Hi @Geri, could I drop a recommendation for the book I'm currently reading?
Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_I%27m_No_Longer_Talking_to_White_People_About_Race

I admit I was put off at first by the slightly combative sounding title, but I've found it to give a great description of the structural racism which permeates this country, the racial narratives and fears that circulate in our media and conversations— it shows how open racism as just the tip of a much larger iceberg of racist thought and attitudes. And it shows why even the politicians who don't openly espouse racist beliefs enact racist policies.

@Remittancegirl @GeofCox @jonesmurphy what was its conclusion?

@JimmyB deal xx

@Geri @Remittancegirl @GeofCox several, really fascinating. For example, Eurasia has the vast majority of the world’s domesticable species, but Africa has very few. Eurasia is East-West, and the same crops grow at the same latitudes from Atlantic to Pacific. Africa is North-South and has far more climate zones including the enormous Sahara. Really interesting research.

@HarriettMB @Geri@mastodon.online

@Geri @Kerplunk Blair, Mandelson and McSweeney are a trio, and their links with various companies are dangerous. All need to go along with Starmer and Streeting.

Absolutely agree.

Blair met with Jeffrey Epstein in Downing Street while still prime minister,

Epstein boasted of his close relationship with Tony Blair at least eight years after Blair claimed to have broken off all contact with him.

Blair visited Epstein in New York numerous times Branson was also mentioned

@Remittancegirl @GeofCox @jonesmurphy yes, but, if you pardon the pun, industry was forged on steel

The Bessemer means of making steel gave the UK economic hegemony in the 1850s and the 1860s

My contention was those circumstances were not replicated elsewhere?

@Geri @Remittancegirl @GeofCox by the 1850s, Britain had already stolen staggering wealth from Africa, the Americas, India and neighboring countries. That provided the leisure to innovate with steel while millions laboured around the world for Britain’s benefit.

@Remittancegirl @GeofCox @jonesmurphy surely, if other parts of the world had been conquered then the industrial revolution would have started in other parts of the world

I don't buy into the "had leisure time to tinker around" idea

@Geri @Remittancegirl @GeofCox I don't follow your logic, and I literally do logic for a living. You're telling me that you don't believe that the profits from genocidally robbing the biggest Empire ever provided unprecedented, widespread leisure to Britons?

@Remittancegirl @GeofCox @jonesmurphy yes, they provided leisure time but .....

But you can have all the time in the world but it means little if you are not near good quality coking coal, iron ore and water

Australia has this

China too

Moreover, with the advent of the industrial revolution slavery became unimportant and Britian was the first to abolish it

I do not need to geriplain this to you xx

@Geri @Remittancegirl @GeofCox if you have a massive Empire, you can steal resources galore. That's exactly what happened.

@Geri @Remittancegirl @GeofCox Europeans didn't just steal resources. They stole a LOT of ideas and inventions. They literally stole and enslaved brilliant inventors.

@Remittancegirl @GeofCox @jonesmurphy @Geri

"Being racist"/"not being racist" is not a binary variable.

"Not being racist" is a _process_ - one where we continually reexamine our behaviors and assumptions.

That requires work. How many political leaders in the Western World have done this work?

@Remittancegirl @GeofCox @jonesmurphy nope, coking coal was removed from North East (County Durham and Northumberland) and Cumbria (West Cumbria).

Xx

@Remittancegirl @GeofCox @jonesmurphy nope Bessemer patented over 192 different inventions. He had a unique and original mind who could think of different ideas including such things as a means to stop motion sickness on ships xx

@Geri @Remittancegirl @GeofCox millions with unique and original minds were killed by the British and the European Diaspora simply for being caught reading and writing:

Anti-literacy laws in the United States - Wikipedia

(en.wikipedia.org)

@Geri @Remittancegirl @GeofCox initially, sure. Then, as you point out, Indigenous Australians were slaughtered by Brits and their coal is still being mined by the descendants of the genocidal settlers. It's been similar all over the world wherever the Europeans attacked.

@juergen_hubert @Remittancegirl @GeofCox @Geri how many VOTERS have done this work.

@jonesmurphy @Remittancegirl @GeofCox @Geri

Not enough. Not _nearly_ enough.