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Split Thread Tearing Down Statues Associated With Racial Injustice

Bunch of Far-Right middle aged white football hooligans have propped themselves up in front of Grey's Monument calling themselves the 'Defenders of Newcastle', they are going to protect the statue.

What they don't seem to realise is Earl Grey was the PM who abolished Slavery.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
The Fawltey Towers episode was removed because of the 'n-word', the BBC have a dubbed version that other outlets have used for several years so it will probably be back up pretty quickly.
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UKTV have issued a statement that they periodically review old programmes for their content and often contextualise them with warnings before they air. They're currently in the process of adding one to that episode of Fawlty Towers, and will then reinstate it.

That seems reasonable.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Bunch of Far-Right middle aged white football hooligans have propped themselves up in front of Grey's Monument calling themselves the 'Defenders of Newcastle', they are going to protect the statue.

What they don't seem to realise is Earl Grey was the PM who abolished Slavery.
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The ones "defending" Churchill's statue against the BLM protest that was cancelled a few days ago are doing Nazi salutes.

The BLM protest was cancelled because the organisers thought that the far right crowd would be looking to start a fight. To prove them wrong, the Nazis have been attacking the police.
 
dann said:
Would you describe slaveowners and slave traders as persons that aren't/weren't perfect?
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Yes.

The concept of moral relativism is really in play here, and something I think is a valid viewpoint. If there is a society where holding slaves is considered normal and decent, I would not say that every single person in that society was some sort of monster. They were part of a system that I would say is terrible, but that doesn't mean that every single person who was part of that system is terrible.

I'll give an example of someone with quite a few statues, although not in the United States. Ever heard of Cuauhtémoc? He's got a fair number of statues to him in Mexico. He was the successor of Moctezuma II, and was the last emperor of the Aztecs. Statues can be found in Mexico. I don't know of any in the United States.

If you've never done it, I recommend doing some reading on the Aztecs. If ever there was a society more firmly evil than the Nazis, it was the Aztecs. Incredibly, horrible, awful, people. I grew up thinking that Hernan Cortes showed up with guns and overthrew the empire. Nope. He rallied a bunch of Indians who absolutely hated the Aztecs. Those guys not only owned and traded in slaves, they cut out their still beating hearts to bring rain. If there were good guys and bad guys in the battle of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards were the good guys.

So, when we're demanding statues come down, I assume Cuauhtémoc is on the list?

Or do we just say, perhaps, that he is an important figure that represents a heritage significant to the Mexican people, and that the statues represent that, and not some sort of endorsement of slavery and human sacrifice?
 
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Squeegee Beckenheim said:
The ones "defending" Churchill's statue against the BLM protest that was cancelled a few days ago are doing Nazi salutes.

The BLM protest was cancelled because the organisers thought that the far right crowd would be looking to start a fight. To prove them wrong, the Nazis have been attacking the police.
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To be fair, at least one has been injured by a bottle thrown by a fellow fascist
 
"We're just here to defend the statues and the police"

wee-4a9a.jpg

Man urinates on memorial to PC Palmer
 
Meadmaker said:
Yes.

The concept of moral relativism is really in play here, and something I think is a valid viewpoint. If there is a society where holding slaves is considered normal and decent, I would not say that every single person in that society was some sort of monster. They were part of a system that I would say is terrible, but that doesn't mean that every single person who was part of that system is terrible.

I'll give an example of someone with quite a few statues, although not in the United States. Ever heard of Cuauhtémoc? He's got a fair number of statues to him in Mexico. He was the successor of Moctezuma II, and was the last emperor of the Aztecs. Statues can be found in Mexico. I don't know of any in the United States.

If you've never done it, I recommend doing some reading on the Aztecs. If ever there was a society more firmly evil than the Nazis, it was the Aztecs. Incredibly, horrible, awful, people. I grew up thinking that Hernan Cortes showed up with guns and overthrew the empire. Nope. He rallied a bunch of Indians who absolutely hated the Aztecs. Those guys not only owned and traded in slaves, they cut out their still beating hearts to bring rain. If there were good guys and bad guys in the battle of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards were the good guys.

So, when we're demanding statues come down, I assume Cuauhtémoc is on the list?
Or do we just say, perhaps, that he is an important figure that represents a heritage significant to the Mexican people, and that the statues represent that, and not some sort of endorsement of slavery and human sacrifice?
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Have you put him on our list?
 
Meadmaker said:
Yes.

The concept of moral relativism is really in play here, and something I think is a valid viewpoint. If there is a society where holding slaves is considered normal and decent, I would not say that every single person in that society was some sort of monster. They were part of a system that I would say is terrible, but that doesn't mean that every single person who was part of that system is terrible.

I'll give an example of someone with quite a few statues, although not in the United States. Ever heard of Cuauhtémoc? He's got a fair number of statues to him in Mexico. He was the successor of Moctezuma II, and was the last emperor of the Aztecs. Statues can be found in Mexico. I don't know of any in the United States.

If you've never done it, I recommend doing some reading on the Aztecs. If ever there was a society more firmly evil than the Nazis, it was the Aztecs. Incredibly, horrible, awful, people. I grew up thinking that Hernan Cortes showed up with guns and overthrew the empire. Nope. He rallied a bunch of Indians who absolutely hated the Aztecs. Those guys not only owned and traded in slaves, they cut out their still beating hearts to bring rain. If there were good guys and bad guys in the battle of Tenochtitlan, the Spaniards were the good guys.

So, when we're demanding statues come down, I assume Cuauhtémoc is on the list?

Or do we just say, perhaps, that he is an important figure that represents a heritage significant to the Mexican people, and that the statues represent that, and not some sort of endorsement of slavery and human sacrifice?
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Do people in Mexico feel insulted by the statues? Did he specifically target certain groups of people that are still identifiable today?
 
The irony of the thugs "aparrently" attacking the police and giving Nazi salutes to defend the statue of Winston Churchill is only surpassed by the fact that Boris Johnson who dreamt of being like Churchill is scared to speak out against the thugs, because they are his base.
 
A stroke of genius cancelling the BLM protest. It gave the far-right centre stage to reveal who they are without any ambiguity of who was fighting who, who started what, and us having to hear about the 'good people on both sides' nonsense from leaders.
 
It is the far right's turn to riot in London today.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53031072

It is not clear why some are attacking the police. The bulk of today's protests are about the previous damage to statues during BLM demonstrations.
 
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Mike! said:
Okay, sorry to interrupt the thread with a stupid question, but he's been brought up a couple times now, and I clearly must have missed the memo, what's wrong with Morrissey? I skimmed his Wikipedia page and didn't see anything that seemed overtly controversial or all that odd or different than any other "pop star".
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'Nuff said?

 
Meadmaker said:
Comparable to Columbus in that sense.
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I'm not sure what you mean by that. As I understand it objections to Columbus largely center around what he symbolises, the start of colonization on the Americas and it's negative effect on indigenous peoples rather than his historical actions and some people do appear to take offence, be it rightly or wrongly. With Cuauhtémoc you seem to be arguing that his statues should be taken down for his historical actions and I'm asking if there are groups calling for his images removal.
 
P.J. Denyer said:
I'm not sure what you mean by that. As I understand it objections to Columbus largely center around what he symbolises, the start of colonization on the Americas and it's negative effect on indigenous peoples rather than his historical actions and some people do appear to take offence, be it rightly or wrongly. With Cuauhtémoc you seem to be arguing that his statues should be taken down for his historical actions and I'm asking if there are groups calling for his images removal.
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Ok. You seem to be saying that we shouldn't take down a statue unless there is a group of people calling for the removal of the statue. That seems reasonable.

However, what I'm really doing, as are others, is asking people to examine their opinions on statue removal. One way to do that is to say that if we demand the removal of statue X for some reason, which other statues ought we remove? dann asked specifically in the context of slave traders and slave owners whether we could consider this as an imperfection, as opposed to some fundamental flaw that cannot be overlooked.

Carrying that thought specifically to the topic of the thread, is there any statue of any slave owner that ought to be left up. I say yes there is. I look at the list of people with dedicated statues, and I say that some of them are statue worthy despite owning or even trading in slaves. (Drake comes to mind in the latter category. Lots of people in the former category.) For those people who say no, then I'm asking to examine all of the statuary that ought to be removed to see if everyone is being consistent. If so, Cuauhtémoc has to go. His statues might be safe because he's in Mexico, where they aren't experiencing a wave of statuary iconoclasm, but it's still a valid thought experiment.

If you aren't consistent, it seems like it ends up being a case of "I don't think of him as on my team, so there can't be any statues of him." I suppose that's fine, but it's not exactly a lofty purpose.

As for Columbus, specifically, I'll let someone who wants to get rid of his statue say specifically why. For my part, I think explorers, risk takers, and people who have made a major impact on our world are statue-worthy, even if that exploration was driven by profit and achieved by conquest. Without Columbus, we wouldn't be here. I suppose some people are upset about us being here, but in my opinion, we really aren't so bad.
 
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Meadmaker said:
Ok. You seem to be saying that we shouldn't take down a statue unless there is a group of people calling for the removal of the statue. That seems reasonable.
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Yes it does to me too, but I don't think I've actually said that although I don't think I'd argue with it. I did ask a fairly simple question though, are there groups asking for statues of Cuauhtémoc to be removed? You brought him up so I'm just asking if anyone is actually asking for his statues to be removed?
 
"I demand you stop punching me."

"We need to discuss, who else would you expect me to stop punching?"
 
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