Another One Getting A Kicking For Stating The Obvious

[ToraToraTora]

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/david-starkey-widely-criticised-for-slavery-was-not-genocide-remarks/ar-BB16gnwq?li=BBoPWjQ&;ocid=mailsignout
It'd be a pretty poor slaver or owner that bumped off the assets wouldn't it?

[jno]

that wasn't his reason for saying it wasn't genocide, though. It was as I quoted. (From your link.) That is total nonsense reasoning, and Olusoga is right.

[andy-hughes]

jno - // I look forward to hearing what you have to say when someone announces “The holocaust was not genocide, otherwise there wouldn’t be so many damn Jews in America or in Britain would there? //

I have no doubt it has been said, probably many times, but only ever by small-minded bigoted ignorant fools in which case it's not worth thinking about, much less discussing on here.

[ToraToraTora]

he used the wrong turn of phrase about "damn blacks" but he's correct that slavery was not genocide.

[woofgang]

apparently (and no I haven't checked) Europeans did exterminate the Carib race.

[andy-hughes]

TTT - // he used the wrong turn of phrase about "damn blacks" but he's correct that slavery was not genocide. //

He is correct in saying that slavery is not genocide, but it is his crass reference to 'damn blacks' that is getting him the kicking he so richly deserves.

[royfromaus]

Getting away from the semantics of the word genocide...using the word damn does seem to suggest he isn't all that keen on blacks.

[andy-hughes]

woofgang - // apparently (and no I haven't checked) Europeans did exterminate the Carib race. //

'Exterminate' is probably not the correct term.

To exterminate is to destroy completely, and that patently failed to happen to the Caribbean population.

[andy-hughes]

roy - // Getting away from the semantics of the word genocide...using the word damn does seem to suggest he isn't all that keen on blacks. //

Indeed, which is a view to which he is entitled.

What he is not entitled to do is to peddle his nasty racist views in public.

[woofgang]

well now I have checked...consensus seems to be that although people of Carib descent survive, the European settlers had a blooming good go at exterminating them so as to claim their land.

[royfromaus]

The BBC keep giving him a platform.

[woofgang]

Andy I didn't say the Caribean population, I said the Carib race.

[andy-hughes]

woofgang - // Andy I didn't say the Caribean population, I said the Carib race. //

My apologies - but my point remains valid. Since the Carib people are still there, the attempt to exterminate them, if there was one, was clearly unsuccessful.

[jim360]

// It'd be a pretty poor slaver or owner that bumped off the assets wouldn't it?//

Unfortunately, getting a new slave was often cheaper than looking after the current ones. That's why so many died either en route, or on the plantations, etc. It's the same utter disregard for human life that explains why so many POWs die in wars. Prisoners are cheap labour, and if they die you can always get more. The "asset" is the work you get out of them in between their capture and their death from exhaustion. So the basic premise of TTT's point is sadly wrong.

Whether or not slavery was a genocide is, perhaps, only a matter of pedantry. Certainly, pointing to the continued existence of Black people is utterly irrelevant. A more relevant counterargument is that women slaves were allowed, and even encouraged, to have children that would... replenish the stock. There is something utterly disgusting about expressing it that way, but there is no other way of describing it.

[andy-hughes]

roy - // The BBC keep giving him a platform. //

They do, but the BBC does not give him a platform to air is racist opinions, and if he carries on doing that, then any sort of platform will be pulled out from under him.

[andy-hughes]

jim - // Whether or not slavery was a genocide is, perhaps, only a matter of pedantry. //

I suggest not.

Pedantry is fussing over small details - there are no small details involved in the difference between genocide and slavery, only a massive gap, because the two are entirely unrelated.

Large loss of life may have been a by-product of slavery but not its main intention, whereas large loss of life is the entire point of genocide, and slavery is unconnected to that.

[jim360]

I'm minded of some correction in a paper along the lines of "Yesterday we reported that John Smith savagely murdered seven people. His family would like us to clarify that it was actually only six people. We are happy to correct this error."

The distinction between the utter evil that was Slavery, and the utter evil that was genocide, strikes me as little more than quibbling. I suppose technically, yes, they are different, but in a way that I simply don't think anyone should care about. The end result was the same, and, to a large extent, many of the motivations are also.

[jim360]

I suppose I should say "is ... is" rather than "was... was", as sadly genocide and slavery can still be found in the modern world. What's happening in China, to the Uighurs, is very likely to be regarded as one of the modern world's genocides.

[Mamyalynne]

David Starkey has never had much of a filter, I gave up listening to him years ago when he was on Talk Radio.

[andy-hughes]

jim - // The distinction between the utter evil that was Slavery, and the utter evil that was genocide, strikes me as little more than quibbling. //

Once again I would have to disagree.

Because two concepts involve evil gives them something in common, but that is not the same as giving them a link.

// I suppose technically, yes, they are different, but in a way that I simply don't think anyone should care about. The end result was the same, and, to a large extent, many of the motivations are also. //

Once again I disagree.

The ends result was not the same, clearly because the motivations are not the same.

Slavery is motivated by a commercial desire to make money.

Genocide is motivated by an ideological desire to obtain racial superiority.

They are not connected at all, despite your insistence that they are.

Neither concept begins, or indeed ends in the same place.

[ToraToraTora]

AH: "Large loss of life may have been a by-product of slavery but not its main intention, whereas large loss of life is the entire point of genocide, and slavery is unconnected to that. " - Glad I'm not alone in seeing this clearly, BA.