Split Thread Tearing Down Statues Associated With Racial Injustice

[Skeptic Tank]

The distance from where we are now to any statue of a white man, then any statue of any white person, then any actual living white person - receiving the same treatment as that statue, is not nearly so far as many may think.

People are playing with forces that cannot be appeased.

 

[Meadmaker]

And, I have no special fondness for Edward Colston. I had never heard of him until this morning. I'm just not keen on mob vandalism as a sign of virtue. Congratulations. You tore down a statue. How very noble of you.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

The distance from where we are now to any statue of a white man, then any statue of any white person, then any actual living white person - receiving the same treatment as that statue, is not nearly so far as many may think.

People are playing with forces that cannot be appeased.

You wouldn't want to be treated that way on account of your skin color, you say?

It's not some mythical force waiting to be unleashed, it is in active practice. It's just happening in the other direction.

 

[Skeptic Tank]

You wouldn't want to be treated that way on account of your skin color, you say?

It's not some mythical force waiting to be unleashed, it is in active practice. It's just happening in the other direction.

A complete lie.

Blacks are not abused for their race by police. Every single thing you hear about traces back to their actual behavior. With a very, very few rare exceptions.

 

[Delphic Oracle]

A complete lie.



Blacks are not abused for their race by police. Every single thing you hear about traces back to their actual behavior. With a very, very few rare exceptions.

#thisisamerica

Freshly distilled essential oil extract of America.

 

[Vixen]

It's bloody stupid IMV. Colston was a slave trader, equivalent to a hedge fund manager today trading in arms dealing, polluting corporations and no doubt undercover drug and people trafficking fronts in shady offshore banana republics (cf the Panama Papers). Slavery was a blot in Britain's (and other countries') history. However, it is easy for us at our vantage point in history, social media, education and different cultural prism to condemn an historical economical set up. Throughout England we had the feudal system with messuages assigned to barons from Normandy with native Britons lying dead in the ditches after a brave defence against the invaders, Scotland had its lairds and land clearances uprooting communities established for generations, France and Russia kept its peasants and sans culottes in a state of miserable servitude with famine and pestilence rife, yet still expected to hand over tithes to the aristocracy of the day.

Colston is not really that different from Wilberforce who got slavery abolished via an Act of parliament. He was just doing what his class did. He bequeathed huge sums of money to Bristol in charitable causes. What he did was evil but was he as a person evil? You tell me.

O mores! O tempora!

 

[Checkmite]

I reckon there are a lot of Britons who have learned more about the British slave trade since the statue got chucked in the Avon than they did at school.

The same is true on this side of the ocean. More people have learned more actual facts about those Confederate generals as a result of their statues having been pulled down than anyone learned from the statues themselves for as long as they stood.

 

[Vixen]

The same is true on this side of the ocean. More people have learned more actual facts about those Confederate generals as a result of their statues having been pulled down than anyone learned from the statues themselves for as long as they stood.

Next time you guys sing 'Amazing Grace', remember who wrote it!

 

[Olmstead]

[...]

Careful people. We're getting close to the old Confederate Apologist "Oh so I guess we have to tear statues of Washington and Jefferson now too, since they owned slaves."

[...]

Would that really be such a bad thing though? I know "patriots" around the world would collectively have an aneurysm at the mere suggestion, but what purpose do such statues actually serve? There are some that arguably have some artistic value, but essentially they're there to glorify historical figures that were often very different from the idealised heroes people picture in their minds. What would be lost if they were gone?

 

[Darat]

Do not like the vandalism but I don't see why things can't change. If the public no longer want a particular statue of Y in place X then move it or get rid of it. Sensibilities change all the time and we don't have to be held to want folks a 100 years ago thought was appropriate or right.

 

[Darat]

...snip....

Colston is not really that different from Wilberforce who got slavery abolished via an Act of parliament. He was just doing what his class did. He bequeathed huge sums of money to Bristol in charitable causes. What he did was evil but was he as a person evil? You tell me.

O mores! O tempora!

Colston: Direct Line? I need to make a claim on my business insurance - yeah we "accidentally" shoved a few thousands of our cattle off a boat and they all died, I know terrible "accident" it's cost me thousands!

Wilberforce: People aren't cattle.

Yeah no difference between the two of them.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Well, since this was split off into its own thread it's taken a weird turn into slavery apologetics.

Yes, philanthropy is a good thing. No, that doesn't mean that there should be any statues to ******* slave traders.

Allow me to Godwinise the thread: the Nazis had a massive amount of welfare programmes. I don't think this opens up the debate as to whether or not Hitler was really all that bad, and I certainly don't think that makes an argument that Germans should put up statues of him.

There are plenty of people throughout history who managed to do good things without being mass-murderers, and without enslaving others. How about a statue of Roy Hackett, Owen Henry, Audley Evans, Prince Brown, and Paul Stephenson, instead?

 

[P.J. Denyer]

Farage commenting on the toppling of the statue of a slave trader

"A new form of the Taliban was born in the UK today. Unless we get moral leadership quickly our cities won't be worth living in."

Of course Farage's idea of "not worth living in" might be considered an endorsement to many.

Still, at least he's not spouting rubbish about donning khaki and grabbing a rifle this time.

 

[Vixen]

Well, since this was split off into its own thread it's taken a weird turn into slavery apologetics.

Yes, philanthropy is a good thing. No, that doesn't mean that there should be any statues to ******* slave traders.

Allow me to Godwinise the thread: the Nazis had a massive amount of welfare programmes. I don't think this opens up the debate as to whether or not Hitler was really all that bad, and I certainly don't think that makes an argument that Germans should put up statues of him.

There are plenty of people throughout history who managed to do good things without being mass-murderers, and without enslaving others. How about a statue of Roy Hackett, Owen Henry, Audley Evans, Prince Brown, and Paul Stephenson, instead?

The ruling classes get to put up the statues.

Churchill is considered a great man of history in the UK (no.1, I believe) because he won the war. Full stop. End of.

Here in Finland Field Marshall Mannerheim is idolised with his certificates framed and hung up in every church and cathedral, streets and lodges are named after him. If he were alive today, he would be considered an ultra-conservative right wing **** who oppressed the socialists. Indeed, at the end of his life he was moving from country to country, dying in Switzerland, to evade all the vigilantes of every shade after him. But hey, he got the Russkies and the Jerries out of our country, so he is a hero.

Having said that, until recently, he had his own Finnish Flag Day, Marsalka Day and there has been a modern day concession in that its name has been changed to Defence Forces Day, the flag day was just the other week.

However, try to pull down his statues and you'll have an angry mob after you.

 

[lionking]

Do not like the vandalism but I don't see why things can't change. If the public no longer want a particular statue of Y in place X then move it or get rid of it. Sensibilities change all the time and we don't have to be held to want folks a 100 years ago thought was appropriate or right.

There would barely be a monument left in the UK. No doubt you have been to Westminster Abbey. Is there a monument or tomb there which doesn’t offend a group of people today? Churchill, the greatest Brit of the 20th Century (yes, I know about his role in Gallipoli) has had his statue defaced. Is that fair enough?

Christ, what is being achieved here? Where does it stop?

There are statues of footballers and cricketers outside stadiums here and elsewhere. If someone really, seriously didn’t like Shane Warne, can they pull his statue down?

Or is there some list of “dontlikeisms” where I can check to see if some ancient historical figure deserves his or hers likeness to be destroyed? Joan of Arc was responsible for killing people. Pull down her statue. Boudica was a terrorist. Remove her image forever more.

 

[Darat]

Nice goal post move there lionking.

But that aside and if we now talk.about your new scenario, so what if people want stuff taken down because it offends them, its only stuff.

And a big PS for folk, Churchill's status today is a result of the propaganda started during the war years, he was not considered the greatest Brit of all time before during or immediately after the war.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

The ruling classes get to put up the statues.

And people can pull them down again, given the right circumstances. It really looks like we're living at a time of change. In part, that works to overcome inertia. Bristol's Mayor (who is black) has said that he considered the statue to be an affront.

So why hadn't it been torn down before? Inertia, politics, and other things of that nature.

Well, now there's impetus, and action has been taken. Good. Times change, and inertia is not a good reason to advocate for everything to stay the same while they do.

Churchill is considered a great man of history in the UK (no.1, I believe) because he won the war. Full stop. End of.

That's not an argument for not re-examining our own past and those who we hold up as heroes. In fact, it's actually kind of an argument for doing exactly that.

If for no other reason than perhaps if British people were more informed about the darker side of their own history it might help to stamp out this bloody stupid exceptionalism that permeates through our society and leads to things like the ridiculous self-sabotage of Brexit and our godawful coronavirus response.

 

[lionking]

Nice goal post move there lionking.
But that aside and if we now talk.about your new scenario, so what if people want stuff taken down because it offends them, its only stuff.

And a big PS for folk, Churchill's status today is a result of the propaganda started during the war years, he was not considered the greatest Brit of all time before during or immediately after the war.

I don’t think so.

If the public no longer want a particular statue of Y in place X then move it or get rid of it

I was responding to this. No qualifiers there.

 

[dann]

The ruling classes get to put up the statues.

Churchill is considered a great man of history in the UK (no.1, I believe) because he won the war. Full stop. End of.

Here in Finland Field Marshall Mannerheim is idolised with his certificates framed and hung up in every church and cathedral, streets and lodges are named after him. If he were alive today, he would be considered an ultra-conservative right wing **** who oppressed the socialists. Indeed, at the end of his life he was moving from country to country, dying in Switzerland, to evade all the vigilantes of every shade after him. But hey, he got the Russkies and the Jerries out of our country, so he is a hero.

Having said that, until recently, he had his own Finnish Flag Day, Marsalka Day and there has been a modern day concession in that its name has been changed to Defence Forces Day, the flag day was just the other week.

However, try to pull down his statues and you'll have an angry mob after you.

That may happen in some of the former Confederate states, too. I don't think it's an argument against pulling down statues meant to glorify slave owners and slave traders.

 

[Lplus]

There would barely be a monument left in the UK. No doubt you have been to Westminster Abbey. Is there a monument or tomb there which doesn’t offend a group of people today? Churchill, the greatest Brit of the 20th Century (yes, I know about his role in Gallipoli) has had his statue defaced. Is that fair enough?

Christ, what is being achieved here? Where does it stop?

There are statues of footballers and cricketers outside stadiums here and elsewhere. If someone really, seriously didn’t like Shane Warne, can they pull his statue down?

Or is there some list of “dontlikeisms” where I can check to see if some ancient historical figure deserves his or hers likeness to be destroyed? Joan of Arc was responsible for killing people. Pull down her statue. Boudica was a terrorist. Remove her image forever more.

Just go look on twitter....