Edward Colston and the removal of racist statues

lolly said:
This woman is amazing. I know this has more local interest to me, but watch it if you haven't, please.

And then there's this :D



What a QoL :disco:
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And fancy being told her work is 'not even poetry'. I bet Suomi can empathise, with people claiming his empty frame wasn't even art.
 
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lolly said:
I find the whole removing or erasing history argument utterly fatuous. Who on earth is trying to do that, or to claim it didn’t happen? Clearly this has made more people engage with history and acknowledge it.

And 'as a historian I'm offended'? Fuck off. The fact that you may have had more knowledge about it is an utter irrelevance. It doesnt make you more qualified or your opinion worth any more. If anything it makes you worse. You can't hide behind ignorance and are more complicit.
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Kate Williams and Susannah Lipscomb aren't offended and they're historians AND almost certainly have much better hair than Star's acquaintance.
 
Kate said:
Kate Williams and Susannah Lipscomb aren't offended and they're historians AND almost certainly have much better hair than Star's acquaintance.
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Did you see Kate Williams and Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu in particular shutting down Nigel Farage on GMB this morning? A glory to behold. Absolutely no pandering and calling him out for what he is.
 
And to think I had to resurrect a nom de plume to write to the local paper to bemoan the council not naming new roads after Wallace and Gromit, considering they have happily named them after slave traders for decades.
 
lolly said:
And to think I had to resurrect a nom de plume to write to the local paper to bemoan the council not naming new roads after Wallace and Gromit, considering they have happily named them after slave traders for decades.
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Time for Dorothy to get her ANARCHIST on.
 
Hopefully nobody figures out Victoria and Albert were problematic or we're going to have to rename half the country.
 
Incidentally, I don’t think I knew 'slaver' was a word until Sunday.
 
The Guardian:

All statues in Labour councils across England and Wales, plus across London and Manchester, will be examined for links to slavery and plantation owners, their leaders have said.

Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, said the city’s landmarks – including street names, the names of public buildings and plaques – will be reviewed by a commission to ensure they reflect the capital’s diversity, with a view to removing those with links to slavery
 
Heartwarming that all of this is happening under the nose of a Tory government and a mouthy minority of Brexitwats who've had it their own way for too long. What social changes will come of this, I've no idea, but it does feel like what's happening right now is hugely significant.
 
Indie said:
Which is kind of ironic given tea's popularity in the UK was driven by colonialism.
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That's a good point actually. At the moment the focus is very much on particular individuals. I wonder if (and hope) this will lead to a conversation about the role played by society at large. While slave traders and business owners etc gained wealth through exploitation, ultimately everyone in this country was benefiting in some way. I don't think that is something we've fully come to terms with yet as a country.
 
The ridiculous thing is that it’s taken until NOW for this all to happen. Statues is one thing, renaming streets is a much bigger thing. In Glasgow the protesters renamed one of the streets Rosa Parks Street. That I kinda disagree with because she had absolutely no connection to Glasgow or Scotland. If they are going to rename streets then I think it needs to be something either neutral or related to the city.

The big one in Glasgow is Buchanan Street which also has a shopping centre, a subway station and other buildings named after it. It’s not something they’re able to do on a whim.
 
Kalabaliken said:
The big one in Glasgow is Buchanan Street which also has a shopping centre, a subway station and other buildings named after it. It’s not something they’re able to do on a whim.
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It's not on a whim, but if they really wanted it would be done quick, it's not as hard as they make everyone think. If changing the name of a street is so complex, the UK will literally stop functioning come Brexit Day on 31st December 2020.

Many streets in Spain were named after Franco and their acolytes, generals etc. during his regime. The biggest street in my hometown was called "General Franco". After he died, there was a debate FOR YEARS and a lot of UMMING and ERRING from the conservatives about how much of a faff and how expensive it would be to rename them etc. and they stalled legislation for nearly 10 years on that basis. The moment the socialists passed the law the names changed OVERNIGHT. So it's not LOGISTICS that's preventing this from happening.
 
But it’s not only the street names that need to change in many cases. In the case of Buchanan Street, who is going to foot the bill for the cost to change all the signage on buildings, on the subway etc. And then there’s the dilemma of WHAT do they change it to? Also, Buchanan is such a common Scottish surname that they could just say it is now named after someone else instead.

Franco was just one person, but it’s a huge task to go through every single street in the country to check if it’s related to slavery.
 
It wasn't just Franco! There were about 7 or 8 streets (that I know of, probably more) called General this and General that in my hometown alone. It's not that huge of a task buddy, there are hundreds of people working in hundreds of councils across Britain, there are town planners and historians that can do this work for each of the areas... I really don't think it's a 'huge task'. People know these names!

Oh and they can foot the bill with all the money they'll save by de-funding the police :) I'd vote for that!
 
If de-funding the police is TOO CONTROVERSIAL (go figure!), I'd suggest they use money from:

- V-Day celebrations
- D-Day celebrations
- Queen's birthday nonsense parade (we can ALL make sacrifices, right?)
- etc

It's not lack of money. This country spends A LOT OF MONEY in other EMPTY GESTURES, they can afford to use some for a REAL ONE for a change.
 
Peekaboo said:
If de-funding the police is TOO CONTROVERSIAL (go figure!), I'd suggest they use money from:

- V-Day celebrations
- D-Day celebrations
- Queen's birthday nonsense parade (we can ALL make sacrifices, right?)
- etc

It's not lack of money. This country spends A LOT OF MONEY in other EMPTY GESTURES, they can afford to use some for a REAL ONE for a change.
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Sorry we're spending all our money on NUCLEAR SUBMARINES for wars that will never happen *ROLL EYE EMOJI*
 
Also Glasgow has a fucking RIVER named after Lord Clyde. His statue in George Square is one of the ones BLM supporters want removed. Literally THOUSANDS of things such as businesses, football teams, newspapers and even TOWNS are named after him. It’s not just the simple thing of taking a plaque down and changing it for something. These things cannot just be done in five minutes.
 
Peekaboo said:
She's officially DEAD.

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I am astonished this has happened so quickly after the protests. Anyone who thinks protesting can't effect change should look at this. This really feels like the beginning of a massive movement that we've not seen for black people since the 1960s. And about time we saw some POSITIVE change politically. It's about the most heart-warming thing I've seen happen politically in the last 10 years.
 
Kalabaliken said:
Also Glasgow has a fucking RIVER named after Lord Clyde. His statue in George Square is one of the ones BLM supporters want removed. Literally THOUSANDS of things such as businesses, football teams, newspapers and even TOWNS are named after him. It’s not just the simple thing of taking a plaque down and changing it for something. These things cannot just be done in five minutes.
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My knowledge of Scottish history is POOR but I doubt very much that a RIVER is named after any slave trader!
 
Clyde: This surname originated in Celtic times, and was used in Scotland and Ulster as a name for people who lived by the banks of the River Clyde, which flows through Glasgow. The origin of the river's name comes from the Gaelic name "Cluaidh", the original meaning of which is now unclear.
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ButterTart said:
Heartwarming that all of this is happening under the nose of a Tory government and a mouthy minority of Brexitwats who've had it their own way for too long. What social changes will come of this, I've no idea, but it does feel like what's happening right now is hugely significant.
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They have had it their own way for so long they have lost all sense of perspective and rational thought. One of the senior Tories on the council here is STILL today calling Colston a 'hero'.

But then he's one of the cunts who objected to a second plaque going up on the statue a couple of years ago which explained Colston's role in the slave trade, which was a proposed solution at one point.

In fact he actually said in 2018 that he couldn't in his heart condemn anyone who damaged or removed the plaque, and that it 'may be justified'. And yet two years later, this is frenzied thug violence and rank lawlessness.

Mind you, he's also got into trouble for suggesting the council employs more 'attractive lesbians'.

And then there was this

_1897281_golly300.jpg


It's absolutely delightful watching him froth over the local news.
 
lolly said:
They have had it their own way for so long they have lost all sense of perspective and rational thought. One of the senior Tories on the council here is STILL today calling Colston a 'hero'.

But then he's one of the cunts who objected to a second plaque going up on the statue a couple of years ago which explained Colston's role in the slave trade, which was a proposed solution at one point.

In fact he actually said in 2018 that he couldn't in his heart condemn anyone who damaged or removed the plaque, and that it 'may be justified'. And yet two years later, this is frenzied thug violence and rank lawlessness.

Mind you, he's also got into trouble for suggesting the council employs more 'attractive lesbians'.

And then there was this

_1897281_golly300.jpg


It's absolutely delightful watching him froth over the local news.
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I mean, I don't want to fight prejudice with prejudice, but anyone that ginger is bound to be a wrong 'un. He seems like he's cut from the same cloth as Farage - I'm surprised anyone like that would get a foothold in Bristol.
 
I'm not quite sure how he's clung on to power for so long. His ward wouldn't be a typically Tory one, and it's in Bristol South, which traditionally has been the safest Labour seat in the city.

But then people often vote strangely in local elections, don't they. Perhaps he's very nice to lollipop ladies.
 
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I see League of Gentlemen trending due to this. I really don't see Papa Lazarou as blackface. He's a grotesque character that wears black make up. It's not pretending to be a person of colour. Or am I hopelessly wrong about this?
 
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