I’d rather not rename stuff like the colston hall tbh it’s just the colston hall to most as it’s been called that all their lives and the new names pretty random but the statues fine in the museum as a piece of history.
Thats just it. They HAVE to change and the change will need to be countrywide with likely 90+% of all statues being pulled down.Tens of thousands of place names reworked, because like it or not the UK was built on slavery.
Churchill next. Like others of that era put britain above the rights of brown people. So his statue has to go. Hasn't it ?.
Maybe we should have a whip round on here, maybe a crowdfunding /giving page to pay the costs of an unruly mob to go down and sort all these problems the forum here believes should be sorted, and with the recent judgement, it would be perfectly legal.
No whips and chains to be seen anywhere.
Pretty sure modern day slaves get beaten and restrained and threatened and coerced.
Stop digging your hole.
Though picking up one thing from I scoff cakes earlier posts, it would be nice if the role of Arab slavers had the same level of attention, and those nations began to recognise their past, and maybe begin to reevaluate their present as well.
Feel free to explain that. Just where exactly is he showing this great ignorance ?
It think its been adequately expressed
the idea that sailor on slave boats were as at risk as the slaves
the idea that the UK was some great reforming good guys over slaving
The idea that slave owners wealth based on slavery has no effect today
the idea that the wealth and power of the UK was not based on slavery
all expressed by i scoff cake, all utter nonsense
Criminal enterprise being the main reason. No whips and chains to be seen anywhere.
More utter horseshit
In all honesty.
I really couldn't give a flying f as to what drugged up crowds of today's society does. I dont care about what happens today or 200 years ago, frankly I dont give a damn. It doesnt affect me so sod it.
Why such a passionate defense then? And the idea it does not effect you is horseshit - its the reason why the UK is such a wealthy country. Without slavery we would not be so rich
this might be of interest
I thought we’d peaked at “it’ll be Churchill next!”
But this is the thread that keeps on giving.
with the recent judgement, it would be perfectly legal.
Oh dear.
the idea that sailor on slave boats were as at risk as the slaves
the idea that the UK was some great reforming good guys over slaving
The idea that slave owners wealth based on slavery has no effect today
the idea that the wealth and power of the UK was not based on slavery
all expressed by i scoff cake, all utter nonsense
Maybe run back over the thread a bit. Theres been much dissent while you were off in the land of nod.
Nice piece taken directly from the history of Bristol(the city in question) giving an account fo the horrors suffered by crews on slave ships. Sure nothing like being kidnapped, raped or murdered and sent off to help keep a tory mp in gravy, but still like all of that era who we not landed or even literate, they were put upon, and put upon heavily.
Interesting p[passage concerning the shock the abolitionists found when they looked into the treatment of sailors from those ships. The were shocked at the extremely high death toll. Sailors literally beaten to death.
Sure, nothing to compare with the slaves themselves, but is it any better to deny such actions took place and the sailors suffered. is it not a blow to them and their rights
Its a all there and more. We've been calmly discussing what exactly constitutes the term slavery, and if criminal exploitation is exactly the same thing.
So pretty much if your boss isnt paying you enough, you could have grounds to bring him to court on enslavement laws.
Why such a passionate defense then? And the idea it does not effect you is horseshit
It's been a slow night, and tbh i was giving I_scoff_cakes a bit of respite from the baying mob. Theyre easily wound up like an old clock, and i felt a bit sorry how he was being treated.
Especially as much of what he was saying had basis in fact. But try telling that to the closed of mind 😉
As to not affecting me. Nothing does. not the worst crime ever perpetrated. No matter what happens it isnt something ill be losing sleep over.
ASD remember. Most people with autism are aloof in that way.
If you look up narcissistic in the dictionary it says - See under autism.
Maybe run back over the thread a bit. Theres been much dissent while you were off in the land of nod.
Oh I have - the dissent is horseshit. You have also denied that slavery still exists
Especially as much of what he was saying had basis in fact.
Unfortunately it really does not. It has its basis in history written by the slavers not the reality
Interview with one of the acquitted yesterday. She said that the destruction of property was lawful protest and without the similar actions of the suffrage movement, she would not be able to vote. A fair point except she ignored the fact that the suffragettes were prosecuted, convicted and served their punishment.
The first Suffragette arrived at Holloway in 1906. To begin with, the Suffragettes were bound over to keep the peace, asked to promise not to re-offend, and given a fine. When they refused to pay the fine, they were sent to Holloway. As they escalated from minor acts of street protest to criminal damage, they received more severe sentences.
https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/suffragettes-holloway-prison
This obvious point was missed by the interviewer. As I said before, I don’t think that prosecution was in the public interest, but having brought the prosecution, the accused were undoubtedly guilty. A trivial sentence was the other obvious solution to an ethical problem.
Weeeellll I wanted to make the point that the slavery that so impassioned the Colston 4 wasnt the same as today, as its in the forms of exploitation and criminal enterprise.
Plus try to make the mob remember that poverty plays a gigantic part in what is termed slavery elsewhere in the world by us in the west, embarrassed by our own history i shouldnt wonder. but(from the programs ive watched) the people themselves didnt acknowledge themselves as slaves and see it as a way out of modern difficulties.Starvation isnt something any of those relish as an alternative.
Sure clearly in some strange faraway places slavery does exist. But not the slavery concerning Colston, and certainly not anything we can do about it.
Weeeellll I wanted to make the point that the slavery that so impassioned the Colston 4 wasnt the same as today, as its in the forms of exploitation and criminal enterprise.
Cite? this is pure horseshit.
On culture wars, what I think we don't always get in the UK is how far this is driven by divisions in the US which go back to their civil war. This was fought largely so that southern states could continue slavery. Sure 1865 was a while ago, but segregation went on into the 1970s. Some of the last slaves lived into the 1970s, overlapping many of our lives. the resentment in the south is very much still there, as is a lot of de facto segregation.
Clearly this ain't Bristol, but it does drive a lot of the racist bollocks you see online originating in the states.
No matter what happens it isnt something ill be losing sleep over.
No one has suggested you should lose sleep over it. Accepting that the comfortable life we live in the UK was to a large degree created off the back of slavery and colonial exploitation (and yes there was exploitation of poor British people too, captain whatabout) is just part of understanding reality though.
One thing I do find interesting/borderline unsettling with this whole episode is if you look at this photo of the toppling, there is barely a black person to be seen in it.
Never mind that virtually everyone is a photographer/taking photos 🙄
Bristol is a city with a very high proportion black population, isn't it a bit weird there weren't more black people involved? Not really sure why that would be, genuinely.
This was fought largely so that southern states could continue slavery
The average pleb couldn't afford a slave. The slaves were the property of the land owning gentry.
1/4 of a million Southerners died protecting the right of a few individuals to get out of paying people or workers any wages.
Zero hour contract anyone 😉
Of course it was the common people who did the fighting. Those rich landowners and their offspring formulated a plan into law to keep themselves nice and safe -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty_Negro_Law
more horseshit and selective reporting
try this
glad to see the verdict has wound up the right people. More please.
Sure clearly in some strange faraway places slavery does exist.
And here.
I’d rather not rename stuff like the colston hall tbh
IIRC there was a consultation on changing its name, which is I think what some people are suggesting should've happened regarding removal of his statue. It's worth remembering that i) the hall doesn't fall under the influence of the Merchant Venturers and ii) Colston's only link with it was to own a building on the same site 150 years earlier.
more horseshit and selective reporting
try this
Well my pic shows more of the crowd so I don't see how it's selective. If anything yours appears to have selected a position that exaggerates the number of black people in the crowd.
I'm not trying to discredit the toppling of the statue or claim they didn't have the support of the wider Bristol community, I just think it's interesting. More for me a potential indictment of social media that many of the people most motivated were looking for content for their vlogs or whatever.
The average pleb couldn’t afford a slave.
Average plebs no but a great many middle class people owned shares in slaves and/or profited from sugar/tea/cotton businesses etc, both here and in the US - David Olusoga has done some good stuff on this from a UK perspective.
Of course it was the common people who did the fighting.
well yes - and they're still going on facebook comments, voting Trump etc
with the recent judgement, it would be perfectly legal.
I posted a little earlier about this. If you don't want to take my word for it, try googling
"What is the difference between Common Law and Criminal Law?"
or
"Do jury verdicts in criminal trials set precedent?"
and if you're still in a learning mood after that you could explore
"Are judgements and verdicts the same thing?"
Actually that last one probably makes the other bit easier to follow so perhaps start there.
Grum, I once put a similar point to Paul Gilroy and his response was 'racism is a white man's problem.'
The average pleb couldn’t afford a slave.
I think you may need to do some reading. I think the notion that all slaves were black-African decent, or that all slaves were owned by wealthy plantation owners has been de-bunked a while back. Up until quite recently (20thC) Irish, Italian and eastern European migrants to the US were classed as non-white, who could be indentured, or owned as slaves (pre anti slavery legislation obvs), there are well documented instances of cases (often called edge-slavery) where we see people being held as slaves by companies, by women (remember this is an era where women could largely not own property in their own right) and by very poor people (often inherited slaves, or the unwanted children of slaves) and by free black folks.
Bristol is a city with a very high proportion black population, isn’t it a bit weird there weren’t more black people involved?
If I were black I might have reservations about joining in civil disobedience.
For those struggling with the morality of Colston there is this tweet from my timeline today.
https://twitter.com/bethanyusher/status/1270103944359038979?s=20
I think you may need to do some reading. I think the notion that all slaves were black-African decent, or that all slaves were owned by wealthy plantation owners has been de-bunked a while back. Up until quite recently (20thC) Irish, Italian and eastern European migrants to the US were classed as non-white, who could be indentured, or owned as slaves (pre anti slavery legislation obvs), there are well documented instances of cases (often called edge-slavery) where we see people being held as slaves by companies, by women (remember this is an era where women could largely not own property in their own right) and by very poor people (often inherited slaves, or the unwanted children of slaves) and by free black folks.
Sorry mate but that sounds a little vague. I dont think the numbers equate to put the non Africans in the same league as African slaves.
First off 'Indentured' Indentured is not slavery, it is like an apprenticeship where the individual is bound to the craftsman. The labourer to the landowner. but always for a set payment. Example would be an apprentice blacksmith would be bound for 7 years.,
And I would say the vast, vast majority of slaves were of African decent, and working the land. Small farmers didnt hold a great deal of land, though I suspect could hire slaves off plantations.
the cost of a slave in the 19th century would have been $500+. The average wage of a small holding farmer would have been $250-300/year. They simply couldnt afford such luxuries.
<th>4.5 million people of African descent lived in the United States.
Of these:
3.6 million</b> lived on farms and plantations (half in the Deep South).</td>
First off ‘Indentured’ Indentured is not slavery, it is like an apprenticeship where the individual is bound to the craftsman. The labourer to the landowner. but always for a set payment.
Sometimes in rare cases indentured people were taught a craft and could buy their way out of their contract, but very very rarely - contracts were drawn up specifically to make this fictionally possible, but not realistically possible. Most indentured workers understood that they were buying a way into freedom for their children (indentured worker's children could not be kept unlike the children of slaves) You entered into indenture-ship to get passage to the US, and freedom for your kids. Wages if there were any - were often given in tokens that could be only used at certain shops, some contracts specified that wages earned under the indenture-ship could not be used to buy the indentured worker from his contract
But mostly It's a way of owning a person for a fixed period of time (often 10 or 20 years, if they lasted that long of course) without having to explicitly call them a slave. People in the 17-18thC would have understood that being indentured was to be a slave. This is well known and referenced endlessly in literature, books, and newspapers at the time
the cost of a slave in the 19th century would have been $500+. The average wage of a small holding farmer would have been $250-300/year. They simply couldnt afford such luxuries.
The cost of slaves was a few hundred dollars in adjusted 21stC prices.. Average was $230. Some slaves were given away, some children of slave owners and slaves were passed along to poor workers who worked land tithed to wealthier land owners to increase productivity. The average lower middle class family could and very often did own slaves. To your previous statement (the average)...Yes they could, and yes they did.
ransos
Free Member
I’d rather not rename stuff like the colston hall tbhIIRC there was a consultation on changing its name, which is I think what some people are suggesting should’ve happened regarding removal of his statue. It’s worth remembering that i) the hall doesn’t fall under the influence of the Merchant Venturers and ii) Colston’s only link with it was to own a building on the same site 150 years earlier.
It changed it's name to Bristol Beacon a while back, same with the girls school, now known as Montpellier High School. There's not much left in Bristol named after him now.
Saying indentured workers were slaves is seriously wrong and is the kind of BS used by racist Irish-Americans to denigrate black people for their struggles in modern America.
Black slaves were property in the same manner as cattle and their children and their children's children would be slaves too. Totally different from voluntarily agreeing to work for a finite period in return for something.
Saying indentured workers were slaves is seriously wrong
speak with David Northrup who wrote the work on slavery I just quoted from.
White slavery certainly was a concern albeit on a smaller scale, 1-1.25m enslaved between 1500s and 1800s and they weren't just indentured. I think the Rutland dwarf was banged up (and I use the words advisedly) for 20 yrs in the Ottoman empire until a ransom was paid. Marauding corsairs led to whole villages in Cornwall and Ireland moving inland.
I once put a similar point to Paul Gilroy and his response was ‘racism is a white man’s problem.’
Well white people are in the positions of power to enable them to deal with it more effectively, just as men are in the positions of power to deal with sexual equality - you can see why progress is slow can't you...
Hi all; thought I’d pop out of ‘exile’ for a moment, as I believe freedom and equality of speech, thought and expression are vital in a civilised society, and to add some what I feel is much needed empiricism to this fascinating debate.
As a ‘Person of Colour’ (that’s what we’re called now, it sounds a bit nicer than ‘Darkies’ etc…), I along with millions of others, experience the legacy of racism through colonialism and biological determinism brought about by British imperialism, Every. Single. Day. Of. My. Life. The institutionalised racism that I, and millions of others suffer, every single day, isn’t ‘imagined’, it isn’t a ‘myth’, I haven’t got an ‘axe to grind’, or a ‘chip on my shoulder’; it’s real. I won’t bore everybody with the details of how this is manifest, but mere statistics will bear this out, as will the testimonies of millions.
When I saw the Colston Toppling™ unfold on TV, I was truly overjoyed; overjoyed that so many people had become so motivated to perform such an incredibly powerful and symbolic act, on behalf of countless others. This to me was one of the most significant and defining moments of history in my own lifetime. This was the moment when people said ‘enough of this shit’, and brought down a monument to the darkest stain on this nation’s history. To those who performed this act, to those who acted on my behalf, I have nothing but gratitude and respect. Because they stood up for something the believed in, and acted accordingly. That takes some balls. And I’m delighted with this verdict, because it shows that such direct action is not only acceptable, it is also lawful.
I had the privilege to grow up amongst many people from myriad backgrounds, many from African and West Indian heritage. Many for whom the legacy of British slavery exists to this day; in people’s names, in their religious beliefs, their cultural practices, and their genes. You cannot simply forget slavery, as some would prefer would happen, when your great-great grandmother was raped, and you are living proof of that abhorrent violence. So to those who claim slavery is ‘over’, that we should ‘move on’, that it has no effect on their lives, well, I’ll just say this; I’m not Gay, but homophobia affects my life because it infects the society in which I live. Therefore, it’s as much my problem as anyone else’s. Because I don’t want to live in a world of hate. Towards anyone. As someone who was once a ’14 year old in Tower Hamlets’, I feel I would have benefitted greatly from being taught history that bore more relation to our modern society than simply how many wives some rich bloke had. That I wasn’t taught about the reality of British colonialism, about such atrocities as the Bengal Famine, and how our system of elitist rule is founded on the horrors of slavery and ‘empire’, is an absolute disgrace. The revisionism and airbrushing of truth which happens, is downright criminal. This is why it is vital we all learn the truth, not a carefully edited version that suits the needs of those who wish to cover up the stench of their own inherited privilege.
But I don’t want to attack those who offer up such revisionist and parochial views; I want to understand them. I want to understand where their fear and hatred comes from. I want to find that common ground where we can actually realise we’re not all that different, and that we can actually get on. Because this can happen; I have experience this myself throughout my life. I was once homophobic, I was once anti-Semitic. I was sexist, misogynist and actually racist. I feared and despised people with disabilities. But none of those things were because I am an ‘evil’ person, or that I actually hated anyone; they were because I was ignorant and felt threatened. So I took the time to learn, and educate myself. And a lot of that came from simply talking to others. Which is why debates such as this are so important. Views should be expressed openly; sunlight kills germs. It’s far too easy to want to score points, to want to better your ‘opponent’. What is more difficult, is to empathise, to try to understand where someone else is coming from, and if they are demonstrating fear, then to try to help alleviate those fears, instead of perpetuating division. If someone else is taking an opposing stance, ask why. Sure, you can counter their arguments with better ones, and with facts, common sense and reason. But don’t make them your enemy. I’ve learned a lot about myself over the years, and I genuinely feel pity for those who go through life with fear and loathing for others, and who can’t feel comfortable amongst diversity. That must be really shit.
I’d just like to end this by saying that it’s good to see this forum has moved on somewhat, in terms of overall consensus on such issues, and that it’s really good to see that there is actually much more reasoned, sensible and respectful debate going on. Monuments to fear, ignorance, oppression and hatred need to be knocked down. Keep on pushing, folks.
Peace. X
Yep, plus the point above about black people being wary of putting themselves on a collision course with the police.
good post Aziz
Looks like the AG is determined to get the actions of the 4 into case-law as an approved action.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-59909823
The prosecution failed to make their case as our law demands, there was no failing in the system nor was there confusion. The government's lawyer looks like she has taken an ill-advised course.
@aziz good post and honest too. The opposing stance is probably down to the truth being too painful to acknowledge and some would prefer to argue than acknowledge that they may be wrong.
Well said Aziz.
This thread needed that post Aziz.
