How Benedict Cumberbatch's family made a fortune from slavery

[NewDeal_Dem]

High above Bridgetown, the capital of Barbados, is a range of hills known locally as the ‘Scotland District’ ...Here...is a weather-beaten white stone archway announcing that you have arrived at the Cleland Plantation.

The owner, 66-year-old Stephen Tempro, has lived here since 1985, eking out a modest living from the small herds of cattle and goats...Mr Tempro and his wife, Jessie, also 66, eat and sleep in a four-bedroom colonial villa at the centre of the property, where they raised two grown-up children.

The one-storey building, believed to be almost 400 years old, is filled with antique furniture...With its high ceilings, wooden floors, and walls covered with peeling paint, it has what estate agents might describe as rustic charm....During almost half of its long history, the Cleland Plantation was home to 250 slaves, who lived and died in conditions of unimaginable brutality.

Their so-called home, throughout the 18th and early 19th century, was a giant bunk-house on a now-vacant plot fewer than 100 yards from Mr Tempro’s front door.

‘I sometimes think about what went on here, and it brings a tear to my eye,’ says Mr Tempro. ‘Thinking of the struggles of the people who occupied the place can be very emotional.’

Intriguingly, almost every single one of the brutal slave masters who held sway here boasted the same, highly-distinctive surname: Cumberbatch... The plantation was purchased in 1728 by Abraham Cumberbatch, Benedict’s seventh-great-grandfather. It remained in the family until slavery was abolished in the 1830s, when it was owned by Benedict’s great-great- great-grandfather, Abraham Parry Cumberbatch. Slavery built the Cumberbatch fortune, which at its height in the mid-18th century made them one of Britain’s wealthiest families, owning at least seven Barbados sugar plantations and a stately home near Taunton, Somerset.


The Cumberbatch family's planter digs in Barbados

Its proceeds, trickling down through generations, helped Benedict attend Harrow, the £33,000-a-year boarding school which has produced no fewer than seven British prime ministers.

Today, Cumberbatch, 37, is rightly horrified by his family’s dark history.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2549773/How-Benedict-Cumberbatchs-family-fortune-slavery-And-roles-films-like-12-Years-A-Slave-bid-atone-sins.html#ixzz3NhYq2P2O
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Yes. Bernard is horrified -- but he ain't giving up the money or his position in life, both of which derive from that horror more than any other single factor. (Even though he's a good actor IMO, if he'd been a nobody it's likely he'd have not gotten into the acting trade.)

[Frank Cannon]

1. Whatever. Who cares?

Everyone has relatives they're not proud of.

[WillowTree]

4. Exactly. This is all becoming really silly.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. Posting this crap, as though it is somehow important,

Is dumb, insulting, and lowers DU's reputation.

What a stupid topic, what a stupid argument. Then again, obviously he is responsible for what some ancient ancestor did so long ago.

[NewDeal_Dem]

15. It's where his position in life came from. But of course it's unimportant to some.

mainly it's unimportant to those who benefit from such a system.

Its proceeds, trickling down through generations, helped Benedict attend Harrow, the £33,000-a-year boarding school which has produced no fewer than seven British prime ministers.

[Takket]

16. Really?

So after the profits derived from slavery were made the family put them in the bank and lived off them for generations? No one ever had an honest job and made an honest living? Every penny is from Slave profits?

All these posts I've seen on here tracing slave ownership back generations of all these famous people are absurd. People are not responsible for the sins of their ancestors.

[NewDeal_Dem]

58. Slave profits, for example, gave many the freedom to achieve in the arts. Most people don't find

anything morally suspect about a career in the arts, and certainly talent is required. So people like yourself would say "X did it by him/herself!"

The fact remains, though, that the career was the product of slavery-derived wealth. For example, I like the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Nevertheless, her career was possible because income from slavery gave her a living.

I don't say her poetry is shite because of it, but I am aware that her membership in the leisure class, because of slave-derived wealth, made it possible.

[Boreal]

211. I find all of this history interesting

though, as I've said, nobody can be held responsible for anyone's actions but their own. While you're at this, maybe you should dig into FDR's family fortune. I just did a quick search that looks rich (no pun intended) with dirt. Look at this:

Franklin's father's side of the family made their money buying and selling things. From the time Claes Martenszen van Rosenvelt emigrated from Amsterdam in the 1640s, the family lived in or near New York City, and as the wealth of the city grew, so too did the Roosevelt wealth. [...] most of the family money was made in dry goods, real estate and *sugar imports.

(*ding, ding, ding)

The wealthiest member of the Delano family was Warren Delano, the father of Franklin's mother, Sara. As a young man, Warren Delano apprenticed himself to importing firms in New York and Boston. At the age of twenty-four, he moved to Canton, China. There his amassed a considerable fortune exporting goods from China to the West and importing **opium from India to China.

(**ding, ding, ding)

Eleanor's family wealth was also inherited, coming originally from trade, some of it dating back to the ***Dutch East India Company.

(***ding, ding, ding)

http://www.ehow.com/about_4740974_was-source-fdr-family-wealth.html

Sugar imports were part of the slave triangle of trade. The opium trade was used to enslave Chinese. The Dutch East India Company speaks for itself. It's all colonization, drugs and slave trade.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

18. I wasn't talking about Bernard as you call him, but you.

You are clearly responsible for every thief, rapist, murderer, liar and cheat that your ancestors ever created. Are you ashamed? If not, why not?

[NewDeal_Dem]

63. You're laboring under a misapprehension. Nowhere have I said that anyone is resonsible for the

sins of their ancestors.

What I have said is that people often get the profits of the sins of the ancestors, and such profits often help to put them on top of the social/financial/political pyramid.

I think the reason people here keep pretending I said people are responsible for the sins of their ancestors is because they can't rebut the hard fact that the profit of ancestral sin is passed down through the generations to future descendants.

That's a cold fact, and no one likes to admit it, especially the recipients of such benefit; better to distort what's being said.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

237. your "cold fact" has some sort of virus.

it is mere guesswork, combined with envy, yet you blithely claim it to be a fact.

How can you know every financial detail of 400 years worth of ancestors? For all you know, man of them could have been bankrupt, or in debtor's prison, or decided to leave their spawn nothing. Yet you claim to be all wise and knowing, and frankly, insulting to people's intelligence here.

[Savannahmann]

53. You know. My ancestors came from Norway.

I have recently learned that some of my ancestors, who traveled here in the 1920's, before that, they actually killed and ate Reindeer. I know, the horror. Slaughtering the very creatures, blessed creatures that pull Santa's sleigh. It has caused me no end of shame. I've wondered how I could possibly atone for the sins of people who lived, and committed such horrific crimes, before my Father was even born. The horrors I feel. I can't begin to describe.

Yes, that was absolutely a paragraph filled with nothing but. .

There is a simple principle in this life. One that you are apparently unaware of. You don't visit the sins of the father, on the child. The Kennedy's ran booze and were involved in other things. George Washington almost certainly told a lie at some point in his life. Honest Abe Lincoln manipulated folks to get the outcomes he desired. Shall I continue?

I can't fix a thing that happened generations ago. I'm having a hard enough time trying to get changes to things the way they are now. Instead of worrying about who did what two hundred or more years ago, let's try and do something for this year. Let's try and see that no unarmed young black men are killed on our streets by police. That is a humanitarian crime that I can fight to bring an end to. That is a travesty I can take action and struggle to stop from happening. Unless you happen to have a Delorean or a TARDIS, the chances of going back in time and fixing slavery are pretty much naught.

Hey, the plight of those dying at the hands of police not exactly your thing? No problem. How about this as a cause you could make a different with. The NSA and other Government agencies here and around the allied world spying on you and me and everyone. Now, you could bring forth your own generations who will one day point at people and say that back in the 21st Century, his ancestors spied on people.

Or I suppose you can keep posting these kinds of he is unworthy because of something his great, great, great, (I'm not sure, how many greats is it anyway?) Grandfather's horrid actions. Royal families in Europe all were involved. Does that mean we should line the current generation up before the Gallows and put them to death?

[NewDeal_Dem]

65. I'm not sure how many times I have to patiently explain: I've done no such thing.

Saying that children receive the profit of their ancestors' crimes, and that profit greases their way in the world, is not the same thing as saying children are guilty of their ancestors' crimes.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

238. great response. Pity the logic is lost on the original poster.

[Arkana]

161. Oh no, my ancestors may have cheered watching

Roman gladiators fight in the Colosseum.

I guess I have to give up all my worldly possessions now. Wrap it up.

[MADem]

22. Time to bring back UNREC!!!! You can pick your friends, you can't pick your relatives!!!

I pick this thread for Most Unenlightening Post of the Hour....

Unless we want to drag "Sherlock" out and stone him for the Sins of His Great-Great (and so on) Grandfather?

That's such a progressive thing to do...!!!!!!

[greatauntoftriplets]

62. I'd rather stone "Mycroft".

[MADem]

106. Hahaha! nt

[Dont call me Shirley]

32. What's with the "so what" mentality? Afraid of the truth?

These diminish, deny, degrade words are somewhat looking racist.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

35. W h a t. . . T r u t h ? ?

What does something 400 years old have to do with what, what, why, and how "Bernard" has become a fine actor?

My gosh, the stupidity is rank and stinky here today. Surely you jest?

[Dont call me Shirley]

45. Posting famous people's ancestries is not a stupid thing, especially when those famous people

influence our lives. To call it stupid is not conducive to positive debate about the subject. Some people do not end up like their ancestors but many follow directly in their ancestors' footsteps. Do you have behaviors you wonder where they came from? More than likely your ancestors. This is important, for to understand now we must understand what happened in the past. The past creates the present, the present creates the future. In order to fix our present and future we must understand what we did wrong in the past. That is why this post is not stupid.

[arcane1]

54. Letting actors "influence our lives" is kinda stupid.

[Dont call me Shirley]

61. Actors like Sydney Poitier?

[Crunchy Frog]

214. Why Sidney Poitier and not other actors?

Like Benedict Cumberbatch?

Sounds like a form of elitism.

[FSogol]

239. As a now banned member once wrote, "The technique is called "zealotry trolling"

The purpose is to draw out the minority of DU members who are angry enough and naive enough to jump on the bandwagon, thus making the site as a whole look more like a bunch of unreasonable extremists and hypocrites."

[ChairmanAgnostic]

247. Makes sense.

Although I suspect some of the culprits are accidental. They haven't the intellectual capacity to do it on purpose.

[Crunchy Frog]

204. Part of the reason I'm spending less time here

and posting very little.

This place is turning into a caricature of its former self.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

68. FSM help me if I'm ever in the public eye

My father's family was Murder Inc.

[closeupready]

109. Well, that's what white people today often say.

[Crunchy Frog]

212. I bet even lots of non-white people have some pretty shady ancestry.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. So what is he supposed to do? (It's Benedict, by the way; not Bernard)

[NYC_SKP]

7. I think its great that he's making a film about that very subject, the slave trade.

That's far most than most would do, IMHO.

Besides, he's a terrific Sherlock. Have you seen any of his BBC episodes as the famous detective, set in present times?

[Bjorn Against]

82. He already made one movie about slavery

He was in 12 Years a Slave.

[Laffy Kat]

112. Love, love, love Sherlock!

There is only so much you can do about your family history. Cumberbatch has a well-known left-of-center reputation. He became an ordained minister just so he could officiate his gay friends' marriage. He's ok in my book.

[NYC_SKP]

118. I watched the pilot and then I was HOOKED. I wish there were more episodes!

I read that there's a Season 4 coming, I hope it's true!

[greatauntoftriplets]

121. Season 4 article.

http://www.latinpost.com/articles/29344/20141230/sherlockers-and-holmies-heres-some-facts-about-bbc-sherlock-season-4-air-date-premiere-for-2015.htm

Some facts for the upcoming season: The show will be darker; Irene Adler may not return; Season 4 will outperform Season 3; Moriartity can't be alive; Mary Watson will welcome a baby; Molly and Sherlock might hook up (although Cumberbatch has insinuated that Sherlock might be gay); the premiere dates aren't set in stone; Holmes's third brother may appear, and they're already planning the next three seasons of the series.

[NYC_SKP]

128. I CAN'T WAIT THAT LONG!!!

A special next Christmas and then shows in 2016!!!!

Arghhhh!

[greatauntoftriplets]

130. One of the local PBS stations here showed some Sherlock episodes yesterday and Wednesday.

I watched the Reichenbach Fall and the Sign of Three.

[LanternWaste]

243. I put Sign of Three down as one of the best, most cleverly written episodes of television...

I put Sign of Three down as one of the best, most cleverly written episodes of television ever broadcast.

[greatauntoftriplets]

246. Absolutely.

It kept you guessing until the end, seemed disjointed, but came together neatly at the end. And, that was a gorgeous wedding venue!

[Laffy Kat]

124. I believe they intend to continue the series.

It's so popular everywhere!

[NewDeal_Dem]

8. He's not supposed to do anything and pardon for misspelling his name.

For some reason today I'd just like to do my bit to publicize who our social and cultural leaders are and how it happened to work out that way. It's a new year; maybe the iceberg of public opinion and apathy can melt a bit and new things can be born.

I like Cumberbach's work; but he wouldn't be doing it except for his being the beneficiary of slave wealth.

It's a cold hard fact of life, much like the cold hard facts that rule the lives of the poor and slightly less poor.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

9. Are you saying that he wouldn't be an acclaimed actor

if his family hadn't been rich?

I think you are mistaken. Britain has wonderful performing arts schools, and most who attend them and enter the field of acting are not wealthy.

[NewDeal_Dem]

14. Things have changed since richard burton was a lad, m'dear. You look at most of the renowned

young british actors these days, they're pretty damn posh.

[MADem]

24. Tell that to the cast of East Enders... nt

[NewDeal_Dem]

70. You think because actors appeared in a drama about east enders, they were born in the east end?

[MADem]

99. And you think they went to Oxford and Cambridge?

You've never seen East Enders (it's a series, FWIW).

You should hear how "Lady Mary" of Downton Abbey sounds when she's not putting on the plum!

I think you're way off base.

[NewDeal_Dem]

137. I know what east enders is, and i've seen a few episodes. I also looked through the list of stars

of the show and only one came from the east end that I saw.

if you can put on a posh accent, you can put on a non-posh accent.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

25. Well, I've never thought of folks like Adele and

Amy Winehouse as having "posh" backgrounds, yet they both went to performing arts school.

[enlightenment]

27. Yeesh.

"Most"? Get a grip.

Charlie Hunnam: middle-class
Daniel Radcliffe: middle-class
Kit Harington: middle-class
Freddie Fox: child of actors - his grandparents? Middle-class.
Ben Whishaw: barely middle-class
Chiwetel Ejiofor: professional (doctor and pharmacist)

and so on. Those are the under 35's. Look at the slightly older generation and you'll see the same thing.

Just because they present well and look "posh" doesn't mean they come from money. The UK has a terrific system of recognizing and nurturing talent and most schools (like RADA) accept only on scholarship. Money isn't necessary for success; talent is.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

57. Don't forget Idris Elba haha

He belongs on every list.

[enlightenment]

170. I could never forget him -

but he's not part of the under 35 set anymore (for which I, being relatively ancient, am thankful!)

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

231. Yeah, me, too

[WorseBeforeBetter]

150. Tom Hardy, Toby Kebbell, Tom Mison...

and this handsome devil... Tom Hughes.

[elehhhhna]

29. thank you.

[hughee99]

38. You mean famous actors like James McAvoy, Gerard Butler, Charlie Hunnam, Ben Whishaw,

Orlando Bloom, Luke Evans, Daniel Radcliffe, Richard Armitage, Will Poulter, Jeremy Irvine, Henry Cavill...

Okay, so far I've come across parents that were actors, doctors or engineers, as well as a bookmaker and a mobster, but nothing that exactly screams "posh" yet. Perhaps I just don't know who the renown young british actors are. It is a little surprising that I'd be 0-11 in my guesses, though. Do I need to go younger? Cumberbatch is about 38, so I've been trying to take people from about 45 down to about 30 years old, though a few are even younger than that.

And yes, I know that two of them are Scottish.

[NYC_SKP]

46. Charlie Hunnam? Did you see what his mom, Katie Sagal, did to his wife the doctor?

(Sons of Anarchy reference).

[NewDeal_Dem]

47. I started taking a look through your list but stopped at orlando bloom. You can't seriously think

Bloom is an actor of working class origins?

His mother, Sonia Constance Josephine (née Copeland), was born in the British section of Kolkata, India, the daughter of Betty Constance Josephine (Walker) and Francis John Copeland, who was a physician and surgeon.

Bloom is a cousin of photographer Sebastian Copeland.[3]

Bloom's mother revealed to him that his biological father was actually Colin Stone, his mother's partner and family friend.[4][5][6] Stone, the principal of the Concorde International language school,[7] was made Orlando Bloom's legal guardian after Harry Bloom's death.

He attended St. Peter's Methodist Primary School,[11] then The King's School Canterbury and St Edmund's School in Canterbury.



Daniel Radcliffe is the son of a literary agent and a casting agent. He was educated at two independent schools for boys:[13] Sussex House School... and the City of London School, a day school on the North Bank of the River Thames in London's financial district (known as the City of London)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Radcliffe

[hughee99]

191. There's a range between "working class" and "posh".

And I did mention that there were doctors and engineers as parents.

[MADem]

103. Scotland is part of Great Britain--you're good.

The assertion that British actors come from the "upper classes" is, well, absolute rubbish.

All one has to do is turn on ITV and it's quite clear that they're from every strata of society.

[hughee99]

192. Yes, but some of the Scots I know take offense to calling them British

so I thought I'd mention it.

[MADem]

225. Better safe than sorry~! nt

[LanternWaste]

244. You can source this allegation with objective source, yes?

You can source this allegation with objective source, yes?

[markpkessinger]

92. You seem to be implying that only wealthy people are able to become actors . . .

. . . And yet, there have been plenty of successful film actors (even British ones) who did not come from wealthy families, and who were not educated at posh private schools (Rupert Graves and Rupert Everett are two who come to mind). Cumberbach's family's wealth may indeed have enabled him to attend Harrow. But attending Harrow is neither a prerequisite for, nor guarantee of, a successful acting career. I mean, to some extent, we all benefit to some extent from the families into which we were born. There are plenty of folks in this country -- rich as well as poor, professionally successful and not so professionally successful, who have ancestors that can be connected to the slave trade. Hell, the family of anybody in this country with a New England ancestor who did reasonably well in the 18th or early 19th centuries is, in this sense, "linked to the slave trade," because the New England economy was largely dependent upon it, even after most of those states, prior to the Civil War, abolished slavery.

But since there are various routes to becoming an actor, and since there have been and continue to be people who find success as actors who did not come from wealthy families, it really is nothing more than conjecture (and rather dishonest conjecture at that) to say what a person would or would not be doing today, based on family wealth amassed hundreds of years ago.

[NewDeal_Dem]

94. I didn't imply any such thing. But I'll bet there are more upper middle to upper class people who

are successful actors than there are working class people.

For example, your Rupert Everett looks fairly posh to me; albeit he ran away from home and school:

Everett was born in Burnham Deepdale, Norfolk, to Major Anthony Michael Everett (1921–2009), who worked in business and served in the British Army, and wife Sara (née Maclean).[3]

His maternal grandfather, Vice Admiral Sir Hector Charles Donald Maclean, was a nephew of Scottish military man Hector Lachlan Stewart MacLean, who received the Victoria Cross.[4]

His maternal grandmother, Opre Vyvyan, was a descendant of the baronets Vyvyan of Trelowarren and the German Freiherr (Baron) von Schmiedern.

From the age of seven, Everett was educated at Farleigh School, Hampshire and later was educated by Benedictine monks at Ampleforth College, Yorkshire; he left school at 16 and ran away to London to become an actor..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Everett

Both schools he attended have posh graduates; he's from a catholic background, that's the main thing out of order.

[markpkessinger]

100. I may have been wrong about Everett . . .

. . . although considering he left school at the age of 16, it is rather doubtful his attendance there would necessarily have opened any career doors for him. I also mentioned Rupert Graves, btw, and I am not wrong about him. My point stands in any case. And as I pointed out elsewhere, the claim that Cumberbach would not be an actor but for his family's long-ago acquired wealth is a logical fallacy because it cannot be tested or refuted. It is the logical fallacy of unfalsifiable claims. That doesn't mean you are wrong, necessarily, but it does mean that merely pointing to his family's wealth is totally inadequate to support your conclusion.

[NewDeal_Dem]

145. and i could make a list of actors who came from great wealth, starting with julia louis-dreyfus of

Seinfeld:

William Louis-Dreyfus (born Gérard C. Louis-Dreyfus; June 21, 1932)[1] is a French-born American businessman. His net worth was estimated at $3.4 billion by Forbes in 2006.[2] He is the chairman of Louis Dreyfus Energy Services and the great grandson of Léopold Louis-Dreyfus, founder of Louis Dreyfus Group.[3] He is the father of Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%A9rard_Louis-Dreyfus

but the only way to prove any points about the effect of wealth on success in the acting biz would be to set a standard for 'success' and get a representative sample of actors to see what percent came from wealth. But here's a sample:

http://www.wonderwall.com/movies/celebs-who-come-from-money-18349.gallery#!wallState=0__%2Fmovies%2Fcelebs-who-come-from-money-18349.gallery%3FphotoId%3D54219

BTW, I worked (indirectly) for a company the family of one of these celebs owns. And I can speak to a couple of things: it's sweated labor, there are no benefits, you're likely to get sick from working there, as I did, because there are no paid days off, exactly two paid holidays & if you do get sick, you're on your own, sucker.

I got a brain infection and nearly died. From overwork and the resultant depressed immunity.

[NanceGreggs]

199. Oh, wow!

You could make a list of actors who came from great wealth!

And anyone here could provide you with a list of actors who DIDN'T come from great wealth, or even moderate wealth, or ANY wealth at all.

So your point is ... exactly what?

[NanceGreggs]

205. Oh, yes, I did notice.

What I DIDN'T notice is your refutation of the fact that not all actors come from wealth.

I'm not dispensing venom - I am merely pointing out the FACTS. I await your well-researched data on how coming from great wealth has resulted in more wealthy actors than non-wealthy achieving fame and fortune, critical acclaim, and the respect of their peers.

[zappaman]

209. Welcome to DU!

Again...

[cyberswede]

210. Right?

[cwydro]

230. The OP has gotten so far from the original point

(not that I'm sure what that was) and is now wildly throwing anything that might stick.

This thread would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

[zappaman]

233. The author of the OP has been flagged for review.

Oh well.

[cwydro]

229. So you gave up on your slavery tirade

and are now trying to make a point about actors?

What a mess of a thread.

Trashing.

[Crunchy Frog]

213. He should quit his career, give away all his ill gotten wealth,

dress himself in sack cloth and ashes,and self flagelate for at least three hours per day.

And change his name from Benedict to Bernard, to put himself in line with the more enlightened posters on this thread.

[cwydro]

234. This made me laugh out loud!

Well said!

[Staph]

3. Ah, the Daily Mail, aka the Daily Fail.

I wouldn't put a lot of credence into their story. He attended Harrow School on an arts scholarship.


And his name is not Bernard. . . . it's Benedict.

[NewDeal_Dem]

10. Well, here's a confirmation from the Guardian.

Should Benedict Cumberbatch say sorry for the slave owners in his family?

A newly appointed city commissioner in New York, Stacey Cumberbatch, told the New York Times last week that she believed British actor Benedict Cumberbatch's fifth great-grandfather owned her ancestors on an 18th-century sugar plantation in Barbados. They "are related," the newspaper noted, "if not by blood, then by geography and the complicated history of the slave trade."

The actor, now playing a slave owner in the film 12 Years a Slave, has in the past acknowledged his ancestors' slave ownership, and revealed that his mother once urged him not to use his real name professionally for fear of becoming the target of reparations claims by the descendents of slaves.

Such parental advice sits uneasily with the notion of undoing past wrongs that lies at the heart of transitional justice, whereby nations move from committing gross and systematic human rights violations to democracy. Typically, the mechanisms involved include retribution against perpetrators through the criminal justice system, and reparations to victims, including the return of property, financial compensation for suffering, or symbolic gestures such as overturning unjust convictions – as well as simply saying sorry.

But there is a third dimension to the victim-perpetrator axis that is less often discussed: what of those who were not directly involved in wrongdoing but who benefited from it nonetheless...?

The answer is not about being individually responsible, through our genes, but collectively accountable for the structural inequalities that have passed down through generations to shape today's world. It is one thing to be universalist, anti-racist and pro-human rights when looking back, but it takes a more reflexive attitude to history to account for the structure of the present through past wrongs, and our place within that historical context.

The Cumberbatch case involves two high-profile individuals and so has had media attention, but these questions concern us all. For as long as structural inequalities persist, we cannot overlook how far the tentacles of history might reach into the present. The real challenge is to recognise, and address, how much the privileges of the past continue to benefit some, and wrong others, today.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/02/benedict-cumberbatch-sorry-for-slave-owners-family


Now give me your citation for Cumberbach's totally unneeded "scholarship" if you don't mind. Because his family is wealthy:

Cumberbatch was born on 19 July 1976 at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in Hammersmith, London, to actors Timothy Carlton (real name Timothy Carlton Congdon Cumberbatch)[2] and Wanda Ventham.[3] He grew up in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea... His grandfather, Henry Carlton Cumberbatch, was a decorated submarine officer of both World Wars, and a prominent figure of London high society. His great-grandfather, Henry Arnold Cumberbatch CMG, was the consul general of Queen Victoria in Turkey and Lebanon.[5][6]

Cumberbatch attended boarding schools from the age of eight,[7] was educated at Brambletye School in West Sussex, and was an arts scholar at Harrow School.[8][9][10

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benedict_Cumberbatch

I don't see anything about a scholarship.

[muriel_volestrangler]

75. You highlighted "was an arts scholar". Why then say "I don't see anything about a scholarship"?

[NewDeal_Dem]

80. being a scholar means you got a scholarship? not where i come from. being a arts scholar means

you studied the arts.

I asked the poster for some confirmation of the scholarship -- meaning, a grant of money to enable someone to study.

[muriel_volestrangler]

86. Well, you don't come from the UK. It does mean you got a scholarship here.

If you follow up the sources for the Wikipedia article you posted, you find (reference 10, after "arts scholar at Harrow School&quot :

Or perhaps it was his name. Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton were both jobbing actors when their son was born in the summer of 1976. Cumberbatch was the latter's family name; the more vanilla Carlton adopted on the advice of his agent. It was an affectation which Cumberbatch initially imitated, beginning his career as Ben Carlton. Only when a colleague mentioned that his birth name would be a far better way for the young actor to stand out did he change his mind.

Despite his thespian heritage, Cumberbatch's youth was a conventional one. His parents, he has reflected, did everything they could to ensure that he wouldn't follow them into the business. And so it was that, on the verge of adolescence, he found himself living within the clipped-grass confines of Harrow public school. With an arts scholarship and penchant for painting, the young Cumberbatch did, by all accounts, throw himself into boarding school life.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/benedict-cumberbatch-success-its-elementary-2197808.html

[NewDeal_Dem]

110. well, thank you for the reference. partial scholarship, by other accounts.

He also reveals the level of haranguing he still gets in this country for having ‘posh kid’ credentials (Cumberbatch was privately educated at Harrow).

‘I’ve never denied my upbringing. Talking about class terrifies me. There is no way of winning. You either come across as being arrogant and ungrateful if you complain about it, or being snooty and over-privileged if you bathe in it.

Born in London in 1976 to British television actors Timothy Carlton (originally Cumberbatch, which he dropped) and Wanda Ventham, Cumberbatch was educated at a prep school in Sussex, then at Harrow School before heading to the University of Manchester, where he studied drama. He returned to London to attend the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

'I was desperately proud of my parents for sending me to Harrow. It was a huge stretch for them. They were working actors who never knew when the next pay day might come...’

‘I’m definitely middle class, I think. I know others would argue, but I’m not upper class. Upper class to me means you are either born into wealth or you’re Royalty.’

A pause. ‘OK, maybe I’m upper-middle class.’


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/event/article-2314671/Star-Trek-returns-Benedict-Cumberbatch-boldly-goes-Sherlock-Trekkie.html#ixzz3NiLdVzeY

[muriel_volestrangler]

115. "It was a huge stretch for them."

And that's the relevant thing here. There isn't a vast stash of family money allowing them to send children to a private school without a thought, whether derived from slave-owning or something else.

[NewDeal_Dem]

119. According to him, his grandmother paid 2/3 of his fee at Harrow. That's about 20K a year. I know

my grandmother couldn't swing that.


Edmund Talbot's social position is something that Cumberbatch can readily identify with, having been sent to Harrow, one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the UK.

"The upbringing I had was a privileged one, but by default. My grandmother paid for two thirds of my fee, so I was a very middle class kid by most standards. I was surrounded by Lord Rothschild's son, Prince Hussein's son, dignitaries, princes and peers left right and centre.

"That is not to be critical of it, but the assumption of authority and position that these people are born into was something I immediately identified in Edmund.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/05_may/19/earth5.shtml


I have no idea what he means by he was middle class by most standards. In the UK, if grandma can pay for private school tuition at the most prestigious school in the country, you're middle class?

[NewDeal_Dem]

123. Benedict Cumberbatch, star of Sherlock, has talked about posh-bashing in the UK.

He apparently complains of being "castigated as a moaning, rich public school bastard", saying the whole thing makes him want to move to the States. Well, if that's what he really means, fine, see you later, posh boy. Do one!

Even if posh-bashing is technically a hate crime, no one cares much. "Oh dear, have you been cas-ti-gated for being posh? Have they forced you to play a toff again? Poor you, I'm going to cry." It might not be pretty, but this attitude is embedded in the Brit DNA, and for good reason. Mocking the posh and smirking about silver spoons rammed into gobs is a comic artform honed by the masses as a response to centuries of oppression. Unlike chav-baiting, which was pure bullying, posh-bashing is part of an instinctive protest against inequality that lies at the very core of sociopolitical emancipation.

What's odd is that increasingly the posh-bashed are complaining and sulking, which is simply not the right way to handle it. The correct, the only, response is to laugh along, conceding that, yes, you were born into fortunate circumstances, but this doesn't automatically mean that you are a painful buffoon, without an ounce of self-awareness.

This is even more necessary now that we have an Eton-heavy, millionaire-stuffed cabinet, with legislation against the socially disadvantaged at an all-time high. And the gap between the haves and the have-nots is getting wider by the second. Which brings us to the only really important point about the ethics of posh-bashing. While I'm sure it can get a bit tiresome, all things considered, aren't they getting off lightly?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/19/barbara-ellen-stop-whingeing-benedict-cumberbatch

Apparently at least some Britons believe Cumberbatch to be a toff too.

[tammywammy]

85. ...

With an arts scholarship and penchant for painting, the young Cumberbatch did, by all accounts, throw himself into boarding school life.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/benedict-cumberbatch-success-its-elementary-2197808.html

And here:
http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&source=android-browser&hl=en-US&q=benedict+cumberbatch#hl=en&q=benedict+cumberbatch+harrow+school+scholarship

[NewDeal_Dem]

116. ...

Edmund Talbot's social position is something that Cumberbatch can readily identify with, having been sent to Harrow, one of the most prestigious boarding schools in the UK.

"The upbringing I had was a privileged one, but by default. My grandmother paid for two thirds of my fee, so I was a very middle class kid by most standards. I was surrounded by Lord Rothschild's son, Prince Hussein's son, dignitaries, princes and peers left right and centre.

"That is not to be critical of it, but the assumption of authority and position that these people are born into was something I immediately identified in Edmund.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2005/05_may/19/earth5.shtml

[NYC_SKP]

5. Neither would I give up the money or position in life.

For one thing, there's no rational equitable way to determine how to make reparations.

I might, however, exercise those resources to advocate for stronger social programs and other services that might help prevent future acts of oppression.

I might, also, want to use my career to expose the sins of the past, in hopes that history won't so easily repeat itself.

Oh, wait, he's making a film about that "dark history"? Excellent!

And the current landowner, Mr. Tempro, is allowing this and is, himself, disgusted by the past, the "dirty little secret" (according to the daily mail)?

Well, not much of a secret then, is it?

BTW, you MUST watch an episode of Sherlock on BBC, Netflix has all the episodes!

[NewDeal_Dem]

12. I've seen Sherlock; I like it. I like Cumberbach (or at least his persona). But I'll say it's damn

easy to express disgust with the past when you're rich and comfortable because of it.

He's making a movie about slavery and getting paid well for it. I don't see the big victory.

[Dont call me Shirley]

48. You've really hit a raw nerve with your ancestry posts NewDeal_Dem. A lot of peeps have their

undies in a twist about this subject.

[NanceGreggs]

60. The only 'undies' at risk here ...

... are the ones folks are trying to keep dry - because they're laughing so hard, they're in danger of pissing themselves.

[Dont call me Shirley]

77. If they're really twisted in a knot, nothing can evacuate

[NanceGreggs]

97. New flash:

When people are rolling in the aisles with laughter at an utterly brainless notion (as the one in the OP), it doesn't mean they're knickers are in a twist, nor does it mean a "nerve" has been hit.

It means the obvious: that posters are laughing at someone's incredibly laugh-worthy notion - and the notion that the proceeds of slavery (which stopped in the 1830s when slavery was abolished), "helped Benedict attend Harrow" is as laugh-worthy as it gets.

Whatever funds existed in 1830 within the family would have dissipated generations ago - were it not for the fact that newly-acquired income, having NOTHING TO DO WITH SLAVERY, was generated by family members since that time.

The only posters here with their panties in a wad are the ones who are defending the OP - not the ones who are laughing at it.

[Dont call me Shirley]

98. Ok so, let me get this: history is insignificant

[NanceGreggs]

107. Yeah. That's EXACTLY what I said.

The fact that a family fortune that existed in 1830 did not fund an education acquired in the 1990s IS DIRECTLY EQUIVALENT to saying "history is insignificant".

Jesus Hussein Christ. What you don't "get" could fill volumes.

[Dont call me Shirley]

111. Thanks Nancy, you're so kind

Holier than thou.

[NanceGreggs]

117. Not holier than thou ...

... just way more interested in actual facts than thou.

[Dont call me Shirley]

122. I love facts. I love reading facts. I love learning facts.

What I don't like is people who put other people down for reporting or agreeing with certain facts.

[NanceGreggs]

133. What you're missing entirely ...

... is the FACT that the family fortune that existed in 1830 could not possibly have funded an education in the 1990s without the infusion of newly-generated income in the intervening years.

If you were truly interested in "FACTS" you would have known that, without it having to be pointed out to you.

[kwassa]

144. BUT, that 1830s fortune can be the foundation of the rest of the family fortune

which did fund the 1990s education. This is a historical continuum. One thing led to another.

As white privilege goes, this is an outstanding example.

I still think he bears no responsibility, but he has inherited money with a problematic history.

[NewDeal_Dem]

148. I think people generally take it for granted that capitalists reinvest their capital. To make more

capital. Wouldn't think we'd have to point it out to you.

[NewDeal_Dem]

136. why would you think the proceeds from slavery wouldn't be reinvested? In industry, for example?

In his famous 1944 book 'Capitalism and Slavery', the Trinidadian scholar Eric Williams argued that profits from slavery 'fertilised' many branches of the metropolitan economy and set the scene for England's industrial revolution'.

His thesis has focused decades of debate and controversy. It correctly identified the very great intimacy in 18th-century Britain between making money from slavery on the one hand, and the financing of British capitalist development, on the other.

British capitalism was a cause rather than consequence of slave plantation development. But the fit between slave plantation growth and industrial advance in Britain was to be impressive and sustained. The plantation colonies supplied the mother country with a growing stream of popular luxuries - dyestuffs, sugar, tobacco, then later coffee and chocolate as well - and cotton, a crucial industrial input....

While the idea of inherited guilt is wrong-headed - we are not responsible for our forebears' crimes and misdeeds - the idea of inherited privilege is perfectly valid.

Britain got off to a good start at the time of the Industrial Revolution, and Britons today still enjoy a consequent afterglow of prosperity.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/industrialisation_article_01.shtml

[NanceGreggs]

141. Of course it was reinvested.

Which generated new income, which was in turn reinvested. Which generated more new income, which was again reinvested, and on it went - until eventually the proceeds from the slavery business no longer existed, having been supplanted by the proceeds of legitimate business earnings over generations.

That is precisely why your comment about the proceeds of slavery "trickling down through generations, helped Benedict attend Harrow." is beyond laughable. The only way that could be true would be if not a single penny of the original family fortune of the 1830s had ever been added to, and the money that paid for Cumberbatch's education came solely from whatever slavery-generated fortune the family held well over a century ago.

[kwassa]

146. So, the money is clean because it was laundered by generations after it?

[NanceGreggs]

158. The proceeds of slavery ...

... were not 'laundered' - they were invested in other legitimate business ventures. And they increased as a result of that investment, not as a result of slavery.

If we are to consider any funds that were generated centuries ago to be "unclean" by virtue of their initial
sources, there probably isn't a single dollar in circulation today that isn't "tainted" as a result thereof.

If someone's great-great-great-grandfather started a shoe-shine business with $5 he cheated someone out of in a poker game, and that man's descendants worked, generation after generation, to build that shoe-shine business into a chain of shoe outlets, would you accuse those descendants of "laundering" that five dollars over and over again?

[kwassa]

165. You can't separate the two, and if you think you can ....

I think that is delusional. Just sayin'. We live in a continuum, and so does that money.

One leads to the other. The Mafia and various other drug organizations invest in legitimate businesses, too, it does not make that money clean.

I don't think that Cumberbatch owes anybody anything, but it is also absolutely true that his inherited financial state comes from money from the slave trade. How he feels about that is up to him.

[NanceGreggs]

173. Cumberbatch's inheritance ...

... comes from generations of investments in legitimate businesses since the 1830s. You can ignore that fact all you want - it doesn't make it less of a fact.

By your logic, any "unclean" money that was ever in the possession of one's ancestors - whether through the slave trade, cheating, theft, picking pockets, selling snake-oil as a cure for illness, etc. - completely negates any "legitimate money" generated by their descendants.

The Mafia and drug organizations invest in legitimate businesses in order to "launder" money they are currently generating through crime and drugs. They are NOT laundering money their great-great-great-great-grandfathers made two centuries ago from the slave trade.

[kwassa]

182. Like I said, the money is laundered.

You say dirty money invested in clean businesses becomes clean. I say, not exactly.

and I am not saying that the current money is completely illegitimate. Dirty money was the source, and dirty money invested in any bank will over almost 200 years will earn lots of return on investment. The source was still dirty and generated the clean wealth. There is no line you can draw between the two.

[NanceGreggs]

198. I didn't say ...

... that dirty money becomes clean. I said that dirty money invested in a legitimate business generates legitimate money. And the legitimate money replaces the dirty money over time.

"The source was still dirty and generated the clean wealth." No, the clean wealth was generated by wise investments - it didn't generate itself.

[kwassa]

228. How can the money become legitimate if the source was dirty?

This makes absolutely no sense. The money is tainted, and remains tainted.

[NewDeal_Dem]

188. you don't know how it was invested. maybe it was invested in child labor or textile sweatshops

maybe it was invested in American or Brazilian plantations, maybe it was invested in opium (since the cumerbachs had 2 generations of Turkish consuls) -- you don't know.

regardless of how it was invested, even investing dirty money in legitimate business = money laundering.

laundering is how one 'cleans' dirty money.

all you're saying is: crime is forgiven if enough time goes by.

[NewDeal_Dem]

187. you apparently don't know what 'laundered money' is, despite your vast knowlege (which i bow to,

of course):


Money laundering is the process in which the proceeds of crime are transformed into ostensibly legitimate money or other assets.

Money laundering - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[NanceGreggs]

196. Money laundering ...

... is a means by which illegally-generated funds are invested in legitimate businesses in order to hide the origins of illegitimately-obtained funds.

The Cumberbatch family had no reason to hide the source of their funds, as said monies were generated by what was then a legitimate business (slavery).

The family fortune was then added to by their descendants through legitimate investments. Again - no need to "launder" money that had originated from a business that was legal at the time it was earned, and no need to "launder" money that was subsequently earned through legitimate means.

As you said yourself, "Money laundering is the process in which the proceeds of crime are transformed into ostensibly legitimate money or other assets."

Given that slavery was legal at the time, the proceeds emanating from that legal business did not require "laundering", or even an explanation as to where the funds came from. They came from a legitimate business enterprise - and stopped being generated when that business became illegal.

By your logic, people who amassed fortunes in the liquor business pre-Prohibition had to "launder" their money in order to hide its origins once Prohibition became law. We all know they DIDN'T - because their fortunes were made at a time when the sale and distribution of liquor was legal.

[NewDeal_Dem]

201. slavery became illegal in england and its possessions in 1833. The cumberbatches owned

plantations in Barbados until slavery was made illegal.

That's when they had to reinvest the ill-gotten gains.

and whether slavery was "legal" or not, it was always a crime, and there were plenty of people who knew it, even at the time. Some chose to profit from it, others chose not to.

[NewDeal_Dem]

149. LOL. So say drug dealers everywhere. Yet they still go to prison.

People like yourself apparently get all riled up when it's suggested that the rich and powerful might have gained some of their privilege from slavery.

Yet you're very eager to tar whites generally, even if their ancestors never had a single connection with slavery, even if they came over on a boat long after it ended, as beneficiaries of generalized 'white privilege'.

But the descendants of the people who actually instigated and profited from slavery -- well, that money and power becomes somehow clean through the generations.

But this specious 'privilege' of the lower to middle classes -- somehow is never cleansed.


What a crock. What twisted apologetics.

[NewDeal_Dem]

172. no, i'm just too dumb to understand the english language well as you do, miz nance

(but I have better manners)

[NanceGreggs]

175. You apparently think ...

... that accusing someone of "tarring whites", because they have pointed out your inane bullshit for what it is, as demonstrative of having "better manners".

There is nothing more amusing than watching someone state the utterly ridiculous - who then gets accusatory when they're laughed at for being utterly ridiculous.

[NewDeal_Dem]

181. and you apparently think that moving ill-gotten money around cleans it.

for the record, here's what I said:

People like yourself apparently get all riled up when it's suggested that the rich and powerful might have gained some of their privilege from slavery.

Yet you're very eager to tar whites generally, even if their ancestors never had a single connection with slavery, even if they came over on a boat long after it ended, as beneficiaries of generalized 'white privilege'.

But the descendants of the people who actually instigated and profited from slavery -- well, that money and power becomes somehow clean through the generations.

But this specious 'privilege' of the lower to middle classes -- somehow is never cleansed.

[NewDeal_Dem]

151. what a stupid claim. the slave trade was the source of any money the family had to invest. it was

the foundation of the fortune, and the foundation was blood.

[NanceGreggs]

162. You still haven't explained ...

... how money accumulated in the 1800s funded an education in the 1990s. And that WAS your claim in the OP.

[NewDeal_Dem]

174. but miz nance, you've already explained to us illiterates that invested dirty money becomes clean

over time.

so nothing more to be said, is there?

I would never argue with anyone so smart as you, who writes as well as you. why my goodness, no.

[NewDeal_Dem]

189. I don't give a fig about your stupid grandfather and his lousy $10.

[NanceGreggs]

197. As I don't give a fuck ...

... about your idiotic notion that Benedict Cumberbatch's education was financed by funds from a family business that ended almost two hundred years ago.

[NewDeal_Dem]

203. Then why are you here dispensing your venomous literary droppings? For someone who

doesn't give a 'fuck' you sure are spending a lot of time on the topic.

But if you don't give a fuck, please go away, because the waves of venomous ill-will are psychically damaging to living things.

of which I am still one, despite being worked nearly to death as sweated labor.

[NanceGreggs]

208. I am here posting replies ...

... to your bullshit - as I've a right to do.

Replies to an OP on a message board have nothing to do with "literary droppings" whatsoever. They are what they are - replies to an idiotic OP.

"... psychically damaging to living things, of which I am still one, despite being worked nearly to death as sweated labor."

[NewDeal_Dem]

81. wow, another country heard from. i guess i really -have- hit a nerve.

[NanceGreggs]

90. The only 'nerve' you're hitting ...

is the "funny bone" nerve.

[MohRokTah]

96. It is pretty damned hilarious. eom

[NewDeal_Dem]

152. ironic

[greatauntoftriplets]

91. It's called the funny bone.

[MohRokTah]

95. +1,000,000,000,000 eom

[DonCoquixote]

6. to be fair

He makes more money being Sherlock and Khan than he does from being the great several times removed grandson.

[NewDeal_Dem]

13. To be fair; he's in a position to make so much money because he's the several times removed

grandson; because of the flow of money and power down through the generations.

[Takket]

20. Sorry but that supposition is total bullshit

[GeorgeGist]

30. To be fair;

how should he be punished?

[NewDeal_Dem]

49. It's not personal. But people without such advantages should understand how things really work

instead of being fed pablum all their lives.

[DonCoquixote]

127. how much did he actually get?

simply put, he might never have seen a dime of it. His parents were actors, and that might have given him an edge, the waty way he could be a plumber if his parents were plumbers.

[markpkessinger]

93. Your claim is one of the classic logical fallacies

To say what Cumberbach would or would not be doing absent the wealth his family accrued a couple of centuries ago is to make a claim that cannot be tested or refuted. Hence, it falls into the classic logical fallacy of unfalsifiability. Thus, the discussion lies outside of the rational universe.

[Dr. Strange]

113. In fairness...

90% of General Discussion lies outside of the rational universe.

[DonCoquixote]

126. how much money did her acyually GET though?

There are people whose grandparents may have been well to do how never saw a penny of it. He did go to a good school, but was that because of grandpa, or himself?

[NewDeal_Dem]

155. 2/3 of his tuition at harrow was paid by his grandma. that was about 20K/year for about 4 years.

As of 2014/15, Harrow School charges £34,590 (about €40,000 or $54,000) per year for board and tuition.[26]

A few select students can obtain either means-tested bursaries for exceptionally able students of parents who may not be able to afford school fees.

There are also excellence-based scholarships to reduce this amount. Scholarships (30 per year, awarded before the admission to Harrow) can reduce fees by 5–10%, bursaries can reduce fees in some rare hardship cases by up to 95%.[27]

Charging up to £11,530 per term in 2014/15, Harrow is the 5th most expensive HMC boarding school in the UK according to the website privateschoolfees.co.uk, which provides a comprehensive compilation of fees charged by each HMC school.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrow_School

[LordGlenconner]

17. Easily one of the silliest OPs I've seen in awhile

But...but...he got where he is because of his family's money.

Uh, no. He didn't.

Either you have talent or you don't. I don't watch Sherlock. But I know he has some level of talent, and is using it.

As opposed to someone just sitting around, you know, being bitter.

Is there an eye roll smiley?

[joeybee12]

23. This?

[JI7]

37. exactly, those with connections and family name/money without talent would do some shitty reality

shows and similar crap like the kardashians .

[NewDeal_Dem]

83. Shitty reality shows pay well; better than 90-95% of the working population, I'd bet.

[NewDeal_Dem]

52. Funny how 'talent' seems to accrue more to those who come from 30,000/year schools than

working class schools, your lordship.

[Pisces]

19. Am I suppose to be mad at Benedict because of something his great, great, great, great grandfather

did? Go away with your fake petty outrage. Plenty of wrongs in the world to be fixed. Going back in time isn't one of
them.

[MohRokTah]

21. So we're now punishing people for the sins of the father?

Yeah, unto 8 or 9 generations now?

[JI7]

41. the OP thinks people like cumberbatch are more to blame for emmett till's death, racist cops

etc than the cops and killers themselves because the cops and killers are not wealthy and don't live in mansions.

[NewDeal_Dem]

156. I remember -YOU- attributing that view to me, but I don't remember espousing it.

[Trillo]

26. I find the responses to your recents posts quite curious for a "progressive" political board.

One of the biggest problems today is the wealth inequality, the difference between the poorest and even average person's income and the vastly greater 0.1%'s income. Wealth passed from generation to generation builds up huge fortunes that the recipients evidently don't need, because, to paraphrase a number of the posters above, they would have made it all back anyway.

If anything, your posts, and particularly the commenters to them, are showing why inheritances should be taxed away to nothing.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

64. We'll probably die completely broke

But if we had money, why shouldn't I be able to do what I want with my own money?

I do believe in graduated estate taxes (the higher the wealth, the higher the tax), but one should be able to leave wealth to the people of one's choosing.

[Trillo]

71. I don't think there's an easy answer.

Either income inequality is something of concern to *all* of us, or it's not. It has long been known, when it gets extreme, to be a predictor of collapse. A simple websearch confirms this, but I specifically refer to Will Durant.

Is it fair that some kids born into poor families will get nothing from them, while others, lets say the Walton family, get so very much?

The same argument can be applied on a graduated scale. Is it fair some kids will get nothing, but others will get a nest egg that might be big enough to put a down payment on a home, while the poor kids who got nothing end up renting for their entire lives?

We can't even get equal treatment in policing. The wealthy and THEIR police insure that.

[NanceGreggs]

125. I have friends ...

... and relatives whose working-class parents scrimped and did without, in order to build up savings accounts to help their children pay for higher education, down payments on homes, start-up funds for a small business, etc.

Are you saying that those parents had no right to do so? Are you saying that their children are not entitled to whatever "leg up" their parents were able to provide?

Income inequality comes from minimum or low-wage employees working for companies whose owners and/or upper management people earn multi-million dollar salaries and bonuses. It has nothing to do with kids getting "nest eggs" from parents who chose to sacrifice in order to help their children have a better life.

[Trillo]

143. Absolutely. I'm saying that it is a form, one of many

of inequality. I'm not saying their parents did something illegal. If one set of kids gets nest eggs, as you said to, "help their children pay for higher education, down payments on homes, start-up funds for a small business", and if another group of kids does not get that, then yes, it is one form of inequality.

That form is not as severe as the Walton family, hence the word gradated.

There are many other forms of it. You specifically mention another, the minimum wage which is not enough to live on, though your point about being run by the 1% escapes me, everything of significance is already run by the 1%. We have been living in a system that for at least 100 years that has been advocating for the wealthy's interest, if not since the beginning of the country. In every area possible the game has been rigged to favor the wealthy.

Thus, unwinding this is gonna be a long hard road. We've been talking about a living wage on DU since I joined, I think almost 10 years ago, and we're not any closer to a living wage than back then. In that time, the fortunes of the wealthiest have increased, while the middle-classes have withered, "Ordinary Americans got 36 percent poorer in just a decade."

It seems inequality has increased significantly in the last 10 years. And we have poor people getting shot and choked in the streets by "law enforcement" that is out of control and not held responsible.

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

154. My goal isn't equality of results

My goal is to have a better minimum standard of life for all people, and have the rich pay their fair share. They profit off of our schools, roads, police force, etc., so they should pay more.

I want higher taxes, and I want to get the money out of our elections. If we accomplished those two things, I think we would be on a road to better conditions for all people.

Meanwhile, if someone can afford to leave their children a nest egg, it is their money to do so.

Furthermore, police departments around the country are not just for the rich - heck, in most small towns across the country, there are even any 1%ers, although there are certainly many people who are better off than others.

[NewDeal_Dem]

157. The level of venom is kind of surprising, yes. You'd think some of the posters had a vested

interest in the question.

What kind of pisses me off is that I'm fairly certain I've read some of these posters going on and on castigating others about 'white privilege'. Doesn't apply to rich whites who made money in the slave trade and their high-class descendants, I guess.

Just to poor or working class whites, the descendants of people who gained nothing from their ancestors lack of involvement in the slave trade except for this slippery 'white privilege' now being used as a cudgel against them while the descendants of rich traders are given kid glove treatment.

[kwassa]

164. I partially agree with you, and partially don't. Your point of view is valid ...

but you are running up against the American belief that we are all self-made, and succeed or fail based on our own intrinsic merit. There is not a great sense here of the continuum of history, the idea of cause and effect, of how certain themes continue in other forms or permutations. Or that there

Yes, great fortunes start with slavery, and they also start with other great crimes. Land theft from the Native Americans is a great one, as is the removal and extermination from what was their great asset. Various business tycoons have engaged in ruthless and unethical practices to destroy competitors. John D. Rockefeller. Every day lobbyists try to buy favors from legislators that mean money in the pocket for their clients through beneficial legislation. And then there are subsidies ....

How about Hawaii? White missionaries go there to civilize the natives, and end up stealing all the land, and making great fortunes in the process.

My disagreement with you is this: This is simply one more form of white privilege, and the poor whites still do have that advantage over an equally poor black person in identical circumstances.

[grasswire]

176. Noting those who are lining up to take a whack at you...

....is very very interesting. Very. Let's see now.

They hate Snowden and Greenwald.
They defend the Intelligence community.
They jump right in to muddy the waters in DU discussions, turning them into arguments.
They defend torturers and war criminals.
They side with authoritarians, not liberals-progressives.

I could go on.....

[NewDeal_Dem]

179. Thanks. It's disheartening to see on a democratic board. For a tired idealist.

Who once was sure of seeing the new world, but nearly died from doing sweated labor and now may never recover, let alone see or believe in the new world.

I feel no solidarity with these people.

[CrawlingChaos]

219. You're right (nt)

[CrawlingChaos]

220. Very, very, very true.

Inherited wealth is the foundation of wealth inequality. Pretty bizarre to see people claiming it does not matter how it was acquired. Although maybe not surprising, as per grasswire's observations below.

[eShirl]

28. Hey, let's go back to the Roman Empire and trace descendants of those slave owners.

Indeed, why stop there?

[Thinkingabout]

33. Or go back to the original sellers of the slaves, the one which captured the slaves and sold them.

[eShirl]

43. The Roman army?

[Thinkingabout]

44. Is this who you think raided other tribes and captured them to sell?

[eShirl]

67. good grief, read what you are replying to

I know it's a lot to ask

[MohRokTah]

72. Pot, meet kettle!

You get my vote for most ironic post of the day!

[Thinkingabout]

76. I would request the same of you, in post #33 you posted

The Roman Army?

Perhaps you should check what you posted.

[eShirl]

105. try #28; #33 was *your* reply to my #28

Did you just pick a random post to reply to? It seems it.

[Thinkingabout]

114. And then you replied to post #33 "The Roman army", you wanted to go back to the Roman Empire

And I thought to go back to African tribes capturing members from nearby tribes and then selling the captured. Now are we straight on this?

[Renew Deal]

184. One of Cumberbatches grandfathers likely was a slave

This is idiotic.

[Throd]

31. I personally feel tremendous guilt as to what my ancestors did to the Neanderthals.

[DeadLetterOffice]

34. My great-great-something-ridiculous-grandfather...

... was exiled from the Netherlands, for horse thieving I think, and came to the colonies as an indentured servant in the 1600's. He was later exiled from New Amsterdam because he sold his wife and took up housekeeping with her sister.

What does any of that have to do with who I am as an individual and how I may or may not relate to horses, women, and/or romantic partners?

[ChairmanAgnostic]

40. My greatgranddad ran a house of pleasure in Paris.

I suppose that that makes me a mysoginist, by the OP's standards.

[trumad]

36. My Great Great Great Grandfather Abraham Souls..

Owned a slave.

Am I ashamed of that? Not really. That was like 1755.

[BeyondGeography]

39. Ok...I thought he was phenomenal in The Imitation Game

[SomethingFishy]

42. So what do you suggest?

Maybe we should put them all in prison. Or take away all their money. Or maybe hang them in the town square..

Or maybe you can just keep posting useless flame bait threads about them on DU.

Ignore is my friend.

[djean111]

69. Somehow, I think this is the end game - "Or take away all their money." n/t

[mcar]

50. He should win the Oscar

For the Imitation Game. And I love him in Sherlock.

It's Benedict, Bernard is not a "misspelling" it's just incorrect.

He's a fine actor. Slavery was awful and immoral then and still is now. These two facts really have nothing to do with each other.

[LittleBlue]

51. Why is GD suddenly full of slavery threads?

This article is a year old. Did I miss a big argument about slavery?

[Trillo]

120. I think this is partly a recent outgrowth of the policing issues, Ferguson,

the inequitable policing where black folks get choked and killed for handling a cigarette on the street without recrimination to the killer, and perhaps partly a response to the NYPD strike.

[Crunchy Frog]

227. Benedict Cumberbatch needs to stop shooting unarmed black men.

[MADem]

226. Because this brand new poster, who just joined this month, is starting them.

Doesn't take a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing, here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026032806

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026030440

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026029921

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026032858

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026029904

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026031053

There are probably more posts, but I think you get the idea. He's gotten away with a number of personally insulting posts in recent days, but he hasn't gotten away with all of them. He's on the "Flagged for Review" list right now. Sometimes the system works.

[BainsBane]

55. I'm a descedant of Aaron Burr

Should I be in prison for what he did?

If you think the only ones who profited from slavery were slave owners, you're sadly mistaken. Slavery provided the primitive accumulation of capital that made industrialization possible. It was the labor for cotton, that was used in textile production--a key step in industrialization. Slaves were the cargo on ships in the ship building industries in Liverpool and Bristol. The entire Western economy was build upon slavery. Slaveowners were far from alone in profiting from it.

[NewDeal_Dem]

159. who accumulated the capital? who invested in cotton mills and textiles?

'profiting' in the sense of getting to work in a mill or getting to buy cotton clothes (which is how most whites who 'profited' from the primitive accumulation did so) is rather different than profiting by OWNING THE INDUSTRY AND ITS PROFITS, WHICH CAN THEN BE REINVESTED AGAIN, ETC ETC AD INFINITUM

HERE'S SOME WHITE KIDS PROFITING FROM BIG COTTON:

[BainsBane]

180. You entirely missed the point

Your OP singles out the Benedict Cumberbatch, as a descendant of slave owners. The entire industrial revolution was made possible by slavery, the development of manufactures. Primitive accumulation of capital is a term Karl Marx uses to discuss the development of capitalism. Pretty fucking obviously if I use a Marxist term I am not talking about workers benefiting, or child labor in particular. I mentioned particular industries, textiles and shipbuilding, as early, crucial steps toward industrialization. Eric Williams, in his Capitalism and Slavery, talks about this.

You're pretty anxious to point fingers, without taking note of the fact you are an American living at the core of the capitalist economy and as such your life is made possible by exploitation around the world. You say Cumberbatch wouldn't be an actor if not for slavery. Quite possibly true. What is also true is that all of us are living lives that follow the economic trajectory of slavery, industrialization, and capitalism that eventually led to the computer you are typing on and the bourgeois lifestyle that gives you access to that computer.

[NewDeal_Dem]

185. I didn't miss the point at all, and nothing you say in your post is news to me. and as a matter

of fact I cited Williams in an earlier post.

I am an American who did sweated labor for just above minimum wage and recently nearly died from it.

now I'm a basically unemployed, brain-damaged American with no future.

but I'm white and american, so super for me. yay!

I have access to a computer because of my 'bourgeois' lifestyle working for subsidized minimum wage at goodwill. because I had a computer before I got sick. a hand me down from a relative.

the new haute bourgeois lifestyle of sweated labor.

you have no clue.

[arcane1]

56. "if he'd been a nobody it's likely he'd have not gotten into the acting trade"

What is your basis for this? There are "nobodies" all over the acting trade, it's the status most famous people start with.

[NewDeal_Dem]

59. "all over the place"? really? I'm not seeing all these nobodies in the acting trade. anna nicole

smith is actually the only one who springs to mind and we know what happened to her.

[Maedhros]

78. Are you being deliberately obtuse?

Here are five actors off the top of my head:

Amy Adams:

Adams was born in Vicenza, Veneto, Italy,[2] the fourth of seven children of American parents Kathryn and Richard Kent Adams.[1] She has four brothers and two sisters.[3] Her father was a U.S. serviceman stationed at Caserma Ederle at the time of her birth,[4] and took the entire family from base to base, before settling in Castle Rock, Colorado, when Adams was eight years old.[5] Thereafter, her father sang professionally in restaurants and her mother was a semi-professional bodybuilder.

Jennifer Lawrence:

Lawrence was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the daughter of Karen (Koch) Lawrence, a children's camp manager, and Gary Lawrence, a construction worker. She has two older brothers, Ben and Blaine.

Leonardo DiCaprio:

DiCaprio, an only child, was born in Hollywood,[4] Los Angeles, California, to mother Irmelin (née Indenbirken), a legal secretary, and father George DiCaprio, an underground comics artist and producer and distributor of comic books.

Kevin Spacey:

Spacey was born in South Orange, New Jersey, the son of Kathleen Ann (née Knutson; December 5, 1931 – March 19, 2003), a secretary, and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler (June 4, 1924 – December 24, 1992), a technical writer and data consultant.

Al Pacino:

Pacino was born in Manhattan, New York, to Italian-American parents Salvatore Pacino and Rose, who divorced when he was two years old.[1] When he was two, his mother moved near the Bronx Zoo to live with her parents, Kate and James Gerardi, who, coincidentally, had come from a town in Sicily named Corleone.[2] His father Salvatore (whose father Alfio came from San Fratello, Sicily)[3] moved to Covina, California, and worked as an insurance salesman and restaurateur.

None of these actors came from privileged backgrounds. Your contention is nonsense.

[NewDeal_Dem]

171. I can pull out 5 actors from privileged backgrounds too. doesn't prove that's the norm.

1. Julia-Louis Dreyfus: father has about 3 billion dollars in net worth ultimately derived from the multi-generation Dreyfus grain business.

2. Ed Norton: grandson of real estate developer and mall owner james rouse (rouse company) and nephew of real estate developer William g rouse (one liberty place)

3. Robert Wagner: son of Detroit steel exec Robert wagner sr.
http://www.tv.com/people/robert-wagner/biography/

4. spike jonze: Spiegel catalog family, father an executive ; net worth 40 million
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=13401153&ticker=ACHI&previousCapId=7842634&previousTitle=GEMALTO

5. Paul Giamatti: father president of yale, baseball commissioner. giamatti went to yale with ed Norton.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Giamatti

6. Chevy Chase: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevy_Chase

[Maedhros]

216. Ok, so you are being deliberately obtuse.

You posted:

"all over the place"? really? I'm not seeing all these nobodies in the acting trade. anna nicole
smith is actually the only one who springs to mind and we know what happened to her.

Your post clearly implies -

1. There are a vanishingly small number of "nobodies" who became actors.
2. According to your vast and unequaled intellect, there was only one - Anna Nicole Smith
and
3. According to your vast reservoir of compassion and understanding, "we all know (wink, wink) what happened to her."

Nice job - it's hard to come off as an elitist and a misogynist in the same post on DU (well, maybe the HoF folks might argue otherwise).

In any case, your logic is faulty. The existence of some actors from privileged backgrounds does not imply that no actors come from common backgrounds.

/ignore.

[NewDeal_Dem]

217. when i think of a "nobody," i think of someone working at mcdonalds etc, not a college educated

middle class or upper middle class person, which is what most posters have offered up here as 'nobodies' who act.

what happened to anna Nicole smith: she died from drugs, which is what sometimes happens to working class/poor people who come into windfalls.

and I;m quite aware that examples of actors from privileged backgrounds doesn't mean no actors come from common backgrouns and in fact said so several times in different ways. but thanks for the supercilious lecture on a very obvious point.

I welcome your ignore, you're boring and dumb and mean.

[csziggy]

89. Sir Patrick Stewart was a nobody and from an undistinguished family

Patrick Stewart[2] was born on 13 July 1940[3] in Mirfield,[4] in the West Riding of Yorkshire, England. He is the son of Gladys (née Barrowclough), a weaver and textile worker, and Alfred Stewart, a Regimental Sergeant Major in the British Army. He has two older brothers, Geoffrey (b. 1925) and Trevor (b. 1935).[5][6]

Stewart grew up in a poor household with domestic violence from his father, an experience which later influenced his political and ideological beliefs.[7] Stewart's father served with the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and was Regimental Sergeant Major of the 2nd Battalion, Parachute Regiment during the Second World War, having previously worked as a general labourer and as a postman.[8] As a result of his wartime experience during the Dunkirk evacuation, his father suffered from what was then known as combat fatigue (better known today as post-traumatic stress disorder).

<SNIP>

Stewart attended Crowlees Church of England Junior and Infants School.[11] He attributes his acting career to an English teacher named Cecil Dormand who "put a copy of Shakespeare in my hand [and] said, 'Now get up on your feet and perform.'"[12] In 1951, aged 11, he entered Mirfield Secondary Modern School,[13] where he continued to study drama. At age 15, Stewart left school and increased his participation in local theatre. He acquired a job as a newspaper reporter and obituary writer at the Mirfield & District Reporter,[14] but after a year, his employer gave him an ultimatum to choose acting or journalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Stewart

Marily Monroe not only was a nobody, she had to overcome an unstable mother and the lack of a father in her life:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Monroe#Family_and_early_life

Also see the early lives of
Greta Garbo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Garbo#Childhood_and_youth
Sean Connery: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Connery#Early_life
Michael Caine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Caine#Early_life
Alex Guiness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alec_Guinness#Early_life
(All of these were picked somewhat at random.)

I'm sure there are thousands more actors who are now "somebodies" but who started with no advantages at all. Selectively picking one whose ancestry fits your narrative is disingenuous at best.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

66. Some of my ancestors were smugglers in the 18th century.

And I'm sure there were other disreputable characters in my lineage. I, however, am not a smuggler, and any crimes committed by my ancestors, although kind of interesting, are not relevant to what I am now, even if I had inherited the spoils of their smuggling. This is just stupid.

[NewDeal_Dem]

73. I'm tired of trying to clarify the point with people who clearly have no interest and in fact

have a vested interest in their own interpretation of my post, apparently because it's more comfortable for them.

If you -had- inherited the spoils of their smuggling (through your parents, and the generations before them) you'd be a different person.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

84. Maybe, maybe not.

If I had inherited a lot of money from ancestors who had been successful in honest, legal endeavors, would I have been a different person than what I'd have been if I'd inherited the same amount of money from my smuggler ancestors? If Benedict Cumberbatch had become a successful actor in part because his family had money, would it have made a difference if that money had come from something more reputable than the slave trade?

Put a different way: Are you arguing against inherited wealth per se, or just wealth inherited from an ancestor who got the money doing something bad?

[NewDeal_Dem]

87. I think Cumberbach is a good actor and probably a decent person (at least, his persona seems

decent enough).

It's irrelevant to me though, because I didn't write any of these OPs to castigate famous people personally.

Just to point out that slavery is the source of many powerful/wealthy/famous people's power -- more than we plebes are generally aware of.

I don't cotton to big bunches of inherited wealth generally, & especially if the wealth comes from crime or crimes against humanity.

[renate]

74. If he benefited at all from his family history, it's because his parents are actors

Not because of some seven-times-removed ancestor.

Besides, he's a phenomenal actor. It's just silly to think his ancestry has more to do with his success than his talent does.

[unblock]

79. i'm not sure you can say he wouldn't have ended up an actor. connections help, but takes talent.

certainly connections are certainly a huge help when it comes to merely adequate actors. extras, bit parts, etc.

but lead roles? usually you need a considerable amount of talent and connections might certainly get you a shot at the part but no guarantees at all. not like, say, owning the family business or something like that.

fwiw, beverly d'angelo (hair, national lampoon's vacation, etc.) came from a humble background outside columbus, ohio, and in fact was my babysitter when i was growing up. no connections there, she just went to new york and tried out for anything she could get.

[Bjorn Against]

88. Rupert Murdoch's right-wing Daily Mail is just pissed at Cumberbatch

The Daily Mail and their bigoted readers are no doubt pissed that Cumberbatch's new movie exposes the damage homophobia does to our society. Considering most fans of Rupert Murdoch publications are homophobic bigots themselves they don't want movies like the Imitation Game to be made so they smear Cumberbatch for something his ancestors did centuries ago.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

102. And there you have it.

Cumberbatch is an unabashed liberal in many respects, and I'm sure Murdoch and his minions were all too happy to find something that they hoped would make him look bad. It's unfortunate that the same implicit smear has appeared on DU as well.

[Hekate]

135. Bingo. Cumberbatch is phenomenal in The Imitation Game, abt a brilliant gay man persecuted to death

...for the "crime" of being gay. After helping to win WW II.

So let a well-known yellow rag dig up some dirt on his ancestors from 300 years ago, and let the rest of us smear it around because the man doesn't have a time machine and the ability to go back and stop his ancestors from being slavers.

Don't we have something we ought to be doing in the here and now? Like RIGHT NOW?

Let s/he whose ancestors are without sin cast the first stone.

[MohRokTah]

138. I wish I could rec a response, sir. eom

[Bjorn Against]

140. I do have another response you can recommend

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026033776

[NewDeal_Dem]

190. and the guardian is pissed at him because....?

[cherokeeprogressive]

101. I wonder what your next OP will be about... and I'm waiting with breathless anticipation.

[WorseBeforeBetter]

147. Perhaps Tom Hiddleston? He boarded at -- gasp! -- Eton.

Don't know of any ancestors' sins, however. Hopefully the OP is on it like a crack detective...

[valerief]

104. Who is Bernard? nt

Yes. Bernard is horrified -- but he ain't giving up the money or his position in life, both of which derive from that horror more than any other single factor. (Even though he's a good actor IMO, if he'd been a nobody it's likely he'd have not gotten into the acting trade.)

[Sunlei]

108. much more current is when slavery continued from Americas prison system. Hardcore from after slaves

were supposed to be 'free' up to WW2. Decades of our major Corps 'leasing workers' from prisons and many times working them to death.

people were put in prison for 'fake' crimes, like it was against the law to be in town after dark, against the law to walk next to a railroad track.

This kind of slavery of 'prisoners' is still perfectly Legal today.

[Sunlei]

134. Here is slavery of thousands of Americans, much more current. All documented from official records.

http://video.pbs.org/video/2176766758/

Reparations should be ripped from these Corps and land taken restored. We have entire counties in some states that were purged of people because of their skin color.

[Red Mountain]

129. Does nobody get that we're creating the future's Benedict......

Today? That 1,000 more talented kids won't have the same opportunity to excel because our system is tilted? Benedict Koch, anyone?

I like his work. I don't blame him for getting to where he is.

The past is done. Mistakes should be acknowledged but not repeated. Full stop.

[TeamPooka]

131. Thread trashed. nt

[WinkyDink]

132. "So?"~~~GWB.

[Bjorn Against]

139. I posted another thread to show why this smear against Cumberbatch is so wrong

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026033776

[MohRokTah]

142. Everybody's family prospered because their ancestors owned their wives.

Marriage laws from the time of slavery are more like property laws. Women had no rights and were more or less chattel property.

So anybody who is prosperous now owes their fortune to the fact that women were subjugated for centuries.

[NuclearDem]

153. Yawn. You've only been doing this a few days, and your shtick's already gotten old.

[Arkana]

160. So?

I don't begrudge Cumberbatch his success in acting. He doesn't support slavery and he doesn't enable those who did. Why do you care?

[mythology]

163. I hope you don't live in a country that ever had slavery, or traded with nations that did

Because otherwise, you've benefited from slavery.

In fact, Edmund Morgan, one of the best early American historians draws a direct link between the style of government the U.S. started and slavery. For 50 of the first 60 years, the presidency was held by somebody who owned slaves in their lifetime. 12 U.S. Presidents have owned slaves, that's more than 25% of Presidents. Morgan's argument was that there was a direct causal relation between the existence of slavery and the emergence of democracy.

If it's so vital that we understand how individuals may have benefited from the existence of slavery, then you should at least consider how you benefited. Because you benefited from the U.S. government, you benefited from the trade that existed because of slavery, both in terms the growth of the plantation economy in the south, but also the demand for goods manufactured in the north. That trade in turn benefited Europe due to increased goods being manufactured or grown here.

But you haven't posted that. Instead you've talked about people who are wealthier than you. Is there a cut off, that somebody's family needed to make X number of dollars from slavery before it becomes a problem? If so, why that amount and not say, however much you benefited from it?

[Recursion]

168. Or, for that matter, gotten a mortgage after WWII

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/

[JI7]

194. the op didn't like when i brought that up

and that's a lot more relevant for people today.

[NewDeal_Dem]

177. oh for god's sake. it's so thick around here. thanks for the lecture, i'm so dumb i just didn't

grasp that as an American (albeit one in the lowest income bracket, who just lived through a brain infection and was fired by my company for not being able to work at the back-breaking labor that ran down my immunity in the first place -- with no benefits whatsoever, which I and the immigrants I worked with had never gotten)..just a "you're sick, we don't want you, deal with it"

Yeah, now I'm fucking blessed just to live here where I can be raped on a daily basis.

[shenmue]

166. Benedict. Not Bernard.

If it happened long before he was born, and even you said he was "horrified," what else is he supposed to do?

[NewDeal_Dem]

178. Thanks. I've already been corrected multiple times, though "Benedict" is in the title and "Bernard"

was a slip of the brain.

Which, let me tell you, is not as speedy as it was before I got a brain infection from doing slave labor in the good old USA, where I can thank my white privilege for -- I'm not sure what, but in some way I'm better off than I would be if I were black. But still the moral inferior of the descendants of rich white people who made their nut by sweating and enslaving black people, because their ill-gotten gains magically became clean over the years and we're not supposed to talk about how they made their money anymore -- the blood of human beings, same as it ever was.

add a little of mine to the mix.

[Recursion]

167. My ancestor was a pirate who ran slaves from West Africa to Mobile through the British blockade

Another line of my family ran large plantations in Mississippi (yet another line were slaves on large plantations in Texas and Louisiana).

Not particularly sure what any of this is relevant to, but talking about this seems to be The Thing To Do right now.

[Renew Deal]

183. I think this is about trying to tear down someone who is both a super talent and clean.

Cumberbatch is about as talented and interesting as anyone right now. I guess people have to find a way to attack him. I don't care what his 7th great grandfather did nor what his father did.

[dballance]

193. What a stupid thread. Of course it uses Murdoch's Daily Mail as a source.

Got one form the NY Post too?

[NewDeal_Dem]

195. here's the guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/02/benedict-cumberbatch-sorry-for-slave-owners-family

and here's the new York times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/25/nyregion/new-city-official-has-ties-to-sherlock-via-barbados.html?_r=3

[Crunchy Frog]

202. His seventh great grandfather. Shocking.

I'll never watch an episode of "Sherlock" again.

[Nevada Blue]

206. WTH is this (been gone for holidays, where's DU?) n/t

[knitter4democracy]

215. He got into the acting trade through his parents, both of whom are actors.

Just sayin'...

[defacto7]

218. How many logical fallacies can I count in this OP......?

Too many to be a serious subject to discuss.

It's absurd.

[CrawlingChaos]

221. I subscribe to the Honore de Balzac quote

"Behind every great fortune lies a great crime". Pretty bizarre to see so many people here claiming it doesn't matter how inherited wealth was acquired.

There's a certain contingent here at DU who would have torn Huey Long limb from limb.

[HeiressofBickworth]

222. I can document my ancestors back to the Plantagenet kings

Given the theory in the OP, I should have had some financial benefit somewhere during my life. I didn't. Once I left my parents home (both working parents, no inherited wealth on either side), I had to work for a living which I did until I retired 5 years ago. I was able to put some money aside for my granddaughter's education (she's now at University of Washington). Does that mean she benefited in some way from my ancestry? No, she benefited from the fruits of MY labors.

I understand the gist of this -- slavery was wrong; there are wealthy people living today who may or may not trace their ancestry to slavery; therefore REPARATIONS. Or is it just an exercise in shaming people who have achieved something during their lives.

[JI7]

223. actually the op does not support reparations

[Shrike47]

224. Most of us have ancestors who engaged in reprehensible behavior. 6 generations back, who cares?

A recent posting noted that 25% of the Welsh are descended from the same few men. These were men who raped the women they encountered. Should we hold it against them that their ancestors were rapists?

We can't help our ancestors.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

232. I hope you find some kind of peace.

[JI7]

235. what was the previous name they posted under ?

[Warren DeMontague]

236. I had several ancestors who knitted socks for zombies.

You think zombies' feet don't get cold, too?

[Adrahil]

240. Perhaps you'd prefer to he give all his money away, forget he went to a posh school..

... and go around flegellating himself?

At some point, ya let it go. It's not like he's one of the bad guys.

[el_bryanto]

241. Everybody who has had any ancestor who did anything immoral and profited from it should live in

poverty forever. I know my friends in the Republican Congress agree and that's why they are so dedicated to driving our economy in the ground. Frankly we all deserve lifetimes of misery.

Bryant

[LanternWaste]

242. In 'Amazing Grace', he played Will Pitt the Younger, and assisted MP William Wilburforce in abolishi

In 'Amazing Grace', he played Will Pitt the Younger, and assisted MP William Wilburforce in abolishing the slave trade.

However, I do realize we all need to get our digs in on anyone we can to maintain a false equivalency...

[Avalux]

245. Who is Bernard? Benedict is a great actor, and shouldn't be blamed for his ancestors' actions. n/t