Don Lemon gets schooled on reparations

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[–]Site_rly_sux 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

The host guy suggests that the royal family's billions might have reparations demands.

The guest lady says, that some africans were involved in slavery, and some royal navy died trying to stop it, so maybe reparations should go the other way.

I would suggest that this is not a great answer for a few reasons.

  1. The question was about the royal family and their wealth. Not the wealth of african warlords. So the answer should be on that topic.

  2. The triangle trade was not, as far as I know, a major contributor to royal family wealth.

  3. Slavery being banned by UK did not eliminate the other terrible things which UK was doing which might be considered for reparations. Opium wars, malay emergency, maumau uprising, Boer wars, etc etc.

  4. I don't think she dealt with the question, I think she avoided it.

  5. The ticker onscreen was about the Duchy of Cornwall, the $1 billion estate mentioned. We should talk about this, because it's a very strange set up. For example, if somebody dies in Cornwall without an heir, the prince gets the money to spend on his gardens or flights or whatever. Should there be reparations to the Cornish community (one of the poorest regions in Europe)? This wasn't dealt with at all.

I think it says a lot that OP gets to call this 'schooled' and move on.

OP (and the tweeter, and the guest woman) doesn't need to deal with any of the points above, because in their dumb minds it's solely a question of the black vs white issues they live in. OP isnt wondering about the opium wars or bengal famine or the Duchy setup. OP wants to live in his comfortable white racist-against-black-peoplw world and never concern himself with nuance or actual history.

So, meh, more upvoted trash from the saidit dipshits

[–]Psychosomatic 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (4 children)

Lemon's question was bait to either get instant agreement to signal her virtue, or to trigger a defensive response highliting the historical reparations already paid invalidating any modern claim as gibs. The guest handled the bait well by redirecting the host toward the original sinner in the African slave trade, being Africans themselves. All technicalities aside, the response was effective in leaving Lemon without his usual smugness and arrogance.

[–]Site_rly_sux 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (3 children)

Lemon's question was bait to either get instant agreement to signal her virtue, or to trigger a defensive response highliting the historical reparations already paid invalidating any modern claim as gibs

What evidence led you to that conclusion?

Because it seems to me he's just trying to talk about the news and issues of the day...but apparently he has ulterior motives which you are privvy to?

The guest handled the bait well by redirecting the host toward the original sinner in the African slave trade, being Africans themselves

I agree that the guest redirected, but the question wasn't about slavery. She redirected the topic onto the African slave trade where it seemed she had a prepared answer. The question was not about the African slave trade.

All technicalities aside, the response was effective in leaving Lemon without his usual smugness and arrogance.

I'd say the response failed to examine anything outside of that one slice of history which isn't even related to the royals' wealth, and therefore she totally failed to address the question put to her.

If anyone here is smug, it's people who heard the host's question, and assumed it was about the African slave trade, then plugged in their stock answer to such a question without giving any thought to the topic at hand.

Even in your answer here you didn't address the Duchy's looting of Cornwall, which is the $1 billion estate mentioned on-screen in the clip. Why did you also assume that the host was asking about Africa specifically?

[–]Psychosomatic 9 insightful - 3 fun9 insightful - 2 fun10 insightful - 3 fun -  (2 children)

Since the Queen's passing, US TV hosts have been using racial reparations as a talking point, dependant on the ignorance of Joe public who are an inch away from looting Target again because of some ancestral right given to them in their fiery but mostly peaceful protests. Damn right it was a bait question. There's no doubt that the topic was intentionally derailed and the speaker was smug, but screw any US TV host who tries to bait with talk of giving gibs, for what? Centuries past?

[–]Site_rly_sux 3 insightful - 2 fun3 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

Again this is just plucked out your ass with no evidence. Just a feeling you're having.

And you forgot to answer my questions above.

[–]Psychosomatic 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Forgot, chose to dismiss, etc.