This:

https://www.history.com/topics/abolitionist-movement/amistad-case

is an interesting story to read.



 And even the eventual court case:

https://famous-trials.com/Amistad

is worth having a read through.


Dirk

Dirk,

thank you for this in depth summary of the event. I heard already from far about the Amistad, but learned it now all in detail.

I agree that Britain was the forerunner in the abolition of the slave trade but I have still the impression that there was in the US after the Civil War a strong movement for the sake of the black population, especially outside the US as for instance in the case of the Congo Free state.

The start of the campaign against Leopold II came first from the US I think?:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_Williams
But with Morel we are back in England (or at least starting in Paris)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._D._Morel

And yes at the end Leopold II had to bow for the critics and sell "his" Congo State to the Belgian nation...
But what I wanted to emphasize this evening, is the fact that a government can abolish the treatment and attitudes towards a black population, but therefore you can not change the minds...

In the Belgian Congo of the Fourties and Fifties there were offically no "apartheids" laws as in South Africa, but in practice the white population lived segregated from the black one.
In the documentaries that I mentioned earlier in this thread, there were testimonies of black men and women, who arrived in Belgium from Congo and first during a whole period had to acclimate to the new reality of a Western country. Here they saw white women do the work that in Congo never never would be done by white women. Dancing of a black woman with a white man was unthinkable and a white woman with a black man was even more shame.

And then I heard from a Belgian lady living overthere and having also a "boy" that several housewifes didn't treat their "boy" very well...

Yes legislation is always good and well but changing the hearts and the minds is another matter in my humble opinion.

Paul.

"Yes legislation is always good and well but changing the hearts and the minds is another matter in my humble opinion."

Which leads, and which follows? And how distantly?

From the BBC website today, it appears that the crime of "driving whilst black" still has sway in the minds of some policemen.

"A Labour MP has accused police of racially profiling her after she was stopped while travelling in a car in east London.




Former shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler tweeted she had been pulled over in Hackney and had recorded the stop.




The MP for Brent Central said police had to "stop associating being black and driving a nice car with crime".

Spielberg made a film about the Amistad a few years ago:

Green George wrote:

"Yes legislation is always good and well but changing the hearts and the minds is another matter in my humble opinion."

Which leads, and which follows? And how distantly?

From the BBC website today, it appears that the crime of "driving whilst black" still has sway in the minds of some policemen.

"A Labour MP has accused police of racially profiling her after she was stopped while travelling in a car in east London.

Former shadow equalities minister Dawn Butler tweeted she had been pulled over in Hackney and had recorded the stop.

The MP for Brent Central said police had to "stop associating being black and driving a nice car with crime".

Yes Gil, I made already a thread about it:

https://reshistorica.forumotion.com/t1318-brave-new-world-predictive-policing

From the link:
In Chicago, an algorithm has been created to predict its inhabitants’ potential involvement with violent crime, which creates a Strategic Subject List - known colloquially as the “heat list” - a comprehensive list of who it considers to be the most dangerous people in the city.


As you see an algorithm, but while the people who fed the data for that algorithm are possible  biased in a certain direction the robot itself is biased and so you can come to absurd situations...I hope that robots will never be fed by other robots and this ones on their turn also fed by robots that are biased by "biased" real human people...

Gil, as I said it is very difficult to change the minds of the people, while many are still in their own difficult to change "inner" thoughts. And it is perhaps still an advantage for the (wo)man, that they can "mask" their inner thoughts. I discussed it with a market specialist, that I could hide my real thoughts during an "enquete", but she said that there are tricks in an "enquête" to lurr you to check if you not cheat.
And indeed I felt it during the "enquête" for my "donor kidney"...I already knew that I had to appear as a positive one expecting much of future life...and indeed in the three pages questions there were some repeated questions but under another form to lurr you in contradicition if you are cheating...

But as I know from my outer circle many people are able to "mask" their perhaps inborn racist attitudes and come over as neutral...and from my knowledge there are more racist people than one thinks...but they don't come in the statistics nor in the algorythm, while people are able to hide their "real" thoughts...

But yes with profiles of years, "humans" can certainly make profiles for instance for Cambridge analytica with a certain accuracy. And perhaps even robots with a reality check from humans afterwards?

I sudder if I think that a robot made my profile on Res Historica  ....at least that robot would perhaps have some difficulties with my "complex" personality?

Kind regards, Paul.