UK Politics: Black Lives Matter Here Too

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, dog-days said:

 I can't feel admiration or sympathy for a soldier of this era, of this type, any more than for George Osborne in Vanity Fair. I don't want statues to come down, but wouldn't feel greatly moved to defend a Picton from a diving holiday, any more than a Colston. 

I feel a huge degree of sympathy and admiration for the military figures of this era, who, in my opinion, were fighting for a just cause.

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

It's almost as if something or someone was trying to keep that door closed. As if, for example:

 

Sure, but a left wing council can do what it wants.

Now, they might have felt that taking down the statue would have alienated their voters.

[john]

59 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

No suggestions at all between statues and    complete societal transformation?

Hmm, it’s almost as if it wasn’t a real suggestion but a way of poking fun at your insistence on removing “actual systemic oppression itself” instead of statues.

[DaveSumm]

14 minutes ago, john said:

Hmm, it’s almost as if it wasn’t a real suggestion but a way of poking fun at your insistence on removing “actual systemic oppression itself” instead of statues.

Aiming to remove. Obviously I didn’t mean we tear down racism in one fell swoop like a statue. Obviously. 

[dog-days]

1 hour ago, SeanF said:

I feel a huge degree of sympathy and admiration for the military figures of this era, who, in my opinion, were fighting for a just cause.

My granddad fought in the second world war with the British Army, but he was also an anti-Semite who thought Hitler was right to kill the Jews. You can serve in the military for a wide range of reasons. 

[john]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

Aiming to remove. Obviously I didn’t mean we tear down racism in one fell swoop like a statue. Obviously. 

Okay. It was just some gentle mockery. I have no problem with the idea of looking to do more to undermine systemic oppression, up to and including societal transformation. The statue thing seems like a solution in itself though, not just making inroads into a broader problem.

[mormont]

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

Sure, but a left wing council can do what it wants.

Just the left wing ones?

I feel like we're going around in circles here. but the bit you're agreeing with under 'sure' disagrees with the bit after your 'but' so I'm not sure what point you think you're making. Fortunately, we can always refer to what actually happened.

2 hours ago, SeanF said:

Now, they might have felt that taking down the statue would have alienated their voters.

This is confusing. Are you saying left wing voters would be alienated by removing the statue of a slaver? Are left wing voters usually enthusiasts for slavery?

[The Marquis de Leech]

8 hours ago, SeanF said:

Now, I think he is a bad example of someone whose statue should be pulled down.  He was brutal as governor of Trinidad, but his statue was put up to commemorate his service in the Peninsular War (defending Spanish freedom was surely a good cause) and his heroic death at Waterloo.

We've got the town of Picton named after him (not just any town either. It's the South Island terminal of the Cook Strait ferry crossing. So travelling between New Zealand's North and South Islands via land takes you Wellington to Picton, or Picton to Wellington).

Unsurprisingly, there is now some push to change the name - but the discussion focus is around his time on Trinidad. No-one stops to think if there might be some other reason he got commemorated.

[Ran]

From what I've read of Picton, he was deliberately and extravagantly cruel as a governor and was a scandal for it in his own time. That he was clearly also extravagantly courageous and died in a noble cause seems to have washed clean his reputation in the aftermath of Waterloo, but I admit I'm not sure that the British people need to hold to that today.

One of the articles I read about the Colston statue had a art historian (IIRC) remarking that there was in his or her mind some danger in attempting to compartmentalize monuments and honors ("Picton is honored as a good soldier, not as a bad governor") because just imagine someone trying to argue that a statue of Hitler beside a stretch of the autobahn was there to honor him for having championed the highway system and everything else he did need not be brought into it.

8 hours ago, mormont said:

Are you saying left wing voters would be alienated by removing the statue of a slaver? Are left wing voters usually enthusiasts for slavery?

I doubt all left wingers would feel the same way about the disposition of the statue even without any of them feeling any enthusiasm for slavery or racism. A poll from 2014 had a narrow majority in Bristol preferring to keep the statue in place, and I assume some portion of those were left wing voters. I suspect a poll in early June would have found a somewhat different result, but probably not an enormously different one, since a skim at some pre-2020 articles about the statue show people who argue (presumably in good faith) that they believe keeping the statue in place was a better way of informing people of Colston and his history than removing it would do (I've no particular evidence if they are left or right wing, but the basic idea of 'Lets have the statue there with a plaque so anyone who looks at it knows of the horrible thing he did, and which Bristol was complicit in' seems more of a liberal assertion than a conservative one), and disagreed with the notion that there was greater value in putting him in the dustbin of history.

In other words, yes, I think the council could have been concerned about alienating some part of these left wing voters, those who felt some strong disagreement with removing the statue without also being enthusiasts for slavery. I doubt it was a very large concern, personally, and I'll trust there's something to the idea that wealthy, presumably culturally-conservative local interests were a part of the reason why the council did not remove it earlier.

 

[Heartofice]

It’s hard to find the words for just how moronic the racists idiots in London were yesterday.

Outside of them supposedly being there to defend a statue , but then attacking the police who were there to actually defend the statue.. and then randomly attacking people in a park... there was an amazing incident where one guy shouting ‘white lives matter’ got into a fight with an ally lives matter’ guy. You couldn’t  make it up!

[The Marquis de Leech]

20 minutes ago, Ran said:

One of the articles I read about the Colston statue had a art historian (IIRC) remarking that there was in his or her mind some danger in attempting to compartmentalize monuments and honors ("Picton is honored as a good soldier, not as a bad governor") because just imagine someone trying to argue that a statue of Hitler beside a stretch of the autobahn was there to honor him for having championed the highway system and everything else he did need not be brought into it.

Compartmentalising can be taken too far, yes - and there is a certain level of evil where any form of monument recognition is wrong (Hitler, King Leopold II). On the other hand, if you don't compartmentalise, you end up the dilemma that the most important historical figures (Churchill, for one), were very rarely nice people. People are complicated.

(I mean, never mind Picton the town. Wellington the city is named after a guy who would be appalled that 95% of the public were even allowed to vote, yet it's my country's capital). 

[Rippounet]

5 hours ago, Ran said:

From what I've read of Picton, he was deliberately and extravagantly cruel as a governor and was a scandal for it in his own time. That he was clearly also extravagantly courageous and died in a noble cause seems to have washed clean his reputation in the aftermath of Waterloo, but I admit I'm not sure that the British people need to hold to that today.

One of the articles I read about the Colston statue had a art historian (IIRC) remarking that there was in his or her mind some danger in attempting to compartmentalize monuments and honors ("Picton is honored as a good soldier, not as a bad governor") because just imagine someone trying to argue that a statue of Hitler beside a stretch of the autobahn was there to honor him for having championed the highway system and everything else he did need not be brought into it.

Funnily enough, that's exactly why there are people who still worship Napoléon. They don't see in him the warmongering tyrant but the founder of many French institutions.

[Samsaptakas]

21 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Just to try and stop this going round in a loop, is it possible that the actual systemic oppression itself should be the target of removal, not just the reminders? If you’re not being reminded that you’re oppressed, great, but aren’t we aiming to actually stop the oppression?

Actual systematic oppression can't be removed from the power structure, because it is a feature of the power structure. Oppression can't be stopped or removed. There will always be someone to be oppressed.

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

It’s hard to find the words for just how moronic the racists idiots in London were yesterday.

Outside of them supposedly being there to defend a statue , but then attacking the police who were there to actually defend the statue.. and then randomly attacking people in a park... there was an amazing incident where one guy shouting ‘white lives matter’ got into a fight with an ally lives matter’ guy. You couldn’t  make it up!

I think the bit where some of them were apparently giving Nazi salutes while supposedly there to defend a statue of Churchill was particularly ironic/moronic.

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

You know that feeling when you turn a statue over after not touching it for years and find whole bunch of racists hiding underneath it?

[ants]

On 6/13/2020 at 5:58 PM, Heartofice said:

The removal of tv shows has the air of moral panic and terror by execs of facing any potential criticism because I don’t think anyone was calling for the removal of these shows.

The Fawlty Towers episode contains the N word amongst others, which I hear is why it was pulled until it can be reviewed. Make what you will of that, but even when it was made that scene is written in a way to show that the General is a crazy old racist bigot who is madly out of touch. I don’t see the value of pretending people like that never existed.........

As someone whose Dad watched Fawlty Towers extensively, I had seen all the episodes multiple times before I reached my teens.  What you've described wasn't clear at all to a youngster growing up.  That the major was senile slash crazy, yes.  That he was racist? No. 

To be able to make that distinction you need to have it shown during the show, or similar behaviour in other shows, that that behaviour is wrong.  Otherwise, its just part of the background.  But then, I remember we used the "N" word instead of Tiger in eenie meenie miny moe.  Nobody had told us what it meant, or that it was wrong (remembering this was rural Australia, no African Americans hardly in the country).  Unless children are told something is wrong, why would they think what the Major said was an issue?  

I can understand why putting a comment at the start would make sense.  

[ants]

On 6/14/2020 at 4:08 AM, SeanF said:

Bristol is one of the most left wing cities in England.  It's had a left wing majority on the council for ages.  Removing Colston's statue, or putting up the plaque ought to have been pushing at an open door.

So the fact it wasn't easy, or even doable, might show how bad things still are and the forces fighting equality.....

[Which Tyler]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/14/blm-supporter-speaks-out-after-carrying-counter-protester-to-safety

 

BLM supporter speaks out after carrying counter-protester to safety

Photo of Patrick Hutchinson coming to the man’s aid went viral after Saturday’s protests

[Derfel Cadarn]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53045349

Johnson saying UK should do more to stop racism.

Maybe stop referring to watermelon smiles and pinaninnies would be a good start?

And quoting Kipling when visiting countries previously colonised by Britain.

[A wilding]

That is simply Johnson's talking point of the day, after his one a couple of days ago about the Churchill statue backfired on him somewhat.

It does not mean anything, it is just some words designed to close the issue down so that politics can "move on"; if this vaguely defined "commission" ever happens, any findings it makes will be quietly ignored.

It is depressing just how transparent this government has become.