Split Thread Tearing Down Statues Associated With Racial Injustice

[Gilbert Syndrome]

I keep going back to this, where has the idea arisen from that we must be bound to what folk in the past decided they wanted as ornaments? Especially given that in the past for the vast majority of such "commemorations" would have had sod all to do with the general public and will have been decided upon by a very small, completely unrepresentative actual elite celebrating themselves.

They put up and pulled down what they wanted, as should everyone.

True, but who gets to decide what's worthy of commemorating and what isn't? The UK can't even agree on whether it wants to remain in Europe or not, not to mention which particular wally it wants to run their affairs.

We're all, presumably, very different when it comes to what we hold dear and thus we're all different when it comes to what we feel should or should not be commemorated. I imagine there's a lot of people out there who feel that Piers Morgan is a jolly good bloke, but I wouldn't fancy giving them the chance to vote for a street in his honour.

Piers' Place.

 

[Meadmaker]

I had never heard of Monument Avenue before now. I think an empty plinth where Lee's statue is would leave a real hole. It would be an eyesore. This is a case where I would not want the statue removed just because its absence would be aesthetically not pleasing.

Replace Lee's statue with something else. Add statues around the circle where the current statue stands. Change plaques. Do something, but don't just take away the great big thing that is the center of attention.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

Lionking - why do you think we have to be bound by the decisions of people made 50, 200 or 40,000 years ago? Why can't people today do what those people did and decide what they want to commemorate in their public spaces?

I'm all for that, but I seriously doubt it'll end well...

Our country, not to mention our cousins across the pond, are seemingly at odds with each other over most things. I doubt we'd all come to an agreement on the things we should have bronzed or framed.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

My preference would be to recover the statue and put in a museum. Colston was just an extreme some parts bad, some parts good, version of us all, he was an evil slaver, who also did good by donating his money. His place in history has to be recognised.

I would then put up a new statue showing how much of Bristol's wealth came from slavery.

I would then repeat that process throughout the UK.

Fair play.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

I like that, in general it's a good idea.

I agree, it's firmly putting those links in the realm of remembrance, IMO, as opposed to celebration.

While we don't have to celebrate the things our predecessors did, we can remember them and hopefully, teach the future generations to learn from them.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

And anyone who knows me will know I say this through gritted teeth to be fair to Liverpool (as its various councils) has since the 80s been very open and upfront as to its role in the slave trades. It doesn’t hide its legacy.

Why do you say it through gritted teeth?

Anyone who's ever stepped foot in this city knows it's not shy about its past. Nor are we shamed by our strong multicultural communities, and anyone who claims to be is not your average Liverpudlian. We've one of the oldest Caribbean communities in the UK, if not the oldest, as well as one of the oldest Chinese communities. We had free black men and women here as early as 1710.

The White Man March, organised by National Action, the right wing group, was famously chased out of this city with their tails between their legs.

Liverpool was built on immigration, and we're not all oblivious to that fact.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

There's a pretty big goddamn space between "Judging people who lived a significant amount of time ago by our standards" and "Keeping monuments to them up."

There's also a pretty big space between what people agree and disagree on. I agree a lot of stuff should be re-evaluated, I don't agree that it's something we can all have a general stab at simply because we've decided we can.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

And anyone who knows me will know I say this through gritted teeth to be fair to Liverpool (as its various councils) has since the 80s been very open and upfront as to its role in the slave trades. It doesn’t hide its legacy.

Seconded, my in-laws are in Liverpool so it physically pains me to speak in support of the place but criticizing Liverpool for it's history regarding slavery is redundant. They openly and publicly acknowledge it and go to great lengths to educate on it's history.

[URL="https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/international-slavery-museum"international-slavery-museum]International Slavery Museum[/URL]

 

[Darat]

Why do you say it through gritted teeth?

....snip...

Saying anything even remotely non-critical of Liverpool hurts me! I would be considered a wollyback by the inhabitants of Liverpool.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

Saying anything even remotely non-critical of Liverpool hurts me! I would be considered a wollyback by the inhabitants of Liverpool.

Well, we're not exactly out for the blood of woolybacks, lol. We try to welcome everyone here, including people from Birkenhead and the surrounding areas

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

Seconded, my in-laws are in Liverpool so it physically pains me to speak in support of the place but criticizing Liverpool for it's history regarding slavery is redundant. They openly and publicly acknowledge it and go to great lengths to educate on it's history.

[URL="https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/international-slavery-museum"international-slavery-museum]International Slavery Museum[/URL]

People often do it, regardless, because so many of them do it from elsewhere. People who know the city, or have visited, understand that our history, both good and bad, is on display for all to see.

Like I mentioned earlier, one of my more vivid childhood memories regarding school was visiting the maritime museum, which I loved, and it didn't hold back on the realities of the slave trade, it was often regarded as pretty haunting lesson for many young kids. It definitely stuck in my mind.

I adore the history of this city, as do/did my entire family, and I know all too well the many links we have with the slave trade. My bookshelf is lined with books on the docks, our shipping industries, and everything in between.

 

[wareyin]

Well, this comes down to the difference between celebrating and remembering. Personally, I think history should be remembered, though obviously, not always celebrated. Then you could ask the question, should some people who were involved in doing bad things be celebrated? That's a question where we don't seem to be clear on the answer. We often celebrate people who had some involvement with less savoury things. Another puzzling question is what about buildings with a dubious past? Are they worthy of being torn down, are they worthy of serving as a form of remembrance? Can you consider some of these buildings as places that people celebrate?*

The tower of London is a massive tourist trap where people from all over the world happily buy up the merchandise and gather around to get a kick out of gruesome stories, despite the fact that people were imprisoned, tortured and killed there, many of them even innocent to some degree... Likewise, for instance, Ripper tours are similar, they are often full of exaggerated details to dazzle the crowd and enjoyed by people who often sport Ripper cosplay, of all things! There's even a Jack the Ripper museum that's less about remembering the victims and seemingly more about celebrating the murders like they're some Conan Doyle tale. So do some people and places deserve remembering? For what reasons? Can we still read literature, watch movies, listen to music, or admire the art of dubious people? Is that a form of celebration?

It's not so black and white to me (pun obviously intended).

I think there's an obviously huge difference between a tourist trap that you choose to go to and pay to get in, and a public statue that (in the US at least) is paid for by public taxes, maintained by the government, and is usually in a place of honor that one can't avoid such as a courthouse or main square. People can spend their own money to get their jollies at a Jack the Ripper museum all they want, or pay for a copy of music or a movie or art. That's rather different than government sponsored celebration and honoring of Robert E Lee or Colston, especially over the opposition of the citizenry paying for those honors.

 

[Gilbert Syndrome]

I think there's an obviously huge difference between a tourist trap that you choose to go to and pay to get in, and a public statue that (in the US at least) is paid for by public taxes, maintained by the government, and is usually in a place of honor that one can't avoid such as a courthouse or main square. People can spend their own money to get their jollies at a Jack the Ripper museum all they want, or pay for a copy of music or a movie or art. That's rather different than government sponsored celebration and honoring of Robert E Lee or Colston, especially over the opposition of the citizenry paying for those honors.

The point I was making is that where do you draw the line? I'm in no way saying that the Tower of London should be torn down, but if someone argued the point that it should, would they be heard? Is gathering around to hear stories of innocent people being brutally murdered an act of remembrance or an act of celebration?

If monuments to questionable people of history are up for scrutiny, are buildings? Is art? Music? Film? Literature?

In another thread, the topic of Lovecraft's racism was mentioned, yet we continue to celebrate him as an important author who influences many. In fact, his very likeness was made into an award for authors of Fantasy fiction!

Isn't this shedding light on whether or not we can ever truly forgive and forget? Is all of the good a person does negated by the bad he also does?

Seems to me we don't bother thinking about any of it because it's a messy, blurred road that inevitably leads to contradiction somewhere along the way.

Again, I've no issue with Colston's statue being torn down, but inevitably, it leads me to wonder what else we can now re-evaluate and be rid of because we no longer see fit to accept it.

It's a pesky battle between celebrating and remembering.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The point I was making is that where do you draw the line? I'm in no way saying that the Tower of London should be torn down, but if someone argued the point that it should, would they be heard? Is gathering around to hear stories of innocent people being brutally murdered an act of remembrance or an act of celebration?

Well look at all the celebration photos taken at Auschwitz. Should that be a reason to tear it down?

It is pretty easy, everything stands on its own merits. Statues unlike building tend to not be historically significant, and the ones being talked about are not artistically significant either. They were put up to memorialize and generally celebrate a specific group or individual, and as such we can determine if that individual or group is one that deserves celebration.

I am still waiting for people to start funding a museum of acres and acres of such public statuary. You could have all kinds of fun wings/regions for various political movements dictators and the like.

 

[Meadmaker]

The point I was making is that where do you draw the line? I'm in no way saying that the Tower of London should be torn down, but if someone argued the point that it should, would they be heard? Is gathering around to hear stories of innocent people being brutally murdered an act of remembrance or an act of celebration?

It occurs to me that I am not a fan of hereditary monarchs. Oh, The Queen is just fine. She has no power. A real monarch, though, is someone who gets to tell people what to do because he had the good fortune to emerge from the right womb at the right time. Some of them turned out to be not so bad as all the rest, but the whole concept is thoroughly ridiculous.

And so the United Kindom doesn't just keep statues of those people around, they keep real people in costume pretending to be those people, let them speak to parliament, and sell commemorative teacups when they get married.

What did the various kings and queens of England (and miscellaneous other bits that varied through history) do that they deserve such elaborate commemoration?

But of course, it's not really that. It's not that those eight guys named Henry were paragons of virtue that should be revered. It's that they represent a tradition, a history, a collective identity of the people who live there now.

 

[Nessie]

Well, yes and no.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Colston

Maybe he wasn't quite as open-handed as his supporters would suggest.

Perhaps he also wasn't quite as generous as his reputation would lead Bristolians to believe:



https://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/myths-within-myths/

There are lots of charitable legacies like that. Other common ones are funds that only women or residents of a certain area can apply for.

Colston's actions are being repeated today, where strict conditions are placed on who gets.

 

[bruto]

There's a pretty big goddamn space between "Judging people who lived a significant amount of time ago by our standards" and "Keeping monuments to them up."

I keep saying that too, but it seems to whiz right by some. I think all too often people apply a rickety transitive property to ideas and expressions. If dumping the statue is tantamount to altering one's view, and if altering one's view is tantamount to rewriting history, and rewriting history is tantamount to denying it, then dumping the statue is denying history.

 

[Venom]

Tear down Genghis Khan and Timur statues while you're at it. Maybe we can move all of these jackasses into a museum or hide them in a cave.

 

[JoeMorgue]

I keep saying that too, but it seems to whiz right by some. I think all too often people apply a rickety transitive property to ideas and expressions. If dumping the statue is tantamount to altering one's view, and if altering one's view is tantamount to rewriting history, and rewriting history is tantamount to denying it, then dumping the statue is denying history.

I don't they put nearly that much thought into it, they've just trained themselves to never be wrong by forever stalling out conversations with endless hair splitting so it never ends.

Which is annoying at the best of times, downright an issue when it's always the thing that keeps social problems from being solved.

 

[wareyin]

The point I was making is that where do you draw the line? I'm in no way saying that the Tower of London should be torn down, but if someone argued the point that it should, would they be heard? Is gathering around to hear stories of innocent people being brutally murdered an act of remembrance or an act of celebration?

If people wish to go somewhere and pay to hear such stories, I don't care. Lumping that in with statues that people don't choose to pay for seems like an apples and oranges thing.

If monuments to questionable people of history are up for scrutiny, are buildings? Is art? Music? Film? Literature?

It really looks like you are struggling to differentiate between things that people choose to pay for and choose to attend vs things that the government forces people to pay for and puts in public places of prominence. As I don't think those are remotely the same, for absurdly obvious reasons, I don't really know how to make the differences more clear.

In another thread, the topic of Lovecraft's racism was mentioned, yet we continue to celebrate him as an important author who influences many. In fact, his very likeness was made into an award for authors of Fantasy fiction!

Oh no, a privately funded award with the face of someone who held racist ideas! Given that knowledge, how can we justify not using public funds to purchase and maintain on public lands statues to people who fought a war solely for the right to own slaves or people who made vast fortunes selling slaves?!?!

Isn't this shedding light on whether or not we can ever truly forgive and forget? Is all of the good a person does negated by the bad he also does?

In the case of the Confederate statues, those were put up to celebrate the bad they did. That makes it difficult to forgive and forget the bad they did.

Seems to me we don't bother thinking about any of it because it's a messy, blurred road that inevitably leads to contradiction somewhere along the way.

I'm sure that if we break things down to the sub-atomic level we can find some blurry messiness. But from here it looks more like you are struggling to find a mess, even going so far as conflating obviously different things to create a mess.

Again, I've no issue with Colston's statue being torn down, but inevitably, it leads me to wonder what else we can now re-evaluate and be rid of because we no longer see fit to accept it.

It's a pesky battle between celebrating and remembering.

No, I think the distinctions are still pretty clear.