Unassigned

John Cleese Suggests That He Wishes African Slaves Had Been ... (Ahem) ... Snipped

Aaron Walker
Aaron Walker  |  5:45 PM on September 24, 2026

Oy vey, where to start with this one?

It started when a guy named Daniel Hannan wrote a piece for the Daily Mail denouncing constant calls for reparations against Britain, and posted about his article on Twitter/X:

Advertisement

And the column is reasonable, decrying international pressure campaigns, and calling the people calling for them ungrateful, because:

Britain was not just early in declaring slavery illegal. It then did something unique, pouring its blood and treasure into a campaign to extirpate the foul institution everywhere. Even when we were engaged in a life-and-death struggle with Napoleon, we were still diverting warships to hunt down the slavers.

So far, so reasonable. Then like Lancelot charging into Swamp Castle half-cocked, John Cleese decided to post this:

What the actual frak?

Look, we will offer two possible defenses. The most obvious is some kind of joke — including sarcasm.

The second is that he didn’t technically say that the British slavers should have done this sort of thing… he just heavily implied it. Okay, we’re reaching on that point, but we do think the humor defense is uniquely likely to apply even if we don’t think it is particularly funny as a joke. And Cleese has earned enough goodwill with us to receive a heavy benefit of the doubt. We aren’t calling on him to be canceled. We are just kind of floored by the post.

Recommended

CAT-Egorically Insane: NYC Shelter's Adoption Policy Is So Unhinged, Even PETA Is Calling It Out
Grateful Calvin
Advertisement

Of course, his storied career didn’t stop a lot of people from reacting to what he said, with shock, humor, and … agreement?!

We saw more than a few uses of that exact gif.

We are pretty sure we wouldn’t want to be his prisoner after that post.

The Ottomans gave us those things to put our feet on. Isn’t that enough?

Advertisement

Ugh, pun overload...

That gets into a touchy subject. There is a case that is sympathetic to the slaves to make for sterilizing slaves. Obviously, the best option is not to have slavery at all — defined broadly by this author as any kind of coerced labor. At best we can accept an exception for military conscription and as punishment for a crime — the two exceptions written or implied into the Thirteenth Amendment. And we tend to think, like Thaddeus Stevens, that searching for kind or merciful slavery is a bit like trying to find the cool spot in the lake of fire. So, it’s arguably a fool’s errand to try to talk about what kind of slavery is worse. Still, we are going to give a brief try anyway, by saying this:

When slaves are able to have children, it creates the possibility of generational slavery, which certainly has bad features that you might want to avoid. It means that there can be children who are born into slavery whose parents, grandparents, and great grandparents have known nothing from slavery, from the day they were born to the day they die, making freedom even harder for them to imagine. You can make the case that this is worse.

Advertisement

Still, on the other hand, the idea of castration makes this author want to cross legs in sympathy. Or to put it in fancier terms, the short term costs of such an approach is very high.

And certainly that wasn’t why those slavers castrated their slaves. As noted in a prior post, they only sterilized the men, and not the women:

So that also undermines Cleese’s comment (joke?), too.

Okay, there is that.

Yikes.

Also, this apparently was the fault of the joooooooooooos!

Advertisement

Sure, Jan. It’s always the jooooos. *eye roll*

Alleged translation:

Just imagine a German actor posting something comparable.

He would go to prison. We suspect that Cleese still might get arrested given Britain’s repressive limits on freedom of expression. And if he doesn’t, it's purely because the government doesn’t want to the negative attention that would come with such a storied actor being arrested. If a regular shmo wrote it, they’d throw away the key. But even if Cleese is arrested, we believe jury nullification would come to the rescue for him.

Also, we should offer him asylum. That is what such laws were made for.

Finally:

Okay, that is funny. Dark, but funny.

RELATED: Cleveland Rocks! Law Professor Sues Dearborn, Michigan For Discrimination Against Jews, Christians

Advertisement

DEVELOPING: Here We Go Again: Another ICE-Involved Shooting, This Time in Austin (VIDEO)

‘This Is a Case About Swinging D***s:’ A Dissent Goes THERE on Transgender Issues (LAWSPLAINING)

One ‘Weird Trick’ That Would Instantly Undermine the Political Power of Illegal Immigrants (and Democrats)

BREAKING: An NYT Interview With Biden Just Undermined Thousands of His Late Pardons (A Deep Dive)