UK Politics: Black Lives Matter Here Too

[Pebble thats Stubby]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

We shouldn’t have statues of slavers and we shouldn’t have mobs running around  tearing down statues either. Both those things can be true

 

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

Who are the people you are talking about? Was there a vote to take it down which everyone agreed on? 
 

Calling a mob of kids ‘the people’ says a lot.
 

 

If we shouldn't have statues of slavers which you apparently agree on why are you so upset when people pull it down? and why would a vote even be needed?

[Heartofice]

10 minutes ago, Pebble thats Stubby said:

 

If we shouldn't have statues of slavers which you apparently agree on why are you so upset when people pull it down? and why would a vote even be needed?

Call me crazy I’m just not a fan of mob justice. Even if the cause is something I agree with. Pretty simple.

[Maltaran]

I wonder if the street-renaming campaigns in Bristol and Liverpool will start up again now?

Apparently one of the reasons Liverpool hasn’t renamed their streets which are named after slavers is because one of them is Penny Lane.

[Zorral]

Eh, that Colston fella just lost his footing and fell into the water, and drowned, yahno?  too bad it happened, but accidents happen.  Or, wait, was it just that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time?  Or a case of mistaken identity? Or -- well, you know all the reasons that cops brutalize black people -- not because they want to or intend to -- it just turned out a surprise whatever it was.

The fact is that nobody with any capacity to change things about how people of color, particularly people of African descent, are treated by the system(s) ever pays any attention, or tries to change anything, unless People get out there in the street.  It has always been that way, so why the pearl clutching?  Really what do people who ignore brutality and injustice and misery for years and years and years, even when they actually know about it, think is going to happen ... eventually.  White people are so godd fortunate that people of color are so patient, yanno?

 

 

[dog-days]

Interesting blog entry from an eloquent Bristolian. Here.

[john]

From that blog the Colston statue does seem like a particularly egregious situation.

Generally I do think that people should remember that their forebears venerated slavers and/or that their fellow citizens sometimes like to forget or excuse the slaving in favour of memorialising civic beneficence.

But statues are probably the weakest of town amenities. Don’t really need them just to remember the shitty aspects of history/society.

[DanteGabriel]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Was there a mob  violently putting the statue up? 

I mean this could go on forever..

The slaver's fortune and significance in society was a product of the violence and brutality he inflicted upon countless people his entire life. But by all means continue to defend Things as They Are because no one adequately consulted your delicate sensibilities.

This will only go on as long as you continue to value things more than people.

[TrueMetis]

Personally I just enjoy how poetic it is that they threw his statue into the water, since said piece of shit threw sick slaves overboard to be able to collect insurance on them.

[Tywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, DanteGabriel said:

The slaver's fortune and significance in society was a product of the violence and brutality he inflicted upon countless people his entire life. But by all means continue to defend Things as They Are because no one adequately consulted your delicate sensibilities.

This will only go on as long as you continue to value things more than people.

Dante, it's almost like you're it's wrong to use cultural preservation as an excuse. How could you?

[Tywin et al.]

20 minutes ago, TrueMetis said:

Personally I just enjoy how poetic it is that they threw his statue into the water, since said piece of shit threw sick slaves overboard to be able to collect insurance on them.

I agree. But part of me wants them to then pull it back up, melt it down, and use the materials to make a statue honoring a diverse and new London. Not sure if it's actually possible, but it would also be poetic. 

[HexMachina]

9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

I agree. But part of me wants them to then pull it back up, melt it down, and use the materials to make a statue honoring a diverse and new London. Not sure if it's actually possible, but it would also be poetic. 

Surely you mean Bristol?

[Tywin et al.]

5 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Surely you mean Bristol?

Apologies, I just assumed they'd put it up in London. I really don't know much about a lot of cities in the country and if they're following the same trends.

Regardless, statues like that one need to come down in both our countries and be put in museums, at best. 

[williamjm]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Apologies, I just assumed they'd put it up in London. I really don't know much about a lot of cities in the country and if they're following the same trends.

Regardless, statues like that one need to come down in both our countries and be put in museums, at best. 

Bristol, along with some of the other ports on the west coast of Britain, was one of the places that was most heavily involved with the slave trade.

[Tywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, williamjm said:

Bristol, along with some of the other ports on the west coast of Britain, was one of the places that was most heavily involved with the slave trade.

Makes sense. When my buddies and I were planning a possible trip to England to see some matches I really only did any research on a few of the places we might go to, and Bristol was not one of them. I didn't end up going, but the countryside did look rather beautiful. 

[Zorral]

In terms of UK slave economic history, the places that profited the most and longest from the transatlantic slave trade, in every way from investing in slave ships, building the slave ships, manufacturing all the implements of the slave trade , i.e. manacles, etc., consortiums for gathering the other supplies necessary, from the items the Africans wanted (which changed frequently, to the most important of all -- INSURANCE -- Liverpool, London, Bristol and Edinburgh were the most heavily and longest involved.

[Heartofice]

7 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

The slaver's fortune and significance in society was a product of the violence and brutality he inflicted upon countless people his entire life. But by all means continue to defend Things as They Are because no one adequately consulted your delicate sensibilities.

This will only go on as long as you continue to value things more than people.

How does that relate to what I’ve said? Please pay attention.

 

Anyway, my point is really whether we are all ok with bunches of people going around destroying property and pulling down statues because they don’t like them. Should we just applaud it in cases where it happens to be a cause we agree with, what about ones we don’t agree with?

For instance, what if a bunch of crazy MRA types decided they didn’t like feminism and so pulled down a load of statues to suffragettes? By the same token that is totally ok, those ‘people’ didn’t like the statues and so you can’t arrest them for pulling them down. 

 

[dog-days]

8 hours ago, john said:

From that blog the Colston statue does seem like a particularly egregious situation.

Generally I do think that people should remember that their forebears venerated slavers and/or that their fellow citizens sometimes like to forget or excuse the slaving in favour of memorialising civic beneficence.

But statues are probably the weakest of town amenities. Don’t really need them just to remember the shitty aspects of history/society.

Yeah, the blog entry is making me shift my position from "not a good idea" to "probably okay in this particular case". 

That said, if we start chucking the statues of everyone who was in some sense horrible into the Severn, we we won't have many statues left. And it would start to present a hazard to shipping!

The UK population has increased a lot over the last century. Would be nice to see new statues being created by and for new generations of people living on housing estates and in commuter villages that can lack a certain individuality. 

[Derfel Cadarn]

6 hours ago, Zorral said:

In terms of UK slave economic history, the places that profited the most and longest from the transatlantic slave trade, in every way from investing in slave ships, building the slave ships, manufacturing all the implements of the slave trade , i.e. manacles, etc., consortiums for gathering the other supplies necessary, from the items the Africans wanted (which changed frequently, to the most important of all -- INSURANCE -- Liverpool, London, Bristol and Edinburgh were the most heavily and longest involved.

Glasgow was very heavily involved too. It has a dockside area called Kingston, a Jamaica Street and also lots of streets named after slavers/plantation owners (Glassford Street).

Should also be mentioned, though, that in the 80’s, during the campaign to free Nelson Mandela, Glasgow showed its support by renaming a street Nelson Mandela Place...

The same street the South African consulate happened to be on at that time

[HexMachina]

2 hours ago, Heartofice said:

How does that relate to what I’ve said? Please pay attention.

 

Anyway, my point is really whether we are all ok with bunches of people going around destroying property and pulling down statues because they don’t like them. Should we just applaud it in cases where it happens to be a cause we agree with, what about ones we don’t agree with?

For instance, what if a bunch of crazy MRA types decided they didn’t like feminism and so pulled down a load of statues to suffragettes? By the same token that is totally ok, those ‘people’ didn’t like the statues and so you can’t arrest them for pulling them down. 

 

Are you really going to do this? Make the comparison of suffragettes to slavers? You've made some wild stands before but this may be the wildest yet. 

[DaveSumm]

12 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

Are you really going to do this? Make the comparison of suffragettes to slavers? You've made some wild stands before but this may be the wildest yet. 

He wasn’t comparing them, he’s asking where you draw the line on how popular the cause is to whether we blame them for pulling down statues. The Churchill statue was also defaced in London, how do we feel about that? Was he racist enough to let those who defaced it off the hook?