[ElProximo]

Originally Posted by MTVN

I guess the argument goes that a lot of the prosperity this country has enjoyed, and the reason for our country being the power it is was partly built on the back on slavery, and our generation should acknowledge that and show some remorse for that.

Whatever benefits anyone enjoyed from the slave trade were regretted enough when something called the 'abolitionist movement' showed up and not only did they promptly put an end to that practice they soundly defeated slave-trading not just in the UK, the colonies, the USA but they went ahead and put an end to it everywhere on the planet!

Yes, most of the people who halted slavery were 'white people' from Christian churches organizations and movements but the fact is that the vast majority of people (of any stripe) promptly agreed with them too.

So you don't get more 'regret' than that. You can't get anymore regret than a nation who spots it, condemns it, promptly fights it until it is abolished and then bans it from happening again.

In the USA the 'apology' is quite stunning. thousands of tombstones of the men who died abolishing slavery in what became a civil war. I don't know what more regret you can get but men died for the cause.

But some things do become silly if we continue categorizing people into racial groups and then making them answer for what others in their 'race' did,
and,
as an example I just don't see where it becomes any kind of sense to ask Jews in the UK to 'apologize' because some Jews made big business in slave trading buying and shipping and selling etc.
Yes, I suppose in some way that wealth dispersed among other Jews (who may not have condoned anything),
but,
what are we supposed to do here? find a long gone Jewish slave-trade investor.. then calculate how he made x-pounds.. then calculate the earnings he made on that.. then calculate how much dispersed among Jews (family or friends) then trace their lineages showing how it enriched them....
...and eventually make Benjamin Cohen apologize on air?
Vanessa Feltz and Sharon Osbourne do a little apology advert between segments?
Stacy Solomon releases an apology video and would she give money to the black contestants as 'reparations'?
Half the money for the contestants who are half-black and half-white?

At some point you accept that Jewish slave-traders and Caucasian ones and the Black slave traders made money,
HOWEVER,
they were stopped, defeated and their earnings from that ended.
Now move on.
We won. We triumphed over them and now we don't need to go find their ancestors and calculate wealth % and make them apologize for something they too despise.