Phillip Michael Hunt

Americans are trained to think chain restaurants are the peak of cuisine

Lenny Henry wants Britain to cough up £18 trillion in reparations because 'all black British people personally deserve money for the effects of slavery.' Funny how he skips the part where Britain was the first major power to ban the slave trade in 1807, then sent the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron to patrol the coast for decades. They seized 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans .. at the cost of British sailors' lives and huge expense. Britain didn't just stop its own involvement; it actively fought to end the trade globally. Meanwhile, in Africa today (per the Global Slavery Index), countries like Eritrea, Mauritania, South Sudan, Nigeria and others still have some of the world's highest rates of modern slavery .. forced labour, child soldiers, hereditary servitude, trafficking. Millions trapped right now. And Lenny's own roots? Jamaica (his parents' homeland). It still has notable modern slavery issues too, including forced labour and exploitation. So... demanding trillions from British taxpayers (including black Brits) for 200-year-old history, while African and Caribbean nations haven't fully confronted slavery's continuation on their own soil? That's not justice. That's selective outrage and hypocrisy. Focus on ending slavery today everywhere .. not guilt-tripping one country that helped stop it yesterday.