Posted on 03/12/2022 8:43:28 PM PST by algore
Comedy legend John Cleese had his microphone confiscated at the South by Southwest festival during a comedic discussion in which he suggested Italy and France owed historic reparations for enslaving Brits.
The Monty Python icon, 82, was riffing with other comics in front of the crowd in Texas when he talked about the 'competition' between cultures over who has been more oppressed by colonisations throughout history.
Pointing to world history being 'a history of crime', he added: 'It's a history of people who were stronger beating up people who were weaker and it's always been that. It's deeply, deeply distasteful.
'But to pretend that one lot were worse than another – you do know the British have been slaves twice, right?
Cleese explained: '[People] get competitive about this business of being oppressed. We were oppressed, the English, by the Romans from about 0 to 400.'
Despite the event being labelled a 'comedy panel', his remarks sparked horrified reactions and an awkward environment for those in attendance.
At one stage Cleese even had his microphone confiscated by American comic Dulcé Sloan, who said she did it to 'save a comic whose career I respect', per The Hollywood Reporter.
'And now you saved the colonizer,' Pasternack said. 'I saved a comic whose career I respect,' Sloan fired back Cleese rebutted claims that the British Empire was the first to colonise communities
The British comic insisted England was owed 'reparations' from both Italy and France, referring to the historic invasions of the Romans, and 1000 years later by the Normans under William the Conqueror.
'I want reparations from Italy', he told the stunned crowd. 'And then the Normans came over in 1066... they were horrible people from France and they colonised us for 30 years and we need reparations there too, I'm afraid'
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
‘Reparations’ are owed exclusively to black survivors of slavery, and I support it wholeheartedly.
He should have known better.
/s
Saint Patrick was a Briton, linguistically related to modern Welsh
Alright, but apart from that, what have the Italians and the French, ever done for us?
Certainly. Peasants in the British Empire were no better off than slaves, unable to own land and with no ability to advance themselves. There was a time in the Roman Empire when there were more slaves than citizens. As far back as ancient Greece a slave had no rights, even to preserve his/her own life. But America ended slavery (a legacy of the British Empire) and even fought a war over it, then sealed it forever in its Constitution, for which it gets no credit at all.
Islamic slave raiders took lots of Britons from the isles to be slaves, too
I’m a fan Cleese’s Monty Python work, but he’s been a lefty for decades and bears some responsibility for what leftism has become. Leftism is poison, and he should have been bright enough to know that.
Actually that’s a different episode.
FU Cleese.
In an interview this clown once called Republicans ‘’racists’’.
Facts and logic will get you nowhere with them.
I know.
But be fair, a lefty in Cleese’s time is a lot different than lefties are now.
Leftys in Cleese’s time sowed the seeds came later.
sowed the seeds for what came later
Heaven save us from people wanting to "save" us!
Regards,
There’s a big difference to an old British lefty with a sense of humor
and an American lefty with shit for brains.
bttt - are the Barbary Slave trade/raids even mentioned anymore or has that been forgotten as inconvenient history?
No. I saw the interview. Cleese wasn’t kidding around.
The Arabs ran the African slave trade and still do. Some remember it.
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