4 ms·

Maybe someone can explain what he means when he said "We didn’t have slavery in the U.K., except when we were the slaves of the Romans and then the Normans." I

Maybe someone can explain what he means when he said "We didn’t have slavery in the U.K., except when we were the slaves of the Romans and then the Normans." I was under the impression that America didn't have a monopoly on African slavery [0]. Is Cleese wrong or am I misunderstanding what he's trying to say? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Africans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain#Enslaved_Af...

meitham 6y ago
He’s just being racist, it’s not the first time.
- dang 6y ago
  Please don't do this here.
  - rsk67 6y ago
    There have been plenty stories showcasing his racist beliefs of late (I won't link any, just Google it), so it's no unreasonable to read his comments in that light
    - dang 6y ago
      I'll take your point that such readings exist, but "he's just being racist" isn't a thoughtful expression of one. It's garden-variety internet flamewar, a thing we don't want here—actually we can't have it here if we want the community to survive. Just to be clear, the issue I'm commenting on is not what deserves the label 'racism'—it's what sort of internet discussion flamebait leads to. The existence of racism, and of differing views about it, is no reason to wreck the community one's participating in. Maybe commenters don't owe John Cleese better, but they owe HN better if they're posting here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22expected%20value%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - meitham 6y ago
    don't do what? calling racism by its name? the man was angry recently because the bbc removed one of his shows for use of the n-word! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53020335 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53020335
    - dang 6y ago
      Don't turn HN threads into flamewars. I'm not saying you're wrong about Cleese, I'm saying flamewars are shite. They're tedious as hell and bring out the asshole in people.
      - meitham 6y ago
        I agree with you that flamewars are bad, and I didn't think I was starting one by stating the obvious. In fact, leaving my comment here, I doubt I would get any objections to it except yours! I recollect now that you posted "Please don't do this here" to me few months ago after I attributed one of Trump's action to racism, and like now you were the only one who took issue with me labeling racism by its name. Naga Munchetty, a BBC presenter has recently been dismissed for labeling Trump as racist on air, but her dismal was overturned when the BBC decided not to be impartial about racism, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49859060 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49859060 If HN moderators believe they should run the site like Mark Zuckerberg runs Facebook, then it wouldn't be the right place for me.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        throwawayinfo 6y ago
        You're interpreting dang in the least charitable way. He's done more than anyone to keep HN a good place, so maybe listen to his advice? "X is racist" is not very substantial discussion imo. You're contributing the very vitriol that does appear on Facebook, and bringing it here.
        DenisM 6y ago
  - sweetheart 6y ago
    Yeah, what? Can you clarify what "this" is?
    - dang 6y ago
      We can start with not posting unsubstantive flamebait.
- coldtea 6y ago
  Yeah, not the first time. People are knee-jerk accusing him with the latest fashionable to their peer-group catch-all characterizations all the time...
rsynnott 6y ago
He's confused or misinformed. He's correct that the UK did ban slavery within the UK rather early (or, more specifically, it was found to be illegal by the courts), and did ban it in its colonies rather early, but absolutely there was slavery in the UK a long time after the Romans, though not in particularly large numbers after the Normans. The UK was, however, the second largest participant in the Atlantic slave trade (Portugal has the dubious honour of being first). Also, English people were never enslaved by the Normans. More or less the opposite; the Normans phased out chattel slavery, which was quite common in England when they showed up. Or, alternatively, of course, he could be referring to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the current one) which has only existed since the early 20th century. The slavery was all under the United Kingdom of Great Britain and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland! (Of course, the reference to Romans and Normans would argue against that rather silly interpretation...) It's fairly common for British people to fixate on the fact that the UK was largely single-handedly responsible for abolishing slavery in the west (via the Navigation Acts in particular), while somewhat discounting the fact that the UK had previously been a huge part of the problem.
- tombert 6y ago
  Ok, this proves that at least one other person thought this sounded strange; I thought maybe I was missing some minutia since I'm just some goofy American.
  - 5thaccount 6y ago
    AFAIK there were no African slaves brought to Britain. In British colonies but not in Britain, and certainly not in numbers that lead their descendants being a significant minority of the overall population. Most black people in the UK are recent immigrants from either the Caribbean or Africa. And that isn't splitting hairs as that is important in the context Cleese wrote about. Americans are hyperaware of and hypersensitive about slavery, whereas the British don't have day-to-day reminders, and slavery is not as defining in the culture as, say, 2 world wars and one world cup. Think of it like Seattle vs New Orleans. The cultural consequences of geography and settlement/migration patterns creates a slightly different culture in each city, despite a shared US history.
coldtea 6y ago
Probably the fact that slavery was insignificant in numbers in England itself (orders of magnitude less compared to the US for example), and even that ended quite early. So there isn't this big legacy of slavery and slave work in the UK, the way it is in the South. It's barely a blip. So if he's talking about UK proper (that is, the mainland), he's not that far off, even though technically inaccurate. Slavery wasn't a big thing there like in the US, and didn't cause any kind of huge Civil War to put an end to what there is... That said, the UK was responsible for much of the trade to the US itself, and had colonized, a fancy term for enslaved, a large chunk of the world. So there's that.
- tombert 6y ago
  It seems almost disingenuous to literally only talk about the mainland of England when saying "We didn’t have slavery in the U.K". I don't know if that was his intention, but, as you said, England has a long history of enslaving nations. Even if it didn't bring the slaves back with them necessarily most of the time, they still did horrible exploitation. (Evidently, not trying to exclude the US here; obviously the US had some pretty brutal slavery, and the only reason we haven't colonized as much is likely due to us being a much younger country).
  - coldtea 6y ago
    >It seems almost disingenuous to literally only talk about the mainland of England when saying "We didn’t have slavery in the U.K". Well, for the UK society, etc., that's the part that matters though, and I understand him as talking from that aspect. Going out and about you didn't see people in chains, and slavery being the foundation of the economy the way you'd do in the South for example, nor were you constantly reminded of "us and them" in that way. The UK's ruling classes, on the other hand, they're of course responsible for the colonies too - and lots of other things besides...
    - rsynnott 6y ago
      > and slavery being the foundation of the economy the way you'd do in the South for example Well, not as visibly, certainly. Slavery actually had a fairly dramatic impact on the British economy, though, both in the colonies, and later, indirectly, during the US civil war, when lack of cotton caused a major economic crisis.
pcrh 6y ago
rsynnott is "technically" correct, but perhaps to clarify: the concept of slavery as existed in the New World was never legal on English soil, nor when it united with Scotland to become the UK. What this means for the fact that the English were at one point one of the largest traders of African slaves is an education in how people can be quite selective in their morals when money is involved.

meitham 6y ago

He’s just being racist, it’s not the first time.

dang 6y ago
Please don't do this here.
- rsk67 6y ago
  There have been plenty stories showcasing his racist beliefs of late (I won't link any, just Google it), so it's no unreasonable to read his comments in that light
  - dang 6y ago
    I'll take your point that such readings exist, but "he's just being racist" isn't a thoughtful expression of one. It's garden-variety internet flamewar, a thing we don't want here—actually we can't have it here if we want the community to survive. Just to be clear, the issue I'm commenting on is not what deserves the label 'racism'—it's what sort of internet discussion flamebait leads to. The existence of racism, and of differing views about it, is no reason to wreck the community one's participating in. Maybe commenters don't owe John Cleese better, but they owe HN better if they're posting here. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=%22expected%20value%22%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- meitham 6y ago
  don't do what? calling racism by its name? the man was angry recently because the bbc removed one of his shows for use of the n-word! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53020335 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-53020335
  - dang 6y ago
    Don't turn HN threads into flamewars. I'm not saying you're wrong about Cleese, I'm saying flamewars are shite. They're tedious as hell and bring out the asshole in people.
    - meitham 6y ago
      I agree with you that flamewars are bad, and I didn't think I was starting one by stating the obvious. In fact, leaving my comment here, I doubt I would get any objections to it except yours! I recollect now that you posted "Please don't do this here" to me few months ago after I attributed one of Trump's action to racism, and like now you were the only one who took issue with me labeling racism by its name. Naga Munchetty, a BBC presenter has recently been dismissed for labeling Trump as racist on air, but her dismal was overturned when the BBC decided not to be impartial about racism, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49859060 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-49859060 If HN moderators believe they should run the site like Mark Zuckerberg runs Facebook, then it wouldn't be the right place for me.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - throwawayinfo 6y ago
        You're interpreting dang in the least charitable way. He's done more than anyone to keep HN a good place, so maybe listen to his advice? "X is racist" is not very substantial discussion imo. You're contributing the very vitriol that does appear on Facebook, and bringing it here.
      - DenisM 6y ago
- sweetheart 6y ago
  Yeah, what? Can you clarify what "this" is?
  - dang 6y ago
    We can start with not posting unsubstantive flamebait.
coldtea 6y ago
Yeah, not the first time. People are knee-jerk accusing him with the latest fashionable to their peer-group catch-all characterizations all the time...

rsynnott 6y ago

He's confused or misinformed. He's correct that the UK did ban slavery within the UK rather early (or, more specifically, it was found to be illegal by the courts), and did ban it in its colonies rather early, but absolutely there was slavery in the UK a long time after the Romans, though not in particularly large numbers after the Normans. The UK was, however, the second largest participant in the Atlantic slave trade (Portugal has the dubious honour of being first). Also, English people were never enslaved by the Normans. More or less the opposite; the Normans phased out chattel slavery, which was quite common in England when they showed up. Or, alternatively, of course, he could be referring to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (the current one) which has only existed since the early 20th century. The slavery was all under the United Kingdom of Great Britain and to a lesser extent the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland! (Of course, the reference to Romans and Normans would argue against that rather silly interpretation...) It's fairly common for British people to fixate on the fact that the UK was largely single-handedly responsible for abolishing slavery in the west (via the Navigation Acts in particular), while somewhat discounting the fact that the UK had previously been a huge part of the problem.

tombert 6y ago
Ok, this proves that at least one other person thought this sounded strange; I thought maybe I was missing some minutia since I'm just some goofy American.
- 5thaccount 6y ago
  AFAIK there were no African slaves brought to Britain. In British colonies but not in Britain, and certainly not in numbers that lead their descendants being a significant minority of the overall population. Most black people in the UK are recent immigrants from either the Caribbean or Africa. And that isn't splitting hairs as that is important in the context Cleese wrote about. Americans are hyperaware of and hypersensitive about slavery, whereas the British don't have day-to-day reminders, and slavery is not as defining in the culture as, say, 2 world wars and one world cup. Think of it like Seattle vs New Orleans. The cultural consequences of geography and settlement/migration patterns creates a slightly different culture in each city, despite a shared US history.

coldtea 6y ago

Probably the fact that slavery was insignificant in numbers in England itself (orders of magnitude less compared to the US for example), and even that ended quite early. So there isn't this big legacy of slavery and slave work in the UK, the way it is in the South. It's barely a blip. So if he's talking about UK proper (that is, the mainland), he's not that far off, even though technically inaccurate. Slavery wasn't a big thing there like in the US, and didn't cause any kind of huge Civil War to put an end to what there is... That said, the UK was responsible for much of the trade to the US itself, and had colonized, a fancy term for enslaved, a large chunk of the world. So there's that.

tombert 6y ago
It seems almost disingenuous to literally only talk about the mainland of England when saying "We didn’t have slavery in the U.K". I don't know if that was his intention, but, as you said, England has a long history of enslaving nations. Even if it didn't bring the slaves back with them necessarily most of the time, they still did horrible exploitation. (Evidently, not trying to exclude the US here; obviously the US had some pretty brutal slavery, and the only reason we haven't colonized as much is likely due to us being a much younger country).
- coldtea 6y ago
  >It seems almost disingenuous to literally only talk about the mainland of England when saying "We didn’t have slavery in the U.K". Well, for the UK society, etc., that's the part that matters though, and I understand him as talking from that aspect. Going out and about you didn't see people in chains, and slavery being the foundation of the economy the way you'd do in the South for example, nor were you constantly reminded of "us and them" in that way. The UK's ruling classes, on the other hand, they're of course responsible for the colonies too - and lots of other things besides...
  - rsynnott 6y ago
    > and slavery being the foundation of the economy the way you'd do in the South for example Well, not as visibly, certainly. Slavery actually had a fairly dramatic impact on the British economy, though, both in the colonies, and later, indirectly, during the US civil war, when lack of cotton caused a major economic crisis.

pcrh 6y ago

rsynnott is "technically" correct, but perhaps to clarify: the concept of slavery as existed in the New World was never legal on English soil, nor when it united with Scotland to become the UK. What this means for the fact that the English were at one point one of the largest traders of African slaves is an education in how people can be quite selective in their morals when money is involved.