Edward Colston/Trans rights/Stamp collecting

rick_chasey

ballysmate said:

Muhammad Ali obviously never got the 'Woke' memo.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/06/07/civil-rights-champion-muhammad-ali-was-anything-but/En45jgnZU2ukPf7GA0IgrL/story.html

Boomers’ gonna boomer.

rjsterry

Sorry, what's Ali got to do with any of this?

ballysmate

rjsterry said:

Sorry, what's Ali got to do with any of this?

You must be Rick in disguise.

Ali campaigned for civil rights but held some downright racist views.

It followed on from Coopster's post re woke/racist. I thought the link was obvious tbh, but you are quite correct, it has nothing to do with statues.

rick_chasey

ballysmate said:

rjsterry said:

Sorry, what's Ali got to do with any of this?

You must be Rick in disguise.

Ali campaigned for civil rights but held some downright racist views.

It followed on from Coopster's post re woke/racist. I thought the link was obvious tbh, but you are quite correct, it has nothing to do with statues.

The world is a different place to what it was in the ‘60s.

That’s two generations ago.

I mean, are you surprised?

This is exactly why treating individuals like heroes is always tricky

rjsterry

ballysmate said:

rjsterry said:

Sorry, what's Ali got to do with any of this?

You must be Rick in disguise.

Ali campaigned for civil rights but held some downright racist views.

It followed on from Coopster's post re woke/racist. I thought the link was obvious tbh, but you are quite correct, it has nothing to do with statues.

If I was I'd be arguing with myself a lot. I hadn't taken much notice of what Coopster posted. I must admit I don't know very much about Ali, but I didn't have him down as a leading light of the civil rights movement in the US. If what you are driving at is that people often hold apparently contradictory views and racism isn't exclusive to white people, this is hardly a revelation.

ballysmate

rick_chasey said:

ballysmate said:

rjsterry said:

Sorry, what's Ali got to do with any of this?

You must be Rick in disguise.

Ali campaigned for civil rights but held some downright racist views.

It followed on from Coopster's post re woke/racist. I thought the link was obvious tbh, but you are quite correct, it has nothing to do with statues.

The world is a different place to what it was in the ‘60s.

That’s two generations ago.

I mean, are you surprised?

This is exactly why treating individuals like heroes is always tricky

Am I surprised that people 2 generations ago held different ideas to today? Not at all.
Am I surprised that RC seems to be acknowledging that we shouldn't view past people's views through the prism of today's thinking? Well...

rick_chasey

ballysmate said:

rick_chasey said:

ballysmate said:

rjsterry said:

Sorry, what's Ali got to do with any of this?

You must be Rick in disguise.

Ali campaigned for civil rights but held some downright racist views.

It followed on from Coopster's post re woke/racist. I thought the link was obvious tbh, but you are quite correct, it has nothing to do with statues.

The world is a different place to what it was in the ‘60s.

That’s two generations ago.

I mean, are you surprised?

This is exactly why treating individuals like heroes is always tricky

Am I surprised that people 2 generations ago held different ideas to today? Not at all.
Am I surprised that RC seems to be acknowledging that we shouldn't view past people's views through the prism of today's thinking? Well...

Oh my god, I'm saying the opposite.

I have no horse in the Ali race. He's a narcissistic bombastic guy who was one of the all-time great boxers/sports people, and he held very strong convictions about racism in the US. He used his position as someone famous to help the effort.

Good for him. We're all products of our era and his was a racist one, so guess what, he holds some views we would now consider dodgy and racist.

That doesn't do his work for civil rights down, it just adds some colour to the picture about him, and maybe gives more food for thought that people come at these issues from all sorts of angles, some more acceptable today than others.

A bit like Churchill. He basically hated blacks but wasn't in the business of ethnic cleansing and fought a good fight against Hitler when many around him told him not to. Neither cancels the other out, it's just part of the colour.

rjsterry

ballysmate said:

rick_chasey said:

ballysmate said:

rjsterry said:

Sorry, what's Ali got to do with any of this?

You must be Rick in disguise.

Ali campaigned for civil rights but held some downright racist views.

It followed on from Coopster's post re woke/racist. I thought the link was obvious tbh, but you are quite correct, it has nothing to do with statues.

The world is a different place to what it was in the ‘60s.

That’s two generations ago.

I mean, are you surprised?

This is exactly why treating individuals like heroes is always tricky

Am I surprised that people 2 generations ago held different ideas to today? Not at all.
Am I surprised that RC seems to be acknowledging that we shouldn't view past people's views through the prism of today's thinking? Well...

I think you are mistaken if you think those views don't persist to the present.

pblakeney

I like the use of the phrase "it's just part of the colour." in a discussion about racism. 😉

blazing_saddles

rick_chasey said:

ballysmate said:

rick_chasey said:

ballysmate said:

rjsterry said:

Sorry, what's Ali got to do with any of this?

You must be Rick in disguise.

Ali campaigned for civil rights but held some downright racist views.

It followed on from Coopster's post re woke/racist. I thought the link was obvious tbh, but you are quite correct, it has nothing to do with statues.

The world is a different place to what it was in the ‘60s.

That’s two generations ago.

I mean, are you surprised?

This is exactly why treating individuals like heroes is always tricky

Am I surprised that people 2 generations ago held different ideas to today? Not at all.
Am I surprised that RC seems to be acknowledging that we shouldn't view past people's views through the prism of today's thinking? Well...

Oh my god, I'm saying the opposite.

I have no horse in the Ali race. He's a narcissistic bombastic guy who was one of the all-time great boxers/sports people, and he held very strong convictions about racism in the US. He used his position as someone famous to help the effort.

Good for him. We're all products of our era and his was a racist one, so guess what, he holds some views we would now consider dodgy and racist.

That doesn't do his work for civil rights down, it just adds some colour to the picture about him, and maybe gives more food for thought that people come at these issues from all sorts of angles, some more acceptable today than others.

A bit like Churchill. He basically hated blacks but wasn't in the business of ethnic cleansing and fought a good fight against Hitler when many around him told him not to. Neither cancels the other out, it's just part of the colour.

Churchill didn't hate blacks, he held them in extremely low esteem.
Like many of his contemporaries he believed white people were most superior and black people the least.

rick_chasey

He supported the"Keep England White" campaign in the '50s, so let's not tiptoe too much.

briantrumpet

rick_chasey said:

A bit like Churchill. He basically hated blacks but wasn't in the business of ethnic cleansing and fought a good fight against Hitler when many around him told him not to. Neither cancels the other out, it's just part of the colour.

Hey, why all this stuff about some guy from history? Do you know how many Prime Ministers there have been since him?

rick_chasey

briantrumpet said:

rick_chasey said:

A bit like Churchill. He basically hated blacks but wasn't in the business of ethnic cleansing and fought a good fight against Hitler when many around him told him not to. Neither cancels the other out, it's just part of the colour.

Hey, why all this stuff about some guy from history? Do you know how many Prime Ministers there have been since him?

Well quite!

pblakeney

briantrumpet said:

rick_chasey said:

A bit like Churchill. He basically hated blacks but wasn't in the business of ethnic cleansing and fought a good fight against Hitler when many around him told him not to. Neither cancels the other out, it's just part of the colour.

Hey, why all this stuff about some guy from history? Do you know how many Prime Ministers there have been since him?

Or heavyweight champions? 🤣

surrey_commuter

a lot of debate about an old, obscure article in a distant newspaper

not sure this provides balance but does provide some perspective. It is obviously answering a question about his views on segregation.

Minister Louis Farrakhan: "First, the program starts with number one. That is number four. The first part of that program is that we want freedom, a full and complete freedom. The second is, we want justice. We want equal justice under the law, and we want justice applied equally to all, regardless of race or class or color. And the third is that we want equality. We want equal membership in society with the best in civilized society. If we can get that within the political, economic, social system of America, there's no need for point number four. But if we cannot get along in peace after giving America 400 years of our service and sweat and labor, then, of course, separation would be the solution to our race problem.

TheBigBean

Modern day slavery. Still cotton though.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/jul/23/virtually-entire-fashion-industry-complicit-in-uighur-forced-labour-say-rights-groups-china

blazing_saddles

Tonight, Cardiff council will be voting to take down the statue of General Sir Thomas Picton.

Here is a pretty balanced pocket history.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/sir-thomas-picton-carolyn-hitt-14619007

blazing_saddles

And there you go. Take that Thomas.
Apparently it was a council mistake to have included Picton as an option in the 1916 public vote.
Not sure what that says about democracy at council level, but still.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53512384

Following the vote, council leader Huw Thomas tweeted: "Now @cardiffcouncil have voted tonight to remove the Picton statue, it feels a good time to share the serious work now underway to look at honouring role models like Billy Boston, Clive Sullivan and others of Cardiff's legendary Rugby League. Codeswitchers."

Presumably the others of Cardiff's legendary Rugby League referred to being the many white players, stretching back to Billy O'Neill, back in Edwardian times.

So potentially, Rugby league players having their statues erected in Westgate Street.
Whatever next?

These days, the bar for outstanding achievement is set so very low.

rjsterry

Does seem to be a bit of a pattern of statues of people who were thought questionable in their own time being given a reputational makeover by the Victorians and Edwardians. Almost like they were rewriting history.

blazing_saddles

rjsterry said:

Does seem to be a bit of a pattern of statues of people who were thought questionable in their own time being given a reputational makeover by the Victorians and Edwardians. Almost like they were rewriting history.

I think Picton managed to re-brand himself by dying at Waterloo, saving Wellington's arse in the process.
Putting Napoleon back in his box, was considered quite important back then.
Victorians and Edwardian historians, as we are now being taught, were all nasty, imperialist types, so it was only to be expected.

What Picton did in the West Indies was bad, even by the standards of the time, so I don't have much issue with the removal of his statue.
However, putting up statutes to sportsmen, just because they happen to be the couleur du jour trivialises real achievement.
Some might even call it racist.

Stevo_666

blazing_saddles said:

rjsterry said:

Does seem to be a bit of a pattern of statues of people who were thought questionable in their own time being given a reputational makeover by the Victorians and Edwardians. Almost like they were rewriting history.

I think Picton managed to re-brand himself by dying at Waterloo, saving Wellington's arse in the process.
Putting Napoleon back in his box, was considered quite important back then.
Victorians and Edwardian historians, as we are now being taught, were all nasty, imperialist types, so it was only to be expected.

What Picton did in the West Indies was bad, even by the standards of the time, so I don't have much issue with the removal of his statue.
However, putting up statutes to sportsmen, just because they happen to be the couleur du jour trivialises real achievement.
Some might even call it racist.

Does seem like he had some real high points and low points in his career. Reminds me of that old saying 'Some days you're the pigeon; other days you're the statue.'

ballysmate

Moves afoot to rename Rhodes Ave and Rhodes Ave primary school.
The campaigners recognise that neither were named after Cecil but his great uncle, Thomas, who was a major landowner in the area.
It seems they want to expunge the name.

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/heritage/black-lives-matter-petition-to-rename-rhodes-avenue-primary-1-6698059

I suppose every Harris Rd in the country will have to go, and as for Savile Row...

When will this sh!t end?

blazing_saddles

ballysmate said:

Moves afoot to rename Rhodes Ave and Rhodes Ave primary school.
The campaigners recognise that neither were named after Cecil but his great uncle, Thomas, who was a major landowner in the area.
It seems they want to expunge the name.

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/heritage/black-lives-matter-petition-to-rename-rhodes-avenue-primary-1-6698059

I suppose every Harris Rd in the country will have to go, and as for Savile Row...

When will this sh!t end?

There's a rather large island in the S Aegean in need of a name makeover too.
It's all becoming more than a bit ridiculous.

pblakeney

ballysmate said:

Moves afoot to rename Rhodes Ave and Rhodes Ave primary school.
The campaigners recognise that neither were named after Cecil but his great uncle, Thomas, who was a major landowner in the area.
It seems they want to expunge the name.

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/heritage/black-lives-matter-petition-to-rename-rhodes-avenue-primary-1-6698059

I suppose every Harris Rd in the country will have to go, and as for Savile Row...

When will this sh!t end?

Depends on the size of the petition though surely?
Small enough and just say "We've received it, read it, and binned it as it is clearly nonsense."

coopster_the_1st

ballysmate said:

Moves afoot to rename Rhodes Ave and Rhodes Ave primary school.
The campaigners recognise that neither were named after Cecil but his great uncle, Thomas, who was a major landowner in the area.
It seems they want to expunge the name.

https://www.hamhigh.co.uk/news/heritage/black-lives-matter-petition-to-rename-rhodes-avenue-primary-1-6698059

I suppose every Harris Rd in the country will have to go, and as for Savile Row...

When will this sh!t end?

Based on the wokey dokey's logic Church Road cannot be safe for much longer with their systemic cover up of child abuse.

Stevo_666

I wonder how much longer the winner's award on 'Strictly' will be called the 'Glitter Ball Trophy'?

Pross

I know some will have seen this is Pro Race but thought it was worth adding in here. Marlon Moncrieffe's (who is regulalry critical of British Cycling's handling of opportunities for black cyclists) reaction to Tao Geoghegan Hart's decision to try to fund a black rider onto a pro cycling team - compare him with being a slave owner!



Talk about damned if you do, damned if you don't. I'm not sure how things can improve when any attempt by a white person to balance the system gets treated in this way.

ballysmate

What? People finding offence when there is none intended? Surely not!

kingstongraham

New law going before parliament increasing the max sentence for criminal damage of “a building or other structure, or any other thing” which has “a commemorative purpose” from 3 months to 10 years, regardless of the amount of damage caused.

rjsterry

kingstongraham said:

New law going before parliament increasing the max sentence for criminal damage of “a building or other structure, or any other thing” which has “a commemorative purpose” from 3 months to 10 years, regardless of the amount of damage caused.

And good to see the Met field testing their soon to be new powers to restrict protests last night. Will be interesting to see if any of the purported libertarians who objected so strongly to lockdown restrictions will think twice before voting through this authoritarian Bill.