but in Barbados and Antigua and the slaves were not “free men and women.”

    We must not try to air-brush history, “truth” above all things.


  42. John is trying to “whitewash” the enslavement of African people. I believe this is all in a vain attempt to to deal with the insecurities and incongruities of his own pathetic life.


  43. John as was said earlier, is a distraction.


  44. @John

    “That was the penalty then for treason and execution was by beheading. Many feel the trial was not fair.”

    All that happened here was that Cromwell reversed the King’s law on him. According to the law the King could not be tried for treason and according to the law it was Cromwell who committing the treason. The law just did not prevail on Cromwell but was instead imposed on the King.

    Your analysis in comparing the beheading of the King with the atrocities of slavery is faulty. You are trying to compare a bunch of grapes to a pear (or a lime) because they are both borne on a single stem.

    To say that slavery is justified because that was the law at the time does not make it right within the framework of humanity. That is why today it is condemned and also the reason why enslaving people is against international and national law. We have learned from the experience and we deem it wrong to have happened in the first place.

    It was Ready Done that held me up off you, but I hope that by now and with this last expose of yours that RD realises that I spotted where you were coming from in the early. I will not, however, go as far as to say that my acidity was justified, I leave that in RD’s court. LOL!


  45. Yardbroom

    The status of a slave in any society where slavery existed was as low as you could get in that society.

    I don’t believe the term slave has ever been used to drum up any image of humane treatment and is usually used to do quite the opposite.

    Here is a link to a Wikipedia entry on the treatment of slaves in the days of the Roman Empire.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_ancient_Rome

    As you can well imagine, slavery is an emotional topic so of course there is disagreement and Wikipedia gives a contrary opinion on the talk page.

    The English in England provided the initial people who settled Barbados so naturally their laws and customs are what determined what was a crime and what was a punishment.

    Treason was a crime and beheading at the time the punishment. If you rise up as a member of a society to overthrow the lawful government of the society and the society defines such an action as treason, then expect the consequences, king or slave.

    … laws are made by whoever happenes to be strong … at the time.


  46. ROK

    To say that slavery is justified because that was the law at the time does not make it right within the framework of humanity. That is why today it is condemned and also the reason why enslaving people is against international and national law. We have learned from the experience and we deem it wrong to have happened in the first place.
    ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

    This summary from you lacks conviction and has some flaws.

    As you can see from the link below on Wikepedia, slavery is alive and doing well in the world and human slaves continue to be treated as less than human beings. The difference is that today slavery is outlawed. That was done in 1948 …… 1948 by the UN Declaration of human rights.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

    When the Indian “slave” labour arrived in Barbados to build Kensington Oval, that was slavery. When they were housed in Government buildings in the Harbour those Government buildings became slave accommodation.

    When that guy got held for allegedly pimping out Ukranian girls imported into Barbados for prostitution that was human trafficking.

    It is no surprise that Barbados figures in international reports on Human Trafficking.

    It could be said that we really have not learned from the experience and do not deem it to be wrong.

    The British Parliament ended its participation in the slave trade in 1807 and abolished slavery in any British dependency.

    The French ended their participation in slavery in 1848. The Americans did so in 1865. The Spanish did so in 1886.

    Here is a Wikepedia link which suggests slavery was alive and well officially, and lawfully, up to 1981, at least in Mauritania where it was finally abolished …. So much for the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_slavery_timeline#cite_note-36

    Here is the timeline after the second world war.
    • 1946 Fritz Sauckel, procurer of slave labor for Nazi Germany, convicted at the Nuremberg trials and executed as war criminal.
    • 1948 UN Article 4 of the Declaration of Human Rights bans slavery globally
    • 1952 Qatar abolishes slavery
    • 1962 Saudi Arabia abolishes slavery
    • 1962 Yemen abolishes slavery
    • 1963 United Arab Emirates abolishes slavery
    • 1969 Peru abolishes the encomiendas regime through a land reform ending slavery in the country.
    • 1970 Oman abolishes slavery
    • 1981 Mauritania abolishes slavery

    While now illegal everywhere, slavery or practices akin to it continue today in many countries throughout the world.
    Europe benefited from slavery and the slave trade but to its credit it ended it too.


  47. We have been challenged by breaking stories hence not delivering the promised weekly blog on race. BU apologizes and if all goes according to plan we will resume next week.


  48. John
    The slaves in Barbados and Antigua had done nothing to warrant being burned alive, burned to ashes, dragged through the streets, dismembered, leg and tongue cut off to teach other slaves a lesson, the punishments inflicted upon them.

    No recourse to Wikipedia will change that basic “fact.”


  49. Plans are notorious for failing, so see http://www.whenallplansfail.com/


  50. John // August 26, 2009 at 6:56 PM
    Mauritania has tried a few times to abolish slavery. Though criminalised a couple of years ago, it is still widely practised, as it has been for centuries. Slaves and their offspring, however, do not remain at the bottom of the social and economic ladder. Haratins have even been high ranking government officials, such as finance minister. Check and learn.

    Much as Wikipedia gives ready access, it is not a wholly reliable source and actual evidence is always good to set alongside it, as well as actual experiences.

    But nice point, though.

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