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You don't have to look at everything in terms of individual responsibility. We can clearly see that the injustices caused by transatlantic slavery, and imperialism more broadly, are very much still here. I think it would be nice to try to remedy this.

Of course, it's non-binding, and the countries that should probably be paying reparations just happen to have all abstained (except for the rogue USA of course, voting against) so I don't expect anything will happen. But it's a nice idea.

black people live in slums in my colonial country and many of the exploited african nations.

start by letting them access to at least 20th century amenities and dignified work instead of finding every moral excuse not to.

this thread is full of sensitive westerners born on slave trader countries still rich on the spoils (and sometimes still benefiting from it).

are the descendants of the enslaved people still suffering from it? are the descendants of the enslavers still benefitting from it? yes?

then reparations should be paid.

I agree there are challenges with economic reparations but I do want to point out that the transatlantic slave trade was different from slavery as practiced throughout human history.

It was more cruel than even slavery practiced in ancient Greece and Rome (civilizations which Western nations like to harken back to).

European colonial powers firmly believed in and propagated a global race based caste system. This itself is a crime against humanity but they put into practice the subjugation of people with darker skin, defining them as less human as justification for their enslavement.

Throughout history many civilizations thought other peoples to be inferior or barbaric. But there has not been a global race based caste system based on complexion as colonial era Europeans practiced it.

Entire fields of false science such as phrenology and eugenics sprung from this dogmatic belief in skin tone defining ones worth. The culmination of this vile 'purity' ideology was Nazi Germany and even with the end of that movement, we have not seen the end white supremacist ideology.

This is a very unique problem that still has horrific reverberations to this day. I would not be so quick to absolve European colonial powers and their descendant nation states who still benefit from neocolonialism today. Reparations is a complex issue but I think verbal acknowledgment of accountability and an honest teaching of history would be a start in those nations that have been ongoing beneficiaries of these inhumane institutions.

To summarize, I'll leave you with quotes representative of the worldview of one of the most revered figures in modern colonial/Western history:

​"I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

​"I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."

​"I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gasses: gasses can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror."

​"I think we shall have to take the Chinese in hand and regulate them... I believe that as the civilized nations become more powerful they will get more ruthless, and the time will come when the world will impatiently bear the existence of great barbaric nations who may at any time arm themselves and menace civilized nations."

Winston Churchill

Europeans and other monarchy-states are happier still feeding aristocrat and noble pigs, you mean? Yeah, I hear you.

Who generated the demand?