George Floyd/Black Lives Matter Protests

[Jacksgranda]

2 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

 It’s not mob rule deciding which statues get dismantled, it’s some of the people who live in the cities where they are situated.  People who were never given an option as to whether these memorials were erected are now taking them down.  It’s not for the majority of people in the UK to decide, it’s for the people who have had their history affected by these characters.  Statues are local issues.  Public opinion isn’t the question, here, I don’t think.  It’s the opinion of local communities, and it’s quite clear that the opinion of some of the people who live in those local communities is that they should be removed.

That would be my take on it. I don't think they held a referendum or anything.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

29 minutes ago, Dunfermline Don said:

 

‘The number of so-called philanthropists who have tried to buy their way to heaven, or at least respectability, is a long one.’

 

There is an Andrew Carnegie statue in Pittencrieff Park in Dunfermline.

Do we need to worry about it?

Does his philanthropy out way the strike breaking at his steelworks.

 

No, it doesn't*. I used to be impressed with the number of Carnegie Libraries around the place (as a schoolboy, I was actually a member at the Ayr one, as it had a better reference section than the Dick in Kilmarnock), but as you get older you realise that had he operated his business in a fairer way, he'd have improved a lot more lives - specifically his workforce - you know, the people whose sweat actually made that fortune.

*Even if you spelt it correctly.

[NotThePars]

8 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Even when we stopped it, we paid reparations to the poor little slave traders who ended up out of pocket, not the countries and communities which we ravaged for years.

Money which was apparently only eventually paid off in 2015.

[craigkillie]

4 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said:

There's half a million people live in Bristol. Were they all asked their opinion?

 

1 minute ago, Jacksgranda said:

That would be my take on it. I don't think they held a referendum or anything.

The people of Bristol repeatedly campaign for various things associated with Colston to be renamed or removed, and they successfully lobbied for a change of the name of the "Colston Hall" in the city. It's not like this came out of the blue.

Were the people living in the city asked their opinion before the statue was erected?

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not a fan of re-writing history to suit current values.

Obviously we can all agree that slavery = bad, but I see now that they're after the statue of Rhodes on Oxford.

What started out as the death of a black man in Minneapolis is starting to look like a far left hit list. 

 

 

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

2 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

 

The people of Bristol repeatedly campaign for various things associated with Colston to be renamed or removed, and they successfully lobbied for a change of the name of the "Colston Hall" in the city. It's not like this came out of the blue.

Were the people living in the city asked their opinion before the statue was erected?

Randomly destroying things you don't like has a name. It's called 'breaking the law'.

 

[WhiteRoseKillie]

20 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

Other people were doing it too is never going to be a valid defence.

..and are still doing it, and we* are not in the slightest bit bothered about it. Oh, we'll wring our hands and occasionally go full Lovejoy, but little real action is ever taken - possibly because a lot of modern slavery is state-sanctioned or even state-operated.

 Never mind the fruit-picking crisis, it will be interesting next year when our youngsters have to step up and fill the prostitute shortage when we crash out of Europe.

*UK Government, not YT personally.

[Jacksgranda]

1 minute ago, craigkillie said:

 

The people of Bristol repeatedly campaign for various things associated with Colston to be renamed or removed, and they successfully lobbied for a change of the name of the "Colston Hall" in the city. It's not like this came out of the blue.

Were the people living in the city asked their opinion before the statue was erected?

Were any "people" living in any city in the UK ever consulted about the erection of statues?

Re your other point I'm quite aware of this, doesn't mean some folk can unilateraly remove a statue. If the public will is there it may have been removed in time.

[Sinner-to-Saint]

1 hour ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

 How about the treatment of the Irish during and after the Great Hunger?

The Potato Famine? At the end of the day, they will pay the price for being a fussy eater. 

[spud131]

 It’s not mob rule deciding which statues get dismantled, it’s the people who live in the cities where they are situated.  People who were never given an option as to whether these memorials were erected are now taking them down.  It’s not for the majority of people in the UK to decide, it’s for the people who have had their history affected by these characters.  Statues are local issues.  Public opinion isn’t the question, here, I don’t think.  It’s the opinion of local communities, and it’s quite clear that the opinion of those local communities is that they should be removed.

How many people who were involved in taking down the statues yesterday have previously written to the local council etc to ask about getting them removed? I would bet very few if any.

[NotThePars]

3 minutes ago, spud131 said:

27 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

 It’s not mob rule deciding which statues get dismantled, it’s the people who live in the cities where they are situated.  People who were never given an option as to whether these memorials were erected are now taking them down.  It’s not for the majority of people in the UK to decide, it’s for the people who have had their history affected by these characters.  Statues are local issues.  Public opinion isn’t the question, here, I don’t think.  It’s the opinion of local communities, and it’s quite clear that the opinion of those local communities is that they should be removed.

How many people who were involved in taking down the statues yesterday have previously written to the local council etc to ask about getting them removed? I would bet very few if any.

This is a great point. Direct action works.

[Savage Henry]

3 minutes ago, spud131 said:

27 minutes ago, Savage Henry said:

 It’s not mob rule deciding which statues get dismantled, it’s the people who live in the cities where they are situated.  People who were never given an option as to whether these memorials were erected are now taking them down.  It’s not for the majority of people in the UK to decide, it’s for the people who have had their history affected by these characters.  Statues are local issues.  Public opinion isn’t the question, here, I don’t think.  It’s the opinion of local communities, and it’s quite clear that the opinion of those local communities is that they should be removed.

How many people who were involved in taking down the statues yesterday have previously written to the local council etc to ask about getting them removed? I would bet very few if any.

That’s kind of the point.  There’s historical precedence which would suggest their views would have been ignored, even if they had.

[NotThePars]

Must say I didn't expect it to only take 1-2 pages for Bob Mahelp to stop pretending he was speaking for his dad when he was clutching his pearls about the Colston statue.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

[Sinner-to-Saint]

5 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

aye for instance look at these vandals

 

To be fair there's a big difference between a wall designed to keep people captive in their socialist hellhole and a statue...

[Gordon EF]

28 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

We can start learning about Britain's role in ending it as soon as we actually start learning about Britain's role in doing it in the first place. Neither of these things are part of our current curriculum in any meaningful way and therefore don't register in the national psyche.

It seems a little bit churlish to celebrate your own role in stopping slavery when you were complicit in the process for decades before that, and built your own country off the back of the profits. Even when we stopped it, we paid reparations to the poor little slave traders who ended up out of pocket, not the countries and communities which we ravaged for years.

I'm sorry. There's no room for that in the curriculum once they're learned all about Anderson shelters, rationing and what a ruddy good time was had by all during the war.

How dare you attempt to politicise the History curriculum.

 

Edited June 8, 2020 by Gordon EF

[WhiteRoseKillie]

21 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

We can start learning about Britain's role in ending it as soon as we actually start learning about Britain's role in doing it in the first place. Neither of these things are part of our current curriculum in any meaningful way and therefore don't register in the national psyche.

It seems a little bit churlish to celebrate your own role in stopping slavery when you were complicit in the process for decades before that, and built your own country off the back of the profits. Even when we stopped it, we paid reparations to the poor little slave traders who ended up out of pocket, not the countries and communities which we ravaged for years.

This. Abso-fucking-lutely this. If nothing else blows the myth of Good old Britain doing its best for the poor darkies out of the water, it is this. When the outcry against slavery became irresistable, the Government protected the bastárds who couldn't run a sustainable business if their lives depended on it, and that included the Anglican Church - I believe it was the Bishop of Exeter who had owned over 600 other human beings.

[Guest Bob Mahelp]

8 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

aye for instance look at these vandals

 

That's a kind of reverse Godwin's Law type of post. 

I can't compete with that.... 

[Savage Henry]

3 minutes ago, Sinner-to-Saint said:

To be fair there's a big difference between a wall designed to keep people captive in their socialist hellhole and a statue...

Is there?

[WhiteRoseKillie]

13 minutes ago, Bob Mahelp said:

Maybe it's just me, but I'm not a fan of re-writing history to suit current values.

Obviously we can all agree that slavery = bad, but I see now that they're after the statue of Rhodes on Oxford.

What started out as the death of a black man in Minneapolis is starting to look like a far left hit list. 

 

 

"They" have been after the statue of Rhodes for years - and rightly so, imho.

Many. many deaths of black men, women and children in Africa (in the name of profit) kind of matter, even if "it was a long time ago, the past was different, he was a man of his time..."