Iris Martin

@barkervogues Wowwww....learned minds on display

17. There is a deeper error at work, too. The argument implicitly demands moral purity as a precondition for justice. But no legal system, domestic or international, operates on that principle. 18. Contributory fault may reduce a damages award; it does not extinguish a claim. A fraud victim who was careless with personal information is still a fraud victim. A person who unlocks their front door is still entitled to redress when their home is burgled. If we applied the standard of perfect victimhood consistently, very few claims of historical injustice, or present-day injustice, would survive. 19. Finally, it is worth asking who benefits from this framing. The invocation of African complicity almost invariably appears in contexts where the objective is not a richer understanding of history but the foreclosure of present-day accountability. 20. It functions less as historiography and more as a rhetorical device, one designed to redistribute moral responsibility away from the institutions, states, and economies that were built on enslaved labour and that continue to derive structural advantage from that inheritance. 21. Acknowledging the full complexity of the slave trade, including the roles played by African actors, is essential to honest history. But honest history should enlarge the scope of accountability, not be weaponised to shrink it. Shalom!

Letter to my dear Bongo Brother! 1. This letter is addressed to my brother Manasseh Azure Awuni (@Manasseh_Azure). But in truth it is intended to be read by all interested in the conversations evoked by his recent writings. 2. Precisely because of that wider target audience, I apologize in advance. For my writing will be a little dense and perhaps too academic for how I usually write on social media. 3. For all who follow me; you know that I try to separate my academic work from how I engage here because I want to carry along the most amount of people when I write. Many say they appreciate how I make law accessible. 4. But issues at hand beget their own manner of responding. The issues are at once academic and dense, so forgive. 5. Manasseh is correct. Correct in that African merchant involvement as middlemen in this barbaric enterprise must be catalogued and be part of the broader reparations conversation. 6. Now in having that conversation we must do so to educate and enlighten so we can better acknowledge how we too repair. YES ! WE TOO MUST REPAIR! 7. My worry however, is that we must be careful that we do not tether too closely to the ever regressive argument which holds that the participation of African merchants and polities in the transatlantic slave trade somehow negates or dilutes the moral and legal case for holistic repair. 8. Still, this line of reasoning which many find in your writing, deserves serious engagement, because it touches on genuine historical complexity. Yet, I find that it ultimately rests on a conflation of complicity with causation; or worse, it conflates moral imperfection with an imposed forfeiture of justice. 8. Now, let us be precise about what the historical record shows. Yes, African rulers, merchants, and intermediaries participated in the capture and sale of enslaved persons. 9. This is neither new scholarship nor a suppressed truth. It has been extensively documented by historians from Walter Rodney to Toyin Falola. The question is not whether this happened. The question here is what follows from it, legally and morally. 10. This is what I feel you address inelegantly, if at all! 11. Consider an instructive parallel. During the Holocaust, some Jews run the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst, Jewish police units in the ghettos tasked with maintaining order and, in some cases, facilitating deportations to extermination camps. 12. The moral anguish of that role has been the subject of profound reflection, from Hannah Arendt’s controversial treatment of the Judenräte to more recent and more sympathetic scholarship recognising the impossible conditions under which these individuals operated. And yet no serious person has ever suggested that the existence of the Ordnungsdienst undermines the case for Holocaust reparations, restitution, or even the basic moral claim that what was done to the Jewish people constituted an unparalleled crime. 13. The reason is straightforward: the system was not designed, or imposed, by its victims, even where some among the victimised were drawn into its machinery as key players. 14. The same structural logic applies to the transatlantic trade. The system of racialised chattel slavery that defined the Atlantic world from the sixteenth century onward was conceived, financed, legislated, and enforced by European powers and their colonial successors. 15. The legal architecture of the Code Noir, the Slave Codes of the British Caribbean and the American South, the asientos, the joint-stock companies chartered by European crowns: none of this originated in Africa. African participation occurred within a system whose terms, prices, destinations, and ultimate purposes were determined by external demand. 16. To put it bluntly, treating the middleman as the architect is to confuse a distorted market response with the market’s creation.

@theJessicaA_ Its Tommy Robinson after all..

The state isn’t euthanizing her She requested to be euthanized Words have meanings sir

When it comes to sensitive topics idk why people won’t just do research. Now everyone knows you’re ignorant

Please stay alway from people who used you, benefited things from you, grew because of you and acted like you did nothing for them at all.

@theJessicaA_ The underlying healthcare & maternity system is broken- no beds, power outages, poorly-equipped clinics & not enough clinics....but okay, let's carry money and spend on paternity testing.

I honestly expected you to know better. That sample is not reflective of the population. It is not even enough to make generalizations. And with the following you have and the trust people have in you on health matters I thought you’d rather correct the masses

The story of the girl who got gang r*ped by her boyfriend and his friends, then attempted suicide by jumping from a building, which made her lose her ability to walk, now is getting euthanasia because she can't live with the depression? Those men ruined her life yet she's the one dying? YOH 💔

The most dangerous move is believing transparency protects you. It doesn’t. It merely gives others material to interpret, distort, and use against you. Control what is known, reveal only what strengthens your position, and remember that mystery is defense.

Remember when the mandem weren’t playing Gunnas music calling him a snitch looooooooool

I think being underestimated is a form of spiritual protection.

I love it when people have a really intense job like lawyer, investment banker, et al. But then they’re insane online, or do onlyfans, or like have a drinking problem. I think it’s fab

Hey, this is what it actually looks like to kick someone when they’re down @JColeNC

@frankflynn20016 You sure he has beat any of his rape cases ?

It's taking some time, but number theory tells me that this nigga is fucked. He has beat 3/4 separate rape cases in separate jurisdictions. As someone once said, if they say you raped 50 women, then you definitely raped at least 5.

@_mirceabarbu @MattJury_Law Someone definitely went to report him and we know who. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Solicitor @MattJury_Law , who represents claimants in a UK civil case against Andrew Tate, is reportedly under review by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), according to my sources.

The KING👑 … Shot by ME

Here they come world, please be kind to them 🥹🤍

@patageeee When you go inside inside Ayensu den Apewosika...chale the gutters smell, are dirty and choked. The houses are very congested and the town poorly planned.

Saw Cape Coast and it's environs yesterday, we're in the trenches walahi.

@yaron__zango 💪💪💪💪. Someone can loot millions of cedis, but we should talk to them nicely and respectfully. Me like i will wish sickness on you

my politics is pro insulting politicians. it is the least amount of harm a politician can face for the violence they wrought on citizens. so this setting up civilians to be dragged and insulted for their harsh rebuke of politicians is something i will always pushback against

@IcanKudivo @LordBogos Public opinion may not expect you to condemn them but at the very least show sympathy to their victims. As for condemnation that is a hard line to cross but people have done it: R Kelly's daughter for example

@LordBogos I agree with this. It seems online, people seem not to think so. They expect close friends and family to immediately tow the line of public opinion and condemn/abandon alleged offenders. Not doing so to them is tantamount to supporting the crime.

Your mother has been accused of a heinous crime. You do not know her to be capable of such. Evidence provides irrefutable proof. Where do you stand? Is it possible to publicly condemn and denounce your mother while maintaining support behind closed doors? Must you abandon?

@SSDziedzorm Sending love and prayers. You'll get through it.

My life in the last few months has been so heavy, a little too heavy if I’m being honest. I quit my job the same month/week I lost my sister. Got hurt through the grief and pain. The pressures of job hunting held my neck. Started smiling again and the worst happened…