http:// 🦀 Love tech,music,food,life,art,travel,equality, justice and learning. Be optimistic. BLACKLIVESMATTER ✊🏾
London, UK
Joined August 2009
- Tweets13.3K
- Following4.8K
- Followers658
- Likes328K
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
Amy Acton letting Vivik Ramaswami go to voice-mail is a reminder that you don't owe people who mistreat you a fucking thing, not even a conversation.
Not even a concession speech.
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
I hate the dishonesty of Black people trying to vindicate their oppressor because they got basic amenities that the oppressor made sure their people never had.
Aunty Kemi, you said everyone participated in slavery and we should be honest about the whole history.
Then you quietly left out the most important part.
The so-called freedom was not freedom, it was payment. In 1833, Britain borrowed £20 million to compensate slave owners, around 40% of the national budget.
The enslaved received nothing. They were forced into "apprenticeships" of unpaid labour for years after. British taxpayers were still paying off that loan in 2015.
So when you say today's taxpayers should not be held responsible for what happened generations ago, they already were, for almost 200 years. The problem was never responsibility. It was who the money went to.
"Everyone participated" is a deflection. Yes, some African rulers and merchants took part, and that history should be told. But Britain built the ships, the insurance, the banks and the plantations, and wrote the laws that made human beings property. Participation is not equal responsibility, and you know that.
You mention Britain's leading role in ending the trade. Honest history also says abolition was forced by the resistance of the enslaved themselves, from Haiti to the Baptist War in Jamaica. It was not charity.
You say Blair already apologised. He expressed sorrow, and he did not apologise. That is exactly why the Caribbean is still asking.
And to say Commonwealth elites are looking for someone to blame is a lazy statement .
Debt, underdevelopment and broken systems did not appear from nowhere.
Many of these countries were designed to be extracted from, not to build.
Most of all, an oppressor cannot be the one to tell us when to stop talking about the evil they did. Caribbean nations are not asking you for permission. You can disagree with reparations, that is politics.
But as a British politician defending Britain's record, you are in no place to tell the descendants of the enslaved how much of their pain is too much, or when it is time to move on.
Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated. We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain's leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.
If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade?
On demands for reparations, whether through cash or debt relief, we have been down this track before. Twenty-five years ago, Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History argued that cancelling the debts of poorer countries would give them a fresh start. More than $100 billion of debt was eventually written off, but many of those countries have since built up even bigger debts. Labour are already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare.
There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born. And I have even less patience for political elites in commonwealth countries who don’t know how to make their own citizens prosperous now looking for another opportunity to blame Britain.
As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven't done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology. Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly twenty years ago. There is no need to do so again.
This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards. That means economic partnerships to make us all richer and deeper military and security cooperation against common threats. If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
Kemi, congratulations on leading a major British party as a Black Woman. It takes real talent to rise to where you are and deceit is what it takes to rise as a Black leader in a western Conservative Party.
It is a pity the climb did not leave room for a history book and since you chose to argue in the language of history, let us do the history. Let’s dissect your verbal diarrhea point by point.
Everyone participated." Slavery existed on every continent. So did war, and nobody calls a village feud the World War. The transatlantic trade ran for 366 years (1501 to 1866) and put about 12.5 million Africans on ships, of whom about 1.8 million died before they saw the Americas, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database. It ran through joint-stock companies, chartered monopolies, Lloyd's underwriters and acts of Parliament. It was hereditary, because the law made the child of an enslaved mother property from birth. It was racial, because a whole continent was defined as chattel. No other system in history combined those features at that scale. Dissolving all of it into "people from every continent" is far worse than intellectual dishonesty.
Britain was a market leader, not a participant. British ships carried about 3.2 million Africans, second only to Portugal and Brazil. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) gave Britain the asiento, a thirty-year monopoly to supply 4,800 enslaved Africans a year to Spanish America. The Royal African Company, chartered in 1672 and headed by the Duke of York, later James II, branded its captives "DY". During Edward Colston's years in its leadership it shipped about 84,000 people, and roughly 19,000 died on the way.
You say British taxpayers should not answer for what happened before they were born. They did. In 1833 Britain borrowed £20 million to compensate slaveholders, and taxpayers serviced that loan until 2015, including the descendants of the enslaved. So the principle you invoke was not applied when the cheque went to slaveholders. It only appears when the cheque changes direction.
"Navel-gazing" is a curious charge from someone whose party spends more energy on the past (Empire nostalgia, culture war crusades) than most of those you accuse. Defend Britain if you must. But do not use your Nigerian name as the permission slip for arguments Nigerians know better than anyone.
Slavery was an evil in which people from every continent and region participated. We should be honest about the whole history, not select the parts that are politically convenient today, especially given Britain's leading role in ending the transatlantic slave trade.
If Caribbean countries are asking Britain for a formal apology for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade, will they also be asking the same of the descendants of African kingdoms, rulers and merchants who captured, sold and profited from the trade?
On demands for reparations, whether through cash or debt relief, we have been down this track before. Twenty-five years ago, Jubilee 2000, Drop the Debt and Make Poverty History argued that cancelling the debts of poorer countries would give them a fresh start. More than $100 billion of debt was eventually written off, but many of those countries have since built up even bigger debts. Labour are already spending too much on Britain's welfare state, now is not the time for Andy Burnham to be providing global welfare.
There is no reason British taxpayers today should be held financially responsible for things that happened generations before any of us were born. And I have even less patience for political elites in commonwealth countries who don’t know how to make their own citizens prosperous now looking for another opportunity to blame Britain.
As Prime Minister, Andy Burnham should be Britain’s greatest defender. Instead, he is writing articles saying we need to confront our history (as if we haven't done enough of that) and considering another formal historical apology. Tony Blair already expressed Britain’s deep sorrow and regret for our role in the slave trade nearly twenty years ago. There is no need to do so again.
This is all another navel-gazing distraction. The Commonwealth should be looking forward, not endlessly backwards. That means economic partnerships to make us all richer and deeper military and security cooperation against common threats. If every Commonwealth summit becomes an exercise in presenting Britain with demands for cash then we need to start asking if it is worth the effort.
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
As a nurse practitioner married to a surgeon, I am so happy this physician responded to JD Vance’s racism and hate.
This is how you do it. Expose their rot.
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
Marcus Garvey was Jamaican. He built the largest Black mass movement of his era in Harlem.
Caribbean and Black American unity is older than the arguments.
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
Things you will hear over the next 48 hours in light of Burnham’s piece on reparations:
Blacks sold Blacks into slavery
Britain ended the slave trade.
Should we ask the Romans for reparations?
“My Nigerian grandfather was a slave trader…”
“Reparations are a scam”
“Too complex”
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
These conversations are becoming so boring and irritating.
All they do is pit one group against another. Who is better at this and that. 🫣
Meanwhile BOTH groups have been historically oppressed by one common group.
Also, please note there is NO such word as CaribbeanS. 🫣
Do Caribbeans have a stronger work ethic than Black Americans?
Da’Vinchi’s comments on Funky Friday sparked a HEATED debate, and The Culture Table is weighing in!
Is it cultural pride or an unfair comparison?
Watch the full conversation on YouTube and make sure you subscribe! youtu.be/b6zjUtF4-S8
#TheCultureTable #BlackCulture #Podcast
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
James McAvoy on the demise of Sir Patrick Stewart.
“Sir Patrick Stewart will always be the definitive Professor X to generations of fans, but to me, he is so much more than that. He is a legend, a mentor, and an extraordinary actor whose presence elevated everyone around him. Stepping into a role he made iconic was never about replacing him; it was about honoring the legacy he built. I will forever be grateful for the path he paved, both on screen and beyond it. There will never be another Patrick Stewart.”
— James McAvoy
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
📺On February 5, 1994, Patrick Stewart hosted ‘Saturday Night Live’ with musical guest Salt-N-Pepa
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
Racists used to be afraid to speak. Now they're shameless. I don't care if they're burning hotels or writing in the Spectator, we've made it too easy for them with this "legitimate concerns" wank. We need to bring back shame for racists.
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
Can you imagine the public outcry if British media put itself up for awards for covering that Caroline Flack was charged with assaulting her partner, in full knowledge that she died by suicide shortly after? UK press is racist to the bone.
Pedro Plains🇯🇲 retweeted
Why is there a lack of coverage about this?
#YourVoiceMatters
#JasonArday has been cleared of plagiarism for a fourth time. Why is the media silent about it?
As another investigation ends without substantiating plagiarism claims, @richardsudan asks who will hold the British media accountable for its treatment of the pioneering Black academic?👇🏿
voice-online.co.uk/opinion/c…
@aljhlester @SholaMos1 @misanharriman @BellRibeiroAddy @GoodLawProject
