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i should have long ago started a folder of bookmarks to hand out links here when people get up on a high horse about european racial innocence (including british), but i did not
here are two that would be in it. spoiler: nothing people pin on the US is "uniquely" american & it is folly to compartmentalize the US and western europe in this regard
https://www.dukeupress.edu/white-innocence
https://alanlester.co.uk/blog/british-reparations-for-trans-atlantic-slavery-lessons-from-history/
it's a global far-right power grab, people. with national(ist) characteristics
@inquiline oh there's so many more. I have a bibliography somewhere. Bill Schwarz, A White Man's World, is a classic about British settler colonialism
you are very much the expert here and i am not!! TY!
@inquiline not really, my field is African History, but with the rise of fascism and colonial revisionism I was kinda forced to look more into it. Alan Lester‘s edited volume is great, especially for the current debates!
@inquiline the rule is that you get to feel superior to US racism if your country did not participate in the transatlantic slave trade. So Poles and Swedes get to do it, Brits and Spaniards do not
@julieofthespirits @inquiline Let's be clear, Polish and Swedish traders were very much involved in the slave trade, as well as later colonial ventures. Not to speak of all the other economic ties that bind European countries to slave trade and colonialism (also there is the whole story of the treatment of Sami people in Sweden). I don't think there is a European country that can claim innocence.
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@inquiline
AFAIC Europeans invented the whole race thing, so ...