UK Politics: Black Lives Matter Here Too

[Heartofice]

7 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Not a chance. Most of us still believe that Richard the Lionheart was one of our greatest kings, when the exact opposite is probably true.

“ he was a bad son, a bad husband and a bad king , but a gallant and splendid soldier”

[A Horse Named Stranger]

16 minutes ago, Chaircat Meow said:

He was still a better ruler than Jeremy Corbyn would have been though, you have to admit. 

Arguably. But would Corbyn have made a worse PM than Johnson?

Remember, you opted for that stroll down memory lane, where Britain faced a simple and inescapable choice between two pretty low quality candidates.

[john]

Two things - 

first, statues are pretty feeble, they certainly fail as any kind of history totem and if you want an eye pleasing focus point for a square, or whatever, you’d be better off with a sculpture.

second, we don’t have to look to juries as an example of public interest overriding the rule of law. The legal system has a perfectly valid front line method of not bringing legal action where it’s not warranted just by not making arrests or bringing charges. Happens countless number of times every day.

[OldGimletEye]

18 hours ago, SeanF said:

Most of the great men (and some women) of history range from the pretty ruthless to the completely sociopathic butchers. And, our current prosperity is built upon the actions they took.  

This sounds like a really bad New History of Capitalism explanation of economic growth.

The thing is that sustained economic growth is a relatively recent phenomena. If terrible behavior was key to economic growth, then I should think you would have seen sustained economic growth before the 17th or 18th century.

But, I don't necessarily disagree with the broader point that famous historical personages are likely to have engaged in some bad behavior. The question will then turn on what the behavior was and in the context in which it happened. For instance, I favor the removal of all statues of the confederacy from public spaces. And the reason is because I think there can be little doubt the Civil War was started to preserve slavery. Symbols of a would be slaveocracy simply can't be allowed to stand in today's age.

[OldGimletEye]

19 hours ago, mormont said:

I grew up in a former mining area, lived in another for four years. The Conservatives have never finished better than third in either. Hemsworth? Merthyr Tydfil? Wansbeck? East Fife? Voting Conservative now? No, they're not.

The Tories took quite a few in the last election, but it remains to be seen if this was a sustainable sea change or a one-off collapse by Labour. The fact that the Tories failed to make major inroads in Scottish and Welsh former mining areas suggests the latter

It seems to me that the break up of the old party alliances of the 20th Century is one of the bigger political stories of the 21st Century. And it isn't just a phenomena that is particular to the UK. But, seems to be happening in many places. The education gap for instance seems to be an issue both in the United States and the UK.

[Chaircat Meow]

2 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

He's not being commemorated for his role in the slave trade by Bristol but for his role in town government and rather for giving to schools and almhouses. If you celebrate this you're really giving a license to desecration and attacks on the country's history.

You didn't use the term 'slave money', but you mentioned the schools and almhouses, which were given... slave money.

True enough that you offered no opinion on how good a person he was. That doesn't appear to be something that's important to you. History matters more to you than Black Lives, eh?

Well the distinction was between 1) something intended and understood to memorialise something bad and 2) something that memorialised someone who did something bad but not for the bad thing they did. I'm saying in the former case, like maybe Lee and the American Civil War, I am sympathetic to getting rid of the statue/whatever it is in question, whereas in the latter, like say Churchill and the Bengal Famine, I am not, as there isn't a statue of Churchill because of the Bengal Famine but for other reasons and people understand this. 

[Heartofice]

I think one of the other issues here, which might explain why there were some people when polled didn’t want the statue taken down, could be that it seems a bit odd why there is such a focus on statues and taking them down. 

I mean most protests are generally quite unfocused and rarely do they have any real actionable goals. So it’s weird that after these protests one of the big goals seems to be to take down some statues.

That to me, and I think to a lot of people, doesn’t seem to be addressing the real issues of racism. In fact it seems quite petty and reactionary and ineffective.
 

So while those statues might be symbols of historically terrible events to some people, they are not there to lionise or celebrate those events, and nobody is making a pilgrimage to Bristol to worship at the god of slavery.

Pulling down statues won’t make any difference to the lives of ethnic minorities in this country. Their lives will not be improved by it at all. So on a long list of actions that protestors should be calling for, you’d expect ‘pulling down statues’ to be well down the bottom.

Also take note of where these statues tend to be. A massive focus on getting rid of the Rhodes statue at Oxford that’s been going on for a while demonstrates that this is an issue that concerns mostly ...university students who go to Oxford.  Hardly your Everyman issue that is helping poor BAME communities.. 

[Soylent Brown]

As has been pointed out, there have been efforts made to do something about the statue (and various others elsewhere no doubt) in the past.

If any society is serious about working to  eradicate racism as best it can, it really ought to remove contradictory monuments. It won't be the most important step of any serious effort, but it all counts.

People can gaslight all they want about how the statues don't really mean anything, don't lionise anyone as, OMG they don't even have their own pilgrimages or anything!, but that's a load of horseshit.

[john]

It certainly helped the peace of mind of the mayor of Bristol.

[Spockydog]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

I think one of the other issues here, which might explain why there were some people when polled didn’t want the statue taken down, could be that it seems a bit odd why there is such a focus on statues and taking them down. 

I mean most protests are generally quite unfocused and rarely do they have any real actionable goals. So it’s weird that after these protests one of the big goals seems to be to take down some statues.

That to me, and I think to a lot of people, doesn’t seem to be addressing the real issues of racism. In fact it seems quite petty and reactionary and ineffective.
 

So while those statues might be symbols of historically terrible events to some people, they are not there to lionise or celebrate those events, and nobody is making a pilgrimage to Bristol to worship at the god of slavery.

Pulling down statues won’t make any difference to the lives of ethnic minorities in this country. Their lives will not be improved by it at all. So on a long list of actions that protestors should be calling for, you’d expect ‘pulling down statues’ to be well down the bottom.

Also take note of where these statues tend to be. A massive focus on getting rid of the Rhodes statue at Oxford that’s been going on for a while demonstrates that this is an issue that concerns mostly ...university students who go to Oxford.  Hardly your Everyman issue that is helping poor BAME communities.. 

There's a reason there are no statues of Hitler in Germany. Sure, there are probably a large number of Germans who would love to erect a monument to him, but they, like the maniac they lionize, are cunts, and are correctly ignored. 

Anyone lamenting the forthcoming removal of the Rhodes monument should just chuck themselves in the nearest fucking river. 

[Conflicting Thought]

1 hour ago, Heartofice said:

So while those statues might be symbols of historically terrible events to some people, they are not there to lionise or celebrate those events, and nobody is making a pilgrimage to Bristol to worship at the god of slavery.

to some people... Lol. 

Why are you being so disingenuos. 

[Raja]

*Another one bites the dust*

 

[Heartofice]

Well now these statues are gone I guess racism is defeated! Good job guys,  back to the student union!

[Soylent Brown]

Yeah, we should leave the statues up. And we should ignore people using racial epithets too, perhaps even regular beatings as well. Because what would even be the point if there are still murders! Let's not do anything about anything else until all of the racially motivated murders are gone!

 

[Hereward]

Clearly the world has changed, as it should have done. Such statues are indefensible outside a museum. I’ll shed no tears about Colston’s while still defending the utmost importance of the rule of law.
 

However, we need to keep our eyes on the prize, and not further the damaging division we see in the US. A lot of people have pride in their country as their prime motivation. Pissing them off leads to that division. So, for instance, remove Colston and Rhodes, replace them with memorials to the black lives lost in the slave trade, but also memorialise the West African Squadron that lost thousands of lives preventing the slave trade, memorialise abolitionists. If you only want to make people ashamed of their country, you are asking for massive trouble.

[Conflicting Thought]

40 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

Well now these statues are gone I guess racism is defeated! Good job guys,  back to the student union!

Damn, why are you so mad, what did the slaves did to you?. 

[Heartofice]

1 minute ago, Conflicting Thought said:

Damn, why are you so mad, what did the slaves did to you?. 

What does this even mean?

[Derfel Cadarn]

1 hour ago, john said:

It certainly helped the peace of mind of the mayor of Bristol.

Not least because the Council bill to remove it would probably have been about £20,000

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

This sounds like a really bad New History of Capitalism explanation of economic growth.

The thing is that sustained economic growth is a relatively recent phenomena. If terrible behavior was key to economic growth, then I should think you would have seen sustained economic growth before the 17th or 18th century.

But, I don't necessarily disagree with the broader point that famous historical personages are likely to have engaged in some bad behavior. The question will then turn on what the behavior was and in the context in which it happened. For instance, I favor the removal of all statues of the confederacy from public spaces. And the reason is because I think there can be little doubt the Civil War was started to preserve slavery. Symbols of a would be slaveocracy simply can't be allowed to stand in today's age.

It's not so much an explanation of economic growth, so much as the way countries are founded.  Basically, on Iron and Blood.

I wouldn't remove statues of Bismarck.  He was a great, if flawed, man.

[SeanF]

4 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Arguably. But would Corbyn have made a worse PM than Johnson?

Remember, you opted for that stroll down memory lane, where Britain faced a simple and inescapable choice between two pretty low quality candidates.

Yes.