O/T Well it looks like White Lives don't matter.

[rolymiller]

Here you go, bud:

https://www.antislavery.org/

Perhaps you could sell one of your cars and donate the proceeds to assuage your feelings of guilt for being white?

So that tells me you recognise slavery exists today. It doesn't answer why you glibly said slavery was a blemish of our past.

I will ignore the car jibe because it has nothing to do with the point I am making.

[KerrAvon]

Well that's where we differ, Roly. I think it's got everything to do with it. You wring your hands and pump out post after post of guff, whilst doing absolutely nothing about it. Zilch. Nada.

I don't.

[Exiletyke]

Perhaps they fought through belief in their country, the value they saw in it and what it had given them?

Of course it's easy to scoff at that sort of thing now. It's terribly unfashionable in a time where staying on trend means ignoring our long history of liberal democracy (albeit blemished like every human history) and wringing our hands at past failings instead.

You really do talk some tripe Kerr
over 40% of the returning soldiers were not even entitled to vote, some country some belief

After the Third Reform Act in 1884, 60% of male householders over the age of 21 had the vote.[9] This left 40% who did not - including the poorest in society. Thus millions of soldiers returning from World War I would still not have been entitled to vote in the long overdue general election. (The last election had been in December 1910. An election had been scheduled for 1916, but was postponed to a time after the war.

[rolymiller]

Well we'll leave it there then Kerr. You have still not answered my question and I know i will only get the mods on my back for badgering you if I carry on which you know full well hence the side step tactic. I will let fellow posters make their own judgements on the matter. Think carefully before making your decisions as they say...

[crashbang]

As kerr says.
What have you done?
1. Naff all.
2. See 1.

[Grist_To_The_Mill]

White lives DO matter

They're the ones footing the bill

[ragingpup]

There is much within your post that I can agree with, raging, but you talk about personal responsibility, but then offer a blanket get out clause with your 'complicated effect on the black psyche' comment. What's your evidence for this 'complicated effect'? And isn't it just a wee bit patronising (surely not!)of you?

What I am trying to say is that is you incarcerate and enslave much of a race for several hundred years (which as you have pointed out the UK is far from the only ones to have done), there will be a substantial residual impact on the psyche of that people, a passed down anger, resentment through the generations but also, when the en-slavers previously, and in more recent times large numbers of the people you share a country with view your race as genetically inferior, genetically disposed to aggression, then over the years it will have an impact via factors such as self fulfilling prophecy. Which most of us in education know as behaving in the way that your teachers expect you to behave based on their preconceptions. There have been loads of studies on this. Akala however discusses it much better than I do - you read much of his stuff? I really recommend it for an educated perspective on black culture throughout the world.

But as for personal responsibility, just because there are factors at play that influence poor decision making (and as I said I am trying to explain, not excuse, that's a crucial difference) that is no excuse for poor decisions, violent decisions, lifestyle decisions from anyone, whether Black or White working class (as many negative issues affecting both are hugely shared). It is an attempt to understand and explain social factors that influence behaviour, so that we can put in place interventions that might work better for all. The priority of that would be to do more, by whatever means to focus on ways to improve areas that are hit by poverty, as that is ultimately at the root of this.

[rolymiller]

White lives DO matter

They're the ones footing the bill

Evidence please?

[rolymiller]

As kerr says.
What have you done?
1. Naff all.
2. See 1.

Tha boringly predictable I will say that.

[ragingpup]

Well that's where we differ, Roly. I think it's got everything to do with it. You wring your hands and pump out post after post of guff, whilst doing absolutely nothing about it. Zilch. Nada.

I don't.

To be fair Kerr, your reference to slavery as a 'blemish' is pretty horrific and bearing in mind how pedantic you are with how people use words, often throwing a poorly chosen word back in the face of less eloquent people like myself, this is a bit of a taste of your own medicine. Might be worth just going 'Ok bad word. Soz'?