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    #26
    12 years a slave

    Haven't seen the film, but if anyone wants to know more about slavery from a British perspective, I thoroughly recommend this book as an eye-opener, blood-curdler and page-turner:

    http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/apr/02/sugar-barons-matthew-parker-review

    As I understand it, history lessons in the UK have improved since my day, when we learned that slavery was a Bad Thing but Abe Lincoln and William Wilberforce had sorted it, so no worries. I hope so anyway. It's extraordinary that I could have had a high-level tertiary education, know my 'Willy Willy Harry Ste', and be totally oblivious to the history of Bristol and Liverpool, to name but two.

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      #27
      12 years a slave

      Luke R wrote: They being who? - other black teenagers?
      What the fuck?

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        #28
        12 years a slave

        Not too controversial a statement to the throwaway line you used. There was a decent enough discussion before that.

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          #29
          12 years a slave

          Of course it is. You know full well what I was referring to: the various murders of young black men that are justified by Stand-You-Ground laws (and the Trayvon Martin case is by no means an isolated case). In the context of this discussion, and your bizarre suggestion that the US has "now come out the other side", a reference to these killings seems very pertinent indeed.

          Your response to that was utterly vile.

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            #30
            12 years a slave

            It was utterly vile because I disagree about what is a more pressing issue for black teenagers?.

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              #31
              12 years a slave

              No, because you turned a discussion on racism on a social problem that is a result of historical racism. It's a tactic racists use, not reasonable people.

              We were not remotely discussing the pressing issues faced by young black men. We were talking about the legacy of racism in the US.

              Believing your comment to be risible is an act of generosity. Much stronger language might have been appropriate.

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                #32
                12 years a slave

                Haven't seen this yet, but I watched The Butler yesterday and found it much stronger on the black civil rights movement than the trailers would have you believe.

                As for collective responsibility .. I'm not in the mood for an argument.

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                  #33
                  12 years a slave

                  G-Man wrote: No, because you turned a discussion on racism on a social problem that is a result of historical racism. It's a tactic racists use, not reasonable people.
                  Just say what you really really want, don't skirt around it by saying "It's a tactic racists use", call me what you want to call me and what you're implying - a racist.

                  We were not remotely discussing the pressing issues faced by young black men.
                  We were. Is your "No, they just declare open season on black teenagers" a closed debate?. It's exactly what G-Man thinks it is. Above questioning.

                  Believing your comment to be risible is an act of generosity. Much stronger language might have been appropriate.
                  What a load of weaselly empty shit.

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                    #34
                    12 years a slave

                    No, I specifically called you reasonable (though your post is putting doubt on that characterisation).

                    What I said was that your statement is much like what racists say. It's a risible comment because it did seek to divert the discussion of white racism and a reference to the Stand Your Ground law to locate the blame with blacks themselves.

                    I'm not trying to paint you as a racist but I want to know what your purpose was in using a debating tactic that is used by racists. You are sidestepping the answer. I don't quite understand why.

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                      #35
                      12 years a slave

                      G-Man wrote: No, I specifically called you reasonable (though your post is putting doubt on that characterisation).

                      What I said was that your statement is much like what racists say. It's a risible comment because it did seek to divert the discussion of white racism and a reference to the Stand Your Ground law to locate the blame with blacks themselves.

                      I'm not trying to paint you as a racist but I want to know what your purpose was in using a debating tactic that is used by racists. You are sidestepping the answer. I don't quite understand why.
                      Do the stand your ground laws mention race?.

                      The social circumstances that find a disproportionate amount of young black men being "legally" killed under those laws are more pertinent for me. Those same social circumstances which breeds an incredibly more significant amount of violence and death on poor black folk in the form of young black men killing each other.

                      More than some kind of organised conspiracy to keep black folk down, those social circumstances are what lead to an open season, and it's not so easy to find solutions for poverty, social mobility and such.

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                        #36
                        12 years a slave

                        Do the stand your ground laws mention race?
                        I fucking give up.

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                          #37
                          12 years a slave

                          Yes we disagree

                          Luke R wrote: More than some kind of organised conspiracy to keep black folk down, those social circumstances are what lead to an open season, and it's not so easy to find solutions for poverty, social mobility and such.
                          Just to make it clear. I wouldn't argue against those who say the circumstances many black folk find themselves in are a result of historical racism.

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                            #38
                            12 years a slave

                            Thought the film was a pretty powerful depiction of how slave societies corrupt everyone who is part of them.

                            If anything the cruelty dished out to the slaves was played down as the reality was astonishingly barbaric.

                            Like most british whites I had an almost complete lack of knowledge about Britians leading and brutal role leading role in the slave trade first in the West Indies and then in American colonies.

                            sugar and slaves were prime drivers of new wealth for Britain for a hundred years from about 1670 onwards (and significant for a hundred Years before that). It was Britians first successful venture into empire and the WI profits allowed the North American colonies to thrive by providing trade.

                            It's only been recently that it occurred to me that the legacy of slavery is a live issue for those whose forebears were slaves.

                            This is a history that should be taught in UK schools.

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                              #39
                              12 years a slave

                              It is - well in my school anyway.

                              Just returned from seeing the film; utterly harrowing and unflinchingly directed, as this story should be.

                              I felt an enormous amount of shame whilst watching this.

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                                #40
                                12 years a slave

                                Well, it turns out that I went to school with the youngest son of Sue Eakin, so as uncomfortable as films like this make me feel, I kind of have to see it now.

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                                  #41
                                  12 years a slave

                                  Also, in researching my ancestry, I have discovered people in my family tree who were slave owners. I feel deeply ashamed of this, and I cringe every time I open an old census report and see a number in the column under "Slaves".

                                  "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

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                                    #42
                                    12 years a slave

                                    http://twelveyearsaslave.org/

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                                      #43
                                      12 years a slave

                                      I went to see it last night (do not go to the cinema right after Oscars night, especially if both Monday and Tuesday are public holidays in the country you live in. That was a mistake). I thought it was brilliant.

                                      I'm surprised to see so many Brits saying they didn't learn about slavery and the triangular trade at school, because I did at some length - but then, I went to school just outside Bristol.

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                                        #44
                                        12 years a slave

                                        Saw TYAS about three weeks ago - a remarkable piece of work, obviously. As suggested upthread, the reality was likely far worse, therefore I'm assuming a decision was made to tone down the appalling treatment meted out to those who suffered.

                                        If this decision was to enable the film to be seen by a wider audience, then it was probably the right one.

                                        This is a history that should be taught in UK schools.
                                        Indeed. I don't believe it was even briefly touched upon in our history classes.

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                                          #45
                                          12 years a slave

                                          Jah Womble wrote: I don't believe it was even briefly touched upon in our history classes.
                                          Nor mine.

                                          Saw this at the weekend. It was excellent. I've nothing to add that hasn't already been said.

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                                            #46
                                            12 years a slave

                                            I learnt very little of any use in History class. Forgettable kings and battles that had no chronological or social relevance to an 11-13 year old. Nothing, absolutely nothing, about slavery and colonialism. Slavery we learnt about from 'Roots', colonialism by reading 'A Passage To India' in A level English. I remember the first thing we studied in history at secondary school was the history of housing - how early houses were made out of daub and wattle (or something) - all shit we had to learn by rote for the end-of-year exam. What a waste of fucking time. Then lots of Roman battle dates, but God forbid we'd take a trip into Lincoln or out in to the countryside to see actual Roman landmarks. (The third year Latin class took an annual jaunt to Hadrian's Wall, but the notoriously delinquent year two years above us got that cancelled permanently due to an excess of smoking, drinking and violence).

                                            At O level we did the history of medicine, "the Irish problem" (that really was the title of the course module), and the history of our town - all much more interesting, though scarcely a decent overview of where we'd come from and where we might be going. Those unfortunate enough to move on to A level seemed to have nothing but Charles II, but I can't vouch for how they were taught it, only that the rest of us considered it an 'easy' A level for those planning to go on and do courses like media studies and sports science.

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                                              #47
                                              12 years a slave

                                              The difference a (half?) generation makes, hey? I learned about the daub-and-wattle houses, feudal villages etc. in primary school history, along with a lot of stuff about the Romans, Vikings and so on, in a way I remember as very enjoyable - we were encouraged to do class presentations for our parents which involved for example making 'life sized' (i.e. scaled down for our 7-or-8-year-old bodies) armour and Roman shields out of cardboard and metal foil, and were taken to see the Roman baths at Bath, and so on.

                                              It's entirely possible that they started to teach us about the triangular trade in the last year of primary school, but I remember it more clearly as a start of secondary school thing (the secondary school I went to was in a different village). That certainly involved trips into Bristol and classes about how the trade had helped to build a large part of the city us kids were growing up near (in the case of most of the pupils at the school) or in (in the case of a significant minority).

                                              On a tangent, down here in Buenos Aires there's a significant Jewish population. As I mentioned on another thread recently, my girlfriend recently took a trip to Israel subsidised by the community. One of the girls who went with her is from a place in Patagonia where there is no Jewish community (in fact, there's a small community of Germans who came down in... erm, well, it's exactly what you're thinking). As such, and partly also because her parents were unwilling to talk about it, she had no idea of the Holocaust. Imagine her reaction when she was taken to the World Centre for Holocaust Research in Jerusalem, to see their exhibits.

                                              I was very surprised to hear from my girlfriend and her brother that they only knew about it themselves from the Jewish community here, not from school. After I turned 13 or 14, the vast majority of the history I remember from secondary school was twentieth century. In Argentina, it seems, that's almost entirely ignored (or at least, the world outside Argentina in the twentieth century is almost entirely ignored in history classes).

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                                                #48
                                                12 years a slave

                                                Very glad to hear it sounds like they reformed the UK curriculum. My kids go to the German School here in DC and get the Third Reich in plenty of detail, including a trip to the Holocaust Museum downtown. We also play a couple of Jewish private schools at soccer. When I take the teams there, the girls are all unfailingly polite to each other - there are multiple, mutual apologies at even the slightest hint of a foul. It's very sweet to watch. The boys come off at half-time and complain some players on the other team keep calling them Nazis. There's not much I can do about that except tell them to ignore it and get on with the game.

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