I appreciate that you may not have clear intent to deflect as others do, and I agree with a bit of what you're saying, but I'm compelled to point out that you at no point spoke of police brutality or the corrupt culture that allows officers who have sworn to protect to not be held accountable for the unjustifiable killings of the people they're supposed to be protecting.
Everyone deserves an equal opportunity for justice, and cops getting away with criminal conduct makes that impossible, the color of everyone else's skin notwithstanding.
Fair point, and no deflection was intended.
I have posted before about what happened to Floyd in particular and that police officer and since he along with the others with him have rightly been charged. Would they have been charged if there were no protests? The sad truth is, probably not.
I think the questions and issues being raised and what is being challenged in the US is a bit different to what we're exeperiencing over here so apologies if what I talked about isn't really relevent to the original intent of this thread which is more specific to Floyd and police brutality.
I don't think police brutality against blacks should be tolerated, I mean we all know it shouldn't be tolerated agianst anyone, but I won't go down the all lives matter road because that undermines the message black lives matter is trying to say which is not that only black lives matter, but that they matter too. And I totally get that and agree with it.
A lot of predjudice stems from fear, lack of eduction and lack of trust. I think there does need to be a no-tolerance appraoch to it, especially in positions of trust, teaching, policing, army etc. A lot of it can probably be picked up on in training in those careers if those carrying out the training tailored it to do so. But change has to happen at the top and be refelcted down at every level. It's very easy for the person at the top to not be impacted by racial predjudice that happens several levels below. It's not them, they don't agree etc. They condemn it and carry on.
But they need to be enforcing a no-tolerance approach at every level and an abuse of power to promote or excercise predjudice should be met with an appropriate escalation in punishment and those at the top do need to answer questions like why this man was allowed to serve in the police force.
It's clear that what happened to Floyd isn't an isolated case but most cases don't get caught on camera. It's unfortunate that it takes a tradgedy to force questions to be raised and action. But no matter what the protests are about we have to do our best to keep them peaceful, because the smaller number who want to stir up trouble can easilly make themselves the loudest heard thanks to mainstream press and media, and that doesn't do anyone any favours.
Basically one long slippery slope logical fallacy.
Are you sure it wasn't you on GMB with Piers yesterday?
No, it will not lead to the tearing down of the Pyramids (because for the main part they were
not built by slaves) and yes it should force a conversation about who we do and do not commemorate in the form of statues and other monuments.
I have personally signed the petitions that did the rounds in regards to Colston's statue (I live locally and work in Bristol from time to time, in addition, my daughter and son-in-law live in the city), the ones that tory counsellors have vetoed every time for decades. As such the forced removal of the statue was something I was personally happy to see, it has no place in modern Bristol. Where it should be is in a museum in the city that addresses its past as the second-largest slaving port in the UK.
Now you may see slavery and the people who carried it out as a part of our cultural heritage that needs immortalising (as that's what statues do), I don't I see it as a part of our cultural heritage that needs to be learnt from, and that's what education and museums do (and statues do not).
Are you for example aware that school kids used to be taken to the statue and told to throw flowers on it, and I'm not talking about the dark distant past here, I'm talking about well within living memory? The reason being that they were never told (because statues don't provide context - people assume they are honorific), so assumed he was a good man, not a man responsible for the death of 19,000 innocent people and the selling of near 90,000.
Now I've also done a quick search here on GTP and I don't seem to be able to find you have the same issue when they tore down the statues of Jimmy Saville? What about the criminal defacement of the plaque that was outside Saville's former home? Or are these a different part of our cultural heritage?
My issue isn't with the statues being torn down/places being renamed, it's the manner of it. There is no informed debate taking place when a mob of people decide to pull a statue down or graffiti over it.
I'm also not talking about the links to slavery as being part of our heritage worth keeping, I'm talking about modern cultural links. A professor on TV the other night made what I thought was a valid point about Penny Lane and what connotations that has, because for most people it's The Beatles. So what is it's cultural significance? The moden significance doesn't have to be original one, but like I said, we have to be aware of what causes offence at the same time.
I'm all for offensive images and street names being taken down or replaced, just not by mob rule. My point about educating people, isn't meant as an argument for "let's just say we've learned from this so move on", it's to discuss who the person was, discuss issues people may have and then decide. If it remains offensive then get rid, I'm fine with that. It doesn't improve my personal life if a statue stays or goes, I just want the decision to be made in a reasonable way rather than a reactionary one.
You're point about kids throwing flowers at the feet of Colston's statue is evidence that people weren't being educated on the history relating to it properly. Maybe if they were the statue would have been removed a long time ago. May be not, but education is an important step.
Fair point on the pyramids, but I suppose my point is slaves built a lot of buildings and monuments hundereds of years ago and beyond and may buildings and monuments were built by people who owned or profited from slavery in some way all over the globe. How far back do we go if we blanket choose to tear down anything connected with the slave trade?
And what do we agree constitues a connection? Them having a family member connected or involved? An organisation they worked for being involved? That's as slippery a slope as you can get and what messages does making the wrong decision send out?
I'm not a fan of dangerous precedents and if mob rule dictates now, what's to stop it dictating something else when the cause perhaps isn't a good one? We have to do the right thing, but we have to do it in the right way. Maybe I am wide of the mark in some views, but that's where discussion is good, because I'm never afraid to adjust how I see things if I do realise that I've misunderstood, missapplied or missjudged something.
