Split Thread Tearing Down Statues Associated With Racial Injustice

Darat said:
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.
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Indeed, he was voted out of office in 1945.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
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.



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.
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Surely, statues do not need to be 'torn down'.

Whatever happened to going through the proper channels?
 
dann said:
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.
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In the case of Bristol and Edward Colston, they are surely glorifying his philantrhopy in funding half the schools and hospitals (instead of bequeathing it to his chidlren).

My friend in Tennessee glorifies the Confederate generals and volunteers. The state has whole museums dedicated to it. I was shocked by the confederate flag on the lawn and her taking shooting lessons. Otherwise, she is a perfectly nice normal person. Just views life through a different lens from the chattering classes of Islington. She had ancestors who fought in the Civil War. We see her side as the wrong side. However, we are all proudcts of history and whilst I disapprove, I can understand why she honours her 'heritage' (sorry to use my pet hate word) and remembers her history.

As devil's advocate, for all you know, Edward Colston his done more good for Bristol than some semi-literate thug who thinks Love Island is the height of culture. The people stomping on Colston's statue didn't look oppressed to me. One had a long blond pony tail. Probably mostly ex-public school boys turned revolutionaries.
 
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lionking said:
I don’t think so.



I was responding to this. No qualifiers there.
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That is right but then you said - " Is there a monument or tomb there which doesn’t offend a group of people today?"

Which changes it entirely. I never said that because "a group of people" was offended was grounds for the removal. That is your goalpost moving.

There have always been people offended by things, I bet there were some people back when Colston's statue was originally put up that were offended or objected to it.
 
Vixen said:
In the case of Bristol and Edward Colston, they are surely glorifying his philantrhopy in funding half the schools and hospitals (instead of bequeathing it to his chidlren).



...snip...
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I strongly suspect that the people involved in putting the statue up are not doing that and have not been doing that for a long time. They are dead. Why do the living have to be manacled by the dead?
 
Vixen said:
Surely, statues do not need to be 'torn down'.
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Apparently they do.

Whatever happened to going through the proper channels?
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The statue in question has long been controversial, and even the Mayor considered it a personal affront. Yet there it remained. For all the reasons I listed above, and more.
 
Vixen said:
As devil's advocate, for all you know, Edward Colston his done more good for Bristol than some semi-literate thug who thinks Love Island is the height of culture. The people stomping on Colston's statue didn't look oppressed to me. One had a long blond pony tail. Probably mostly ex-public school boys turned revolutionaries.
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Oh, Christ. Okay. I see I'm not going to be able to have a sensible conversation with you.
 
https://twitter.com/KateWilliamsme/status/1269713381973516290

People who say - authorities should take statues down after discussion. Yes. But it isn't happening. Bristol'sbeen debating #EdwardColston for years and wasn't getting anywhere. In 2018, it was agreed that statue would bear a plaque noting his involvement in the slave trade. BUT

Then it proved impossible to find a wording that everyone accepted. The first plaque that it bore, added when it was erected in 1895, said 'Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city'. NO mention of slavery. (2)
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The thread continues, detailing the history of the statue and the last 2 years of trying to get the plaque changed.
 
Thoughts on statue removal.

If the people of today do not want a statue, by all means take down the statue. We aren't required to be slaves (no pun intended) to the past. However, that decision should not be made by a mob.

It is foolish to judge people of the past by the standards of today. The entire British Empire was racist, not to mention the other "deplorable" characteristics. The whole concept of a colonial empire is inherently racist. Edward Colston's connection to that racism and slavery is more tangible than many other people who lived at that time, but everyone who participated in that society, who benefited from trade, who participated in colonialism, was tainted to some degree or another with the sins of the time. If we took down all the statues of people from those times who did not meet our standards, we would have to take down all the statues.

On the other hand, I agree with a sentiment expressed in another thread (I didn't see it moved to this one, perhaps I missed it) that if the only things for which a person is remembered is an attempt to preserve the relics of the past that we find deplorable today, then perhaps those monuments should be torn down, preferably after a vote of the city council or other relevant authority. In other words, Confederate generals probably shouldn't be the subject of adoration today.

Finally, being born today, and adopting the majority positions held today, does not make you virtuous. Your anti-slavery stance is not exactly a sign of commendable virtue. It's a pretty easy stance to take. This is true even if you really, really, really, hate slavery, so much so that you demand that statues of slave owners be torn down. At some point it just becomes a brand new form of holier than thou attitude.
 
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Darat said:
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.
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Okay, fair enough. Point taken. However, Wilberforce was a politician and thus was in the right place to make changes via parliamentary democracy. together with being a Christian.

Colston came from a family of merchants and was a Tory MP (so no surprise there). However:

In 1680, Colston became a member of the Royal African Company, which had held the monopoly in England on trading along the west coast of Africa in gold, silver, ivory and slaves from 1662.[5] Colston rose rapidly on to the board of the company and became deputy governor, the company's most senior executive position, from 1689 to 1690; his association with the company ended in 1692.[6]

This company had been set up by King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York (later King James II), who was the governor of the company, together with City of London merchants, and it had many notable investors, including John Locke (though he later changed his stance on the slave trade), the English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism", and the diarist Samuel Pepys.[7][8]
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wiki

Question: so should the statue of John Locke be torn down and the bust of Samuel Pepys, in the City of London?
 
Meadmaker said:
If the people of today do not want a statue, by all means take down the statue. We aren't required to be slaves (no pun intended) to the past. However, that decision should not be made by a mob.
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Who should it be made by?

It is foolish to judge people of the past by the standards of today. The entire British Empire was racist, not to mention the other "deplorable" characteristics. The whole concept of a colonial empire is inherently racist.
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Okay, so let's not celebrate the British Empire.

Edward Colston's connection to that racism and slavery is more tangible than many other people who lived at that time, but everyone who participated in that society, who benefited from trade, who participated in colonialism, was tainted to some degree or another with the sins of the time. If we took down all the statues of people from those times who did not meet our standards, we would have to take down all the statues.
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Slippery slope fallacy.

[...] preferably after a vote of the city council or other relevant authority.
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See the twitter thread linked above.

Finally, being born today, and adopting the majority positions held today, does not make you virtuous. Your anti-slavery stance is not exactly a sign of commendable virtue. It's a pretty easy stance to take. This is true even if you really, really, really, hate slavery, so much so that you demand that statues of slave owners be torn down. At some point it just becomes a brand new form of holier than thou attitude.
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This is a very odd straw man.
 
Vixen said:
Question: so should the statue of John Locke be torn down and the bust of Samuel Pepys, in the City of London?
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Sure. Why not? Replace them with statues of abolitionists or notable black people, since black people's contributions to history have long been erased.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
Who should it be made by?
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The elected representatives of the people.


Okay, so let's not celebrate the British Empire.
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Or anyone in it? Ever?


Slippery slope fallacy.
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Not even close. No connection to a slippery slope at all.



See the twitter thread linked above.
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The one that said that because the elected representatives weren't doing what she wanted, the mob had to do it. That doesn't seem to end well, but I suppose specifics on what that could lead to would be called a slippery slope, perhaps even properly.

To me, the fact that the council had not acted might suggest that the issue was more complex. I doubt that the Bristol town council, or whatever they are called in Bristol, consists of supporters of the slave trade. (Interestingly, in America, the situation might be slightly different with regard to Confederate statues. While I'm fairly confident that most elected officials do not support slavery, the reluctance to remove Confederate statues may in fact be related to clandestine support for the legacy of slavery.)




This is a very odd straw man.
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Your fallacy bingo card has some inaccurate entries.

Perhaps you don't see the connection, and perhaps I will elaborate later. The comment you are referring to was a general observation about the topic of this thread. Yes, I do think that opposition to statues of racists is often a form of virtue signaling, a "holier than thou" attitude. That may not apply to a particular person or a particular statue, but when it comes to general demands for public art removal, there's a lot of it.
 
Okay people.

If we have to have the "Well if we get rid of the statue of Tommy Slave Trader, don't we have to also get ride of the statue of Johnny Slave Owner as well?" discussion we have to have it AFTER we agree to get rid of the statue of Tommy Slave Trader.

Again this is what the Confederate Apologist in the states have been playing for years now. Every time we talk about taking down the statues of the Racist Traitors who fought a war against their own country to keep owning slaves, some dingus runs in wringing his hands to the heavens with some "Well oh Lordy me if we're going to do that shouldn't we get rid the statues of the people of people who just owned slaves? Guess we can't have statues of Washington or Jefferson anymore, such a shame" routine.

And my response is always the same. "That's just swell. We can have that discussion after we agreed to and get ride of the statues of the race war starting traitors."

And that should be the response here as well.

I keep having this problem more and more discussions. People... you all understand that when someone runs into a dicussion doing this: *makes some big dramatic wringing my hands gesture* that they aren't actually suffering from some moral "where do we draw the line" crisis right? They do it, almost always, for the sole purpose of shutting down the discussion we're currently having by pretending like we have to have the one after it now.
 
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