I will give you my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands – National Rifle Association [NRA] bumper sticker
Philinte: Do you wish harm to all mankind?
Alceste: Yes, I have conceived a terrible hatred for them –Act I, Sc 1 -“Le Misanthrope” -Moliere [1666]
An apparent misanthrope, of a twisted mind and hell-bent on taking as many people as possible with him as he shuffles off this mortal coil, fortified by a bizarre official interpretation of a Constitutional amendment that ostensibly relates to a collective entitlement but that has been construed as permitting any lunatic with enough wherewithal to arm himself to the teeth with high powered weaponry, sends his girlfriend home to the land of her birth, rents a luxury hotel suite overlooking a concert venue in Las Vegas and proceeds to murder no fewer than 58 innocent souls assembled to enjoy the music, thereby giving the lie to the popular slogan that “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas!”
The media will record that this abyssal conduct on his part was a new record for the most people ever murdered in a mass shooting in the US. The resultant “human cry”, as it is put in the Barbadian mondegreen, sounds like so much crocodile tears in a country that can place men on the Moon but that seemingly has not grasped the notion that permitting a near unlimited civic right to bear arms and thus to use them however might lead inexorably to these sorts of tragedies.
I have explored before in this space my own interpretation of the notorious Second Amendment that is utilized as the vehicle for this dubious and enabling right. According to the text of the provision;
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Given that a militia does not comprise one individual solely, and given the primacy accorded that body in the structure of the text, one might very well be tempted to read the amendment as empowering the people to keep and bear arms purely for the purposes of forming the necessary well-regulated militia for protecting the security and freedom of the state. This, however, has not been the construction that has found favour with the Supreme Court charged with the overarching interpretation of the Constitution.
In its 2008 decision in District of Columbia v Heller, the Court, by a five to four majority, iterated that the Amendment protected an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defence. Further, they held that the prefatory clause in the Amendment that I rely on in my argument to control its spirit does not in fact limit or expand the second part whose text and history connotes an individual right to keep and bear arms.
The justices also made reference to the amendment’s legislative history, noting that it was the product of a response to the fears of the anti-federalists that Federal Government would disarm the militia in favour of a standing army or a select Federal militia. The Second Amendment was thus enacted to deny Congress the power to abridge the “ancient“ right of the people to keep and bear arms so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.
Moreover, although it did not form part of the ratio of the decision, the Court noted that at least three (3) states’ proposals had referred unequivocally to the individual and not merely collective right. The law seems to be settled given that the Supreme Court is at the apex of the system, unless a future Court ids minded to overrule this precedent.
As distasteful as it may be, the media have made much of the record number of those killed, a record that is likely to be inevitably broken so long as the status quo continues. An instructive WhatsApp post in one group last week, explored the illogic behind the individual right to bear arms whereby a youngster, thirteen years of age, is appropriately unable to purchase alcohol, cigarettes or adult magazines, but is nonetheless able to secure the supply from a dealer of a high-powered firearm intended for the sole purpose of ending a life, even if not necessarily that of a human being.
Veteran Congressman Steve Israel, in an op-ed piece in the New York Times last Monday, also addresses the issue of the likelihood of a reprise of the Las Vegas massacres. He puts it bluntly, “ In the wake of one of the deadliest mass shootings in our nation’s history, perhaps the most asked question by Americans is, and “Will anything change?” The simple answer is no. The more vital question is, “Why not?”
Israel recounts his failed attempt as a freshman to introduce legislation to require safety locks on certain guns when he failed to gain the support of a fellow freshman Democrat who begged off on the ground that “In my district we close the schools on the first day of hunting season”.
He relates too his disappointment after the murder of 26 children and adults at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 and the image of President Obama with tears running down his cheeks. His thoughts that finally something would be done were dashed when the debate morphed into one over the rights of gun owners rather than the right to life of young schoolchildren. Some congressional colleagues, he writes, confided that any vote for gun safety would lower their NRA scores and increase the probability of their demise in the next election.
The identical scenario was to obtain after the mass shootings in the Orlando, Florida nightclub in June 2016 and the failure of a proposed amendment to prevent people on the terrorist watch list from purchasing firearms, opposed by the Republican chairman of the House Appropriations Committee on the basis that “in America, everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”
This principle is not peculiar to the US, but according to an October 2 article in the online newsmagazine Vox, there are 29.7 homicides by firearm per 1 million in the US people as compared to 1.4 in Australia and 1.6 in New Zealand, two jurisdictions that embrace the identical presumption.
Congressman Israel offers finally three reasons why nothing will change. First, he notes, the gun lobbies are now in a race to the bottom to see who can become more brazen and more extreme since more moderation means less market share. Second, the political right now adheres to the view that anything less than total subservience to the gun lobby is perceived as supporting gun confiscation, anathema to that sector. Third, there is the public inoculation to gun violence –“You’ll read this essay and others like it, and turn the page or click another link”, he writes presciently. You’ll watch or listen to the news and shake your head, then flip to another channel or another app. This horrific event will recede into our collective memory….”
Exactly what the gun lobby is counting on.
431 responses to “The Jeff Cumberbatch Column – Exercising a Fundamental Right”
WW MoneyB…that’s your brainwash telling you that, the people have survived on the earth centuries before US and UK started their thieving, murder, enslaving, fraud spree and will survive for thousands and maybe millions of years when neither or no longer a memory…as so many civilizations before them came and left…..
Ultimately very likely! Cycles dominate the Earth in Politics, Geography, Medicine, most certainly Economics/ Finance/ Investing etc
But why is it that people from across the World risk life and limb to migrate to the US????????
Millions of Mexicans/ Central Ams who have and will take poor Americans jobs and push out people from their new found neighbourhoods. Watch them on TV, very bloody arrogant like if they own the US already. The fact is they are ILlegals and they are NOT highly Educated when they arrive, the US needs Math, Sci/ Tech migrants urgently and they will benefit Americans quickly.
Disarm the Criminals FIRST!
MB
Was the Vegas chappie a criminal??
Vinni,
The Vegas chappie had loads of help from some group— Deep State (like JFK), Antifa, ISIS, (Antifa & ISIS coalition) but I very much doubt he was a lone wolf.
Secondly, 59 people dead is far too many BUT much less than criminals kill annually.
Sargeant October 9, 2017 at 1:46 PM #
Playing golf with an individual could tell you a great deal about him;Corker was Trump’s frequent golfing buddy and friend.
When he calls the WH an adult daycare centre yuh better beiieve him
SARGE THAT IS A NON SEQUITUR MAN
FRIENDS DOES FALL OUT FOR LOTS OF REASONS
I HAD MANY FRIENDS WHO WERE ONLY CLING-ONS
CLING-ONS TEND TO GET VEXED IF THEY DONT GET WHAT THEY WANT ah lie?
re Vincent Haynes October 9, 2017 at 1:52 PM #
MB
Was the Vegas chappie a criminal??
HE WAS WHEN HE GOT TAKEN OUT OR WHEN HE TOOK HIMSELF OUT ah lie?
“But why is it that people from across the World risk life and limb to migrate to the US????????”
Your brainwashing again….it was because of false advertising, we are the greatest we are the best…..until ya get there and see the reality. …I lived there a really long time remember,
The only true statement made, because of its population size and free enterprise, if you work hard enough, stay focused enough, it still is the land of opportunity, but so too could any country be if free enterprise is observed…like in Canada for you.
So stop asking me silly questions.
GP,
He became the Lone Dead Wolf!
Dem had to have an Oswald and a Jack Ruby!
WW,
If it is so silly a question, why did you respond?
“Watch them on TV, very bloody arrogant like if they own the US already.”
Just like the very first illegals from UK in the 1600s…none of you own US……
…..the mexicans have more rights to that land than you know.
To educate others so you dont expand on ya mindwash nonsense.
WW,
Why did Mao say, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun”.
Why did Hitler, Mao, Stalin et al ensure that only their people had the guns?
America really needs highly competent people Day1, not enough time to wait on 2 nd G!
Choose sides very carefully!
WW, you are failing miserably in stopping the inevitable.
It’s only a matter of time before “Moneybrain” adds BLM and Hillary to his list of those responsible for the carnage in Vegas,they’re the bane of his existence.
For good measure he may throw Barack into the stew……….
MB, again you spew stupid conspiracy theories for blog fun. WHY?
With no evidence I can also make the outlandish conspiracy nonsense claims that Trump is a long time plant from Russia. With his expat father, expat first and third wife, his past million $ real estate flips with Russians and his other interesting relationships there is more reason for that claim than yours.
If this man was so purposely facilitated by some entrenched group why did he go thus far and then simply abort his action?
Only 58 deaths is a ‘miracle’ in itself. He was on his killing field with full control and no incoming fire; lights were on his prey initially and as they rushed to safety they were running still into his unencumbered field of fire.
Supposedly 22K in attendance…. 2K plus died after an elaborate theft of two jumbo jets crashed into the World Trade Center bldgs….he could have done that and more in those painful 15 mins of his carnage.
Why would he stop killing if part of ISIS or other?
What would he not rent another suite and rig explosives to divert even as he slipped away … if he is NOT an ISIS fan.
….that elusive motive. Things that demented people do never really make sense…
None of us know these things so I am truly dismayed by your continued insipid remarks linking him to some covert subterfuge….it resonates what our elders said in my youth, to the effect: you refrain from a fight but you love to make war.
In sum, you speak here often sagely about peace but inherently it seems you actually subscribe to civil unrest and war mongering….a wolf bedecked as a sheep, are you! 😕
“WW, you are failing miserably in stopping the inevitable.”
MoneyB…ya may want to remember what happened to both Mao and Hitler. …and their mindless, dimwitted followers…they hung the last Nazi within the last 15 years, they still deporting the ones alive but now in their 90s from here and there…back to Germany….
….yall like to follow mad men, then have to pay the price…..that is the inevitable right there…..
I follow no one but totally believe in my peaceful life.
Money Brain, October 9, 2017 at 2:45 PM #
Why did Mao say, “Power comes from the barrel of a gun”.
Why did Hitler, Mao, Stalin et al ensure that only their people had the guns?
FOR THE SAME REASON THE DEMS WANT TO TEK WAY PEOPLE GUNS IN AMERIKA
SO THAT ONLY DEM WOULD GOT THE GUNS ……….right out of Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.
RE ….yall like to follow mad men, then have to pay the price…
DE AMERIKANS FOLLOWED SHITBAMA AND VOTE FOR THE UN-AFFORDABLE CARE ACT…………….AND THEY CERTAINLY PAYING THE PRICE
SHITBAMA DONT LOOK MAD RIGHT? BUT ONLY A MAD MAN COULD PUT FORWARD THE THE UN-AFFORDABLE CARE ACT. ah lie?
no i aint lie……..he lied
here the buller if ya like ya doctor ya can keep ya doctor
I USED TO GO TO SEE A DR HER IN SANFORD
HIS OFFICE USED TO BE FILLED
YA WOULD BE SEEN AT 2 DESPITE HAVING AN APPOINTMENT FOR 9
THEN SHIT CARE CAME IN AND BAM OFFICE EMPTY
NEXT TIME I VISITED HE MOONLIGHTING IN THE HOSPITAL AND ASKED A NURSE PRACTIONEER TO SEE ME
YA CAN IMAGINE WUH HAPPEN NEXT
MB
aS YOU KNOW I NOT TOO SMART
CAN YOU TELL ME IF THIS VIDEO MAKES SNSE TO YOU SAH
HELP ME WITH THIS TO MB
DOES THIS MAKE SENSE?
GP…12 months is not a long time.
https://www.facebook.com/OccupyDemocrats/videos/1725757230850657/
POOR ROMNEY
THE PEOPLE REJECTED HIM AT THE POLLS
Dribs,
U are a clever gent, so why not propose conspiracy theories for you to attempt to destroy? There are several clever people pun here who might come across info that I dont have time to find. Incentive leading to division of labour?
The realty star has a new realty show on the horizon, it is called RHOWH or Real Housewives of the White House…….. Melanie and Ivana feuding
GP,
GET TRUMP at ALL COSTS! —–The Lefty Commie Group
What dont U comprehend, Trumpy is ruining the Marxist Plan.
Get with the program GP! 4 Legs Good 2 Legs BAD!
@Sargeant
Where is the link?
Money Brain, October 9, 2017 at 7:06 PM #
GP,
GET TRUMP at ALL COSTS! —–The Lefty Commie Group
What dont U comprehend, Trumpy is ruining the Marxist Plan.
Get with the program GP! 4 Legs Good 2 Legs BAD!
MB I UNDERSTAND FULLY WHAT IS GOING ON SIR
I DONT WORRY ABOUT TRUMPY MAN
REMEMBER HE WOULD NEVER WIN WAS THE CRY HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE
IT IS AMAZING THAT HE HAS DONE ALL THAT HE HAS SO FAR WITHOUT THE RINOS
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Cathy Jessamy-Babb shared a link to the group: FB Senate.
48 mins ·
http://www.nydailynews.com/…/melania-trump-fires-back-trump…
Melania Trump fires back at Trump ex who said she’s ‘first lady’
0ne looks like a melting candle, the other a hardf aced stripper…both airheads.
SOME ONE HAS WRITTEN THIS
There is the option to completely wipe North Korea off the map, something that Donald Trump has eluded to as a last resort in his war of words with the tiny Asian nation. While effective, this unethical move would likely draw backlash from the entire world at large, ……………
THIS IS VERY INTERESTING AS THIS WOULD INCREASE THE DECLINE OF THE USA, THE ONSET OF THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT and THE RISE OF ANTICHRIST (WHICH OF COURSE IS PRECEDED BY THE RAPTURE)
MAYBE THAT IS WHY TRUMPY WAS RAISED UP SARGE.
HOW YOU LIKE UM?
Del Mastro back in prison tonight…guess he will want back his bribe money..lol
http://www.thepeterboroughexaminer.com/2017/09/13/former-peterborough-mp-dean-del-mastro-loses-appeal
Former Peterborough MP Dean Del Mastro returned to jail in Lindsay on Wednesday after losing a second appeal on Election Act violations, but his lawyer stated they are now considering an appeal to the Supreme Court.
Scott Fenton, Del Mastro’s lawyer, wrote in an emailed statement to The Examiner that his client is “very disappointed” with the Ontario Court of Appeal’s decision.
“We are actively considering an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada,” he wrote.
The appeal was heard by a panel of three judges; the decision was unanimous.
Chief Justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal George Strathy wrote the decision, which was released online Wednesday.
David, what a hearty and healthy presidency in the US.
Earlier, you mentioned that this presidential suspect is pissing off the world leaders and it was a mirth moment….but is this what we have come to.
Your favorite blogger has used names like Amin and Mugabe to compare/contrast styles and ‘acceptable’ nonsense I presume, but clearly we are mekking bare sport.
When in our life time have we expected or accepted this level of absolute mayhem from the leader of the free world??
In recent times, Berlusconi in Italy had his affairs, alledged sex parties and other sundry scandals; so too French Pres Sarkozy had his issues. Then of course there was Pres Chavez who said many caustic words at UN speeches and generally, but NEVER did we see this raucous, out of control narcissism at Pennsylvania Ave. Never.
Now we finally have the de riguer despotic strongman of world politics large n in charge in Washington.
And we find his feuding wives to be funny when this leader of the world is spewing that he wants to obliterate the DPRK…
May Gen Kelly fill the prosaz prescrption for his boss!
This reality show has long lost its laff lines.
@GP
Only lunatics raise the spectre of a nuclear strike on NK, wouldn’t the fallout wipe out SK too? Would China sit idly by? That “someone” is a complete moron.
How do I address thee?
Your repetitive use of the N word (earlier) makes it impossible for me to address you directly
SARGEANT
Only lunatics raise the spectre of a nuclear strike on NK, wouldn’t the fallout wipe out SK too? Would China sit idly by? That “someone” is a complete moron.
SEEMS THERE ARE A LOT OF LUNATICS AROUND LOL
ESPECIALLY SINCE THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE WINNER OF THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
BUT I AM FOR ANYTHING THAT LEADS TO THE ONSET OF THE ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT and THE RISE OF ANTICHRIST (WHICH OF COURSE IS PRECEDED BY THE RAPTURE) LOL
THE RESISTANCE IS DOING A GREAT JOB
BY THE WAY SARGE THERE HAVE BEEN MANY WARS IN THE PAST AND THERE ARE AT LEAST TWO BIG WARS PREDICTED IN THE WORD
ALL WARS ARE ASSOCIATED WID FALLOUT
TO MAKE AN OMLETTE YA GOT TO BREAK SOME EGGS
BY THE WAY THE PROPHESY ABOUT SYRIA IN ISAIAH IS STILL TO BE COMPLETELY FULFILLED
AND CHINA MUST BE AROUND TO MARCH OVER THE TIGRIS/EUPHRATES FOR ARMAGEDDON
David
Has shamefully used BU to spread the familiar lie that the US National Rifle Association controls the Congress through its financial contributions.
The facts are that the NRA’s financial muscle is tiny compared to. Left-Liberal powerhouses like Planned Parenthood, which outguns the NRA by a factor of 5 to10.
SOME THINGS IN LIFE ARE IMPORTANT.
I am just expressing my fundamental right.
Where, how and when has he done this Chad?
Okay David no more disruptions after this.
The styling of this second song reminds me of Gloria Gaynor
Great post
Nosw I have to see what else she does
Whitney lite????
@ TheGazer
check Diaspora corner.
Military surgeon says that the videos showing “wounded” victims of the Las Vegas shooting are faked.
by Paul Craig Roberts
It looks like readers are not going to let me let go of the Las Vegas shooting. Some tell me that it is my fault for having alerted them in previous articles to anomalies in other shootings and terrorist events, so now they are more skeptical and pay more attention. Others say that as I emphasize that this is their website supported with their money, I have to see this through to the end. They say it is a cop-out when I say that there are too many disparate accounts for us to know.
One reader made an excellent point. According to mainstream media reports, 59 people were immediately killed in the shooting and 527 were wounded. Among those 527 wounded, wouldn’t some of them have died from complications, blood loss, trauma? How come none of the wounded, people allegedly hit with military rounds, succumbed?
I agree. This does seem to be inexplicable.
And then I received via email a letter that purports to be from a general surgeon who dealt with gunshot wounds in military hospitals. He links to a video of an operation on a real leg gunshot wound, its life threatening nature, and the incapacity that it inflicts for a long time even if the operation is successful. He compares this to the rosy-cheeked laughing alleged victims shown on YouTube with gunshot wounds in support of the official story and says without equivocation that they are actors, badly acting the part.
I appreciate the reader’s point that none of the 527 wounded have died from the wounds. This is not what happens in reality. I am posting the letter below from the surgeon in the hopes that knowledgeable surgeons, military medics, anyone with knowledge of gunshot trauma will assess it’s truth and provide their name and credentials. Not being a military surgeon who has treated gunshot wounds, I cannot attest to the validy of the letter. But there are those who can. Retired surgeons and former military medics can still speak their minds. So let us hear from you. I will compile your comments and present them without your name.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/10/09/military-surgeon-says-videos-las-vegas-gunshot-victims-fake/
If true, it just reveals more and more that the US is a country controlled by liars and frauds and makes an even better case for indigenious native Blacks, Indians and Mexico to take back their land….right MoneyB.
Yeah Chadster….who is planned parenthood selling guns and ammunitions to and where is planned parenthood manufacturing those guns.
Louis Theroux: ‘For all his awfulness, I admire Trump’s shamelessness’
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/oct/08/louis-theroux-for-all-his-awfulness-i-admire-trumps-shamelessness
WW wrote,
If true, it just reveals more and more that the US is a country controlled by liars and frauds and makes an even better case for indigenious native Blacks, Indians and Mexico to take back their land….right MoneyB.
Surely correct ASSuming that we have a scintila of proof that they are not in the same category as you describe eg “leaders” in Bim?????? Many of the darker folks in the Congress / Senate?????? ILlegals who think they own the US already, need some good stick lashes in dem back.
Not any better!
Excellent reason never to give up the guns of the majority.
Mao—“power comes from the barrel of a gun!” he was right on this aspect even though he was a maniac otherwise. Read that and other excellent Maoisms in my late teens, but I fully understood then that Communism, Socialism as practiced in Democracies ie wasteful, loosey goosey political vote buying nonsense could never work well. There has to be Carrot and Stick ie Incentive and Disincentive because too many humans are LAZY and want what others work for.
This shyte WILL change in the years ahead or sayonara to the US! The numbers cant wuk!
“Many of the darker folks in the Congress / Senate?????? ILlegals who think they own the US already, need some good stick lashes in dem back.”
MoneyB….you can always try giving them those stick lashes, as am sure many of them would prove through genetic testing that they are indigenous Blacks, native to US…..
…it’s yall whites are squatters in that region of North America and the Caribbean, europeans out of europe…we have to keep reminding you, your children and grandchildren going forward.
It will be sayonarra to the US anyway, that is what happens when you steal what is not yours….and as one thing always follow another…those countries that depend on US for white protection…..will also fall like dominoes..
WW,
Cycles occur like clockwork—we are moving into WAR cycles in the near future anyway, dominant groups change over time ie the Moors in Spain, hardly white or their land. C’est la vie!
Stick lashes were obviously intended for the Latins that get on TV making like they control de place . THEY DO NOT and you should not want them to either. Why? Latin Am is so well run? Successful? Stable? Not racist? High standard of living?
If they would teach this in Caribbean schools without all the christopher columbus lies, there would be no confusion. ..
“The Spanish occupation by the Moors began in 711 AD when an African army, under their leader Tariq ibn-Ziyad, crossed the Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa and invaded the Iberian peninsula ‘Andalus’ (Spain under the Visigoths).
A European scholar sympathetic to the Spaniards remembered the conquest in this way:
a. [T]he reins of their (Moors) horses were as fire, their faces black as pitch, their eyes shone like burning candles, their horses were swift as leopards and the riders fiercer than a wolf in a sheepfold at night . . . The noble Goths [the German rulers of Spain to whom Roderick belonged] were broken in an hour, quicker than tongue can tell. Oh luckless Spain! [i]
[i] Quoted in Edward Scobie, The Moors and Portugal’s Global Expansion, in Golden Age of the Moor, ed Ivan Van Sertima, US, Transaction Publishers, 1992, p.336”
“The Black Moors of Italy
The term I believe was used by European Christians to refer to Muslims in Spain and North Africa, back when Spain was under Muslim rule. Moors would predominately be Berbers but came to be used to refer to general Muslims in the area — Arabs, African, Berber, or native Spanish (Iberian).”
“The Black Moors of Scotland
THE AFRICAN ROOTS OF THE CELTISH CLANS # 1 – THE BLACK KINGS OF SCOTLAND
JANUARY 9, 2008 DON JAIDE 53 COMMENTS
King Kenneth Dubh – Black King of Scotland
Black Scott Sculpture – Scotland
Black Scott Sculpture – Scotland
A curious aspect of the early history of Scotland concerns various stories around Kenneth. King Kenneth was also known as ‘Kenneth the Niger’ or Kenneth Dubh, a surname which means ‘the black man’.
It is a matter of history that many seafaring warriors were North African, travelled via Iberia into Europe, and joined in many cultures and held power and position. Niger Val Dubh lived and reigned over certain black divisions in Scotland, and some histories state that a race known as ‘the sons of the blacks’ succeeded him. (e.g. see JA Rogers, Sex and Race).
Kenneth III was king of Scotland from 997 to 1005. He was the son of King Dubh (Dub mac Mail Choluim – 962-967), fourth cousin of the previous king Constantine III, and first cousin of his successor Malcolm II. Kenneth was the last king of Scotland to succeed to the throne through the tanistry system, whereby the succession was shared between two family lines and the dying king named his successor from the other family line. This system led to constant struggle between the ruling families and was abandoned. Kenneth and his son Giric were both killed at Monzievaird, Tayside in 1005.
His first cousin Malcolm succeeded him and abolished the tanistry system by killing all of his male descendants. However Kenneth had a granddaughter, Gruoch, via his daughter Boite, whose first husband was Gillacomgain. They had a son called Lulach. She then married King Macbeth I of Scotland (becoming Lady Macbeth). On the death of Macbeth her son via her first marriage, Kenneth III’s great grandson, succeeded to the throne, to become King Lulach of Scotland. According to this history, the blood of Kenneth flows through the royal houses of Scotland.
This story captures a curious fact about the Gaels from Gallicia – some were dark and have left many traces in Irish, Welsh and Scots clans.”
“The Black Moors of UK.
History of Blacks in Britain: Elizabeth I kicks Moors out of England
November 18, 2012 admin 0 Comment
Elizabeth I Motives for Expulsion of Blackamoors from London
Jun 30, 2010 Valerie Williamson
Did race discrimination by colour begin in England with Elizabeth I’s use of ‘blackamoores’ as prisoner exchange currency after the failed Spanish Armada?
The presence of Africans in early modern England has remained a subject in its infant stage of studies, suggests drama historian, Gustav Ungere (2008). As late as the 1980s, historians clung to the view that there is no way of establishing how many coloured persons had been taken to or had settled in early modern England, he states. Some evidence is gradually emerging from historical research; Ungere used Spanish documents to assist his discussion.
African Black History in Elizabethan England
One reason why the black populations of London are difficult to establish is lack of public record. With no tax on the import of slaves, such as operated in other European countries, and anyway a government monopoly on the trade of Africans from Guinea as house servants, it was 1588 before attempts were made to formalise their presence.
Most black servants were slaves, but some were freed men, the majority from Guinea, but a few Moors from north Africa, so Ungere’s researches show. It was the Moors that gave rise to anxiety, perhaps because many had strong ties with Spain, with which Elizabeth was at war, but also because Moors were Muslims.
In what inventories of servants remain from grand households of the time, no discrimination is made between servants by colour, except where they are pictorially represented. Queen Elizabeth I may have instigated the change in that.
Elizabeth I Proclaims ‘Too Many Blackamoores in London’
In 1596, Queen Elizabeth issued an “open letter” to the Lord Mayor of London, announcing that “there are of late divers blackmoores brought into this realme, of which kinde of people there are allready here to manie,” and ordering that they be deported from the country, documents in the National Archive show. At the time the letter had little effect, but Elizabeth’s skilled use of rhetoric may be considered to have stirred a sense of racist differentiation and to have begun the development of a vocabulary of discrimination.
One week later, she reiterated her “good pleasure to have those kinde of people sent out of the lande” and commissioned the merchant Casper van Senden to “take up” certain “blackamoores here in this realme and to transport them into Spaine and Portugall.” Finally, in 1601, she complained again about the “great numbers of Negars and Blackamoors which (as she is informed) are crept into this realm,” defamed them as “infidels, having no understanding of Christ or his Gospel,” and again authorized their deportation.
Emily Bartels, whose research is through evidence in literature of the time, believes that this discrimination remained a religious rather than racist one. Bartels also suggests that the increasing number of foreigners arriving in London were the result of privateers capturing Spanish ships, and that Elizabeth in fact wished to use their affiliations with Spain as currency in prisoner exchange. Many English prisoners lay in foreign gaols, and the ‘blackamoores’ were her bargaining tools.
Shakespeare Black Characters Reveal Racism in Elizabethan England
Critics have only speculated about the identity of these subjects – first called “blackmoores” and in the last letter “Negars and Blackamoors” – and, in efforts to underscore the racial politics significantly at issue here, have named them “blacks,” “black servants,” “Moors,” and “Africans,” Bartels says, suggesting that these terms are more vague than specific in a contemporary sense.
That race discrimination existed in England in the reign of Elizabeth I is underlined, Ungere suggests, by Shakespeare. “In 1594 Shakespeare confronted the Elizabethans with the dramatic figure of Aaron, a literate African trained in the classics. Shakespeare’s characterization of Aaron presented a striking departure from the established discourse of black inferiority. The novelty was calculated, in the first place, to unsettle the average Elizabethan theatregoer.”
Histories of racism and multicultural approaches to understanding it, do appear to stretch at least back into the sixteenth century. The imbalance of power that came to characterise English exploitation of the slave trade and establishment of the infamous trade triangle at the centre of the economic system certainly stems from the political turbulence of that era.”