George Floyd/Black Lives Matter Protests

[Benjamin_Nevis]

7 minutes ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

 

Rangersmedia would make utterly incredible reading if that happens 

[johnnydun]

I see they are banning blackface at Up-Helly-aa, so they can celebrate raping and pillaging without being racist.

[Mr Waldo]

9 hours ago, The_Kincardine said:

My point was that Scotland, more than any other country in Europe, gained from the Atlantic slave trade (the most slavey) and that to describe we Scotch as being subject to, " institutionalised racist attitudes" is not something I have ever experienced. 

That is probably answering a Q you didn't ask.

I think Portugal may have something to say about 'the most slavey'. 

But anyway, thanks to our contribution,  the modern world would be very poor show with the Scots, so everything is fine. Punched way above our weight.

[Bairnardo]

I see they are banning blackface at Up-Helly-aa, so they can celebrate raping and pillaging without being racist.

Just need to let women participate now and they will maybe be promoted to the early 20th century

[Shandon Par]

10 hours ago, Sergeant Wilson said:

She seems nice.

Wondered what had happened to Gerard Kelly.

[Dons_1988]

1 hour ago, Sherrif John Bunnell said:

 

Much of these BLM protests going on in Belfast? 

[carpetmonster]

10 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

Much of these BLM protests going on in Belfast? 

Bunfield Lives Matter.

[GordonS]

22 hours ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

That would be The People, then.

..and my opinions on your choices:

1. Nope. The idea that Churchill was the only man who could have led the UK at the time is rvisionist bollox. His name is in the frame for the fúck-up at Gallipoli, the Bengal Famine, sending troops in against striking miners in Wales, sending fucking tanks into Glasgow to maintain control...

2. Nope. She didn't do a lot of stuff, she did do a lot of stuff. Nice to know that she had black friends (and that that phrase goes quite that far back), but throwing up statues to folk because they fell out of the right fanny is something I've never been a fan of.

3. Nope. At last we're getting somewhere. Fully agree, and glad that you're asking a few questions of perceived History. No sarcasm intended, btw. Good on you.

4. Nope. Not as ineffectual as Albert's Missus, and not as well-practised in out and out cuntery as the other two (as far as I know), he was a massive anti-semite and opposed the Reform Act, so no friend of the people.

My rule of thumb here - and I'm aware that it is open to argument - is that someone should leave the world a better place overall than when they entered it, or at least made more lives better than they affected negatively. Then we can talk memorials. So, Mandela (Nelson, before anyone gets smart) - yes. Thatcher - hell, no. Eric Morecambe (as seen earlier in the thread) - yes. Cecil Rhodes - no.

Where did I say Churchill was the only person who could have done anything? Fact is that he did provide inspirational leadership and mostly excellent judgement when the coasts to our south and east were occupied by the Nazis. He was strongly motivated by the desire to liberate Europe. His positives go a long, long way beyond giving ill-gotten cash to charity, like most of the contenders.

You do get that I'm not advocating putting up more statues of Queen Victoria, right? I'm saying that there's no rationale for removing them.

You may not have been aiming for sarcasm but you certainly hit condescension, which is completely unjustified. Our difference of opinion is not based on your superior knowledge. 

Your rule of thumb is hilariously open to opinion. Tens of millions of people in Britain think Thatcher left the world better than she found it. 

[GordonS]

22 hours ago, Sinner-to-Saint said:

The Colston statue was erected over one hundred years ago, at a time before there was any significant presence of BAME people in the UK. It's wrong IMHO to choose to move to another country and then demand that they start removing statues that they find offensive. What if I was to move to Rome, and then decide that the Italians should remove statues of Roman emperors because they invaded Britain and enslaved native Britons?

It's ok to put up statues of genocidal b*****ds, just as long as there aren't many people from the group he murdered living nearby? And if people in that group should later move to that country, their grandchildren shouldn't have a say about that statue?

Aw mate...

Apart from everything else wrong with that, when Colston's statue was erected slavery had been illegal for 63 years. They knew.

[GordonS]

22 hours ago, Mr Waldo said:

I don't see why one unelected section of a community should decide what is acceptable to others.  That opens up a whole new box of crap. As far as I know, the decision was made, Bristol has a statue.  Some people thought that was the wrong decision, so flung it in the water.

I would guess these were built for people who spent a lot of money bettering their community without really taking into account where the money came from. Didn't see Osama building schools in New York.  Incidentally,  should we destroy Auschwitz, or keep it as a reminder?

I'm just stating a fact - that the owners of statues currently get to decide what happens to them. In many cases they're listed monuments so they'd need permission from the council to remove them too. 

I'm not sure I care whether people are elected or not. It wouldn't have mattered to me if a majority of local councillors or a majority of the Bristol people wanted Colston to stay. The presence of that statue isn't important to anyone, it adds no value to them, but it was a deep insult to many people. Democracy is wider than elections. 

To be clear, I'm 100% in favour of Bristol's statue-yeeting. Discussions about that statue had gone on for far, far too long and sometimes a bit of direct action is what's needed to unblock resistance to change. 

The comparisons being made between statues and buildings is doing my head in. Statues depict the likeness of a person and are pretty much without exception made and displayed to honour their memory. Auschwitz stands as a memorial to the victims, not the oppressors. 

[GordonS]

5 hours ago, Theroadlesstravelled said:

This is apparently one of the protestors in Seattle.

I genuinely can’t tell if it’s a parody account or not.

 

 

She's 18, give her a break. At least she's out there actively fighting against systemic racism and police brutality while we're just pontificating on a football message board. 

[Bell™]

55 minutes ago, GordonS said:

Where did I say Churchill was the only person who could have done anything? Fact is that he did provide inspirational leadership and mostly excellent judgement when the coasts to our south and east were occupied by the Nazis. He was strongly motivated by the desire to liberate Europe. His positives go a long, long way beyond giving ill-gotten cash to charity, like most of the contenders.

 

he was strongly motivated by a desire to be in power, to be the big man, and to cripple Germany again. 

[GordonS]

15 hours ago, Lambie's Pigeon Feed said:

Books and museums are history, statues are not. Taking them down is not erasing history and people peddling this line are showing themselves up. Taking down that statue was an entirely legitimate protest and has led to more...

 

People with graduate qualifications moaning that Cecil Rhodes is being erased from history because there's a campaign to put his statue in a museum.

Yeah cos if there's one place you never get to remember history, it's a museum.

15 hours ago, Dee Man said:

Anecdotally, kids today in general are far less tolerant of all forms of discrimination and bigotry IMO. 

This proves absolutely nothing but this is the first article that came up on ny Google search. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/voices/private-school-racism-black-students-state-exclusions-a9286021.html%3famp

I'd agree. But, again anecdotally, I think it's bollocks that poorer kids would be more racist. Maybe they are in London. My 15yo spent two years at one of the poshest state schools in Scotland, and the past two years at one that's incredibly not. He says there was much more racism and discrimination of all types among the rich kids. At the poor school there's a lot more diversity of all types, both among the pupils and their families - race, disability, LGBT - so they seem to roll with it. He hears more racist language at the poorer school but he says many, many more of the kids at the wealthier school would exclude minorities from their friend groups and be awful behind their backs.

[GordonS]

23 minutes ago, Bell™ said:

he was strongly motivated by a desire to be in power, to be the big man, and to cripple Germany again. 

I don't think there's evidence to support that. 

[Bully Wee Villa]

When does "history" start? Should we have insisted that Germany kept all the swastikas up because one day it might remind them that there used to be loads of c***s about?

We are talking about statues of slave traders and colonialists, get them in the fucking river.

[oneteaminglasgow]

On the schools thing, I went to a private school and it was absolutely crammed with bigots of all varieties. 

I’ve never experienced state school, so I can’t comment on the difference between the two. The idea that there’s less racism, or even less bullying in general, at private schools seems misguided though. 

[Guest]

17 hours ago, Henderson to deliver ..... said:

Given your love of statues of slave traders, I would say that it's probably you that's the extremist.

You know it's funny, these statues have stood for over a century in most cases and I can't recall you nor indeed anyone else even mentioning them in passing up until last week.

What can I say, you obviously weren't THAT concerned about them.

So anyway, where do we stop ? Do we tear down all the listed buildings that were built with the money from the slave trade ? as surely they must be seen as "trophys" and a constant reminder of the ill gotten gains ??

Seriously though, where do we draw the line here ???

[Dee Man]

My boy said the Colston statue was thrown in the river as a symbolic gesture due to the fact that he used to tie up slaves and throw them in the water but I can't find any evidence of this online. Anyone else heard that?

[Stellaboz]

No that was Jim McLean.

[Dee Man]

Just now, Stellaboz said:

No that was Jim McLean.

That's what I thought.