The Myth About Whataboutism

Ever feel like rolling your eyes when someone says that to you?

Me, when I was eight or nine, with Arrogant, our male Alsatian, and in the second picture, one of Menush’s pups. Menush was the female Alsatian. I hated that hairstyle, by the way. For some reason, my mother insisted on having my hair cut like that.

My recent story about slavery brought to mind an incident some years ago. The conversation was about reparation, and I asked “What about the UK and Africa?” The instant response was “That’s whataboutism.”

I didn’t say anything further. It would have been too much time and energy to educate her. So I didn’t.

What I was referring to was that British people of color were demanding reparation for slavery, but their request for reparation was ridiculous. That’s because there was never slavery in the UK. The people of color who were in the UK were able to immigrate there because, at one point, if you were a colonial, you could move to the UK. I also mentioned Africa, because any problems in Sub-Saharan Africa do not stem from historical slavery.

My point was that if some people wanted to claim that that the reason for African relative poverty in America and the UK was as a result of initial slavery, it didn’t tie in with the facts. In other words, what about the fact that people in the UK were never slaves?

I was exposing a logical fault in the argument of the person I was talking to. She didn’t have the knowledge or the reasoning power to comprehend what I was saying.