Churchill statue defaced, Edward Calston statue pulled down

[REALITY 80,203]

12 minutes ago, lovedillon said:

Omg you’re just not getting it. I’m not talking about whether the hypothetical is REAL or NOT. You m saying your “hypothetical” has no relation to what was being discussed. Here’s an example “what if there was a statue of so & so that hurt a bunch of white people & POC wanted to keep it up?” In this hypothetical the user defending the statues would be in the place of the those wanting to tear it down hopefully providing some insight & making them capable of empathizing.

You didn’t do that, you made a “hypothetical” of the opposite situation. So yes, while it may have been a hypothetical it wasn’t related to the situation being discussed, therefore having nothing to do with the debate. The hypothetical deals with what if but is centered around the original situation. Do you understand now? Because I legit don’t have the time to teach you what you should already know.

As I've explained many times before, I used the hypothetical situation of adding statues because I wanted to show the flaw in the original person's logic that I was quoting.

They said that tearing down statues doesn't erase racism. Okay. Fine. Then by that logic, if we also add statues, that doesn't add more racism right? (That was a rhetorical question, don't legitimately answer that )

If we erected a statue of Adolf Hitler, that shouldn't add more racism right? Just like how tearing down a statue of Adolf Hitler doesn't erase racism, right?  

If you couldn't tell—which I'm sure is likely—I was using sarcasm. Sure, removing statues doesn't "erase racism," but they're symbols of hate and oppression. We don't need statues of terrible people who did terrile things.

Do you understand now? Because I legit don't have the time to teach you what you should already know.

[StrawberryBlond 15,618]

2 hours ago, ShayCristoforo said:

I didn't see your comments about public safety. I was initially referring to all the nay-sayers, and users who pop in and drop a basic, vacant "opinion" without much explanation.

Safety concern is valid to me.
But my main point is this: You personally wouldn't smash things -- you aren't the archetype of moral principles for everyone else. Especially those who have been historically and systemically oppressed.  

I agree, some people are acting for clout or self-gratification through social media. But others are simply excited to be part of an historic moment and want to document their participation. And this kind of demonstration REALLY REALLY REALLY gets the point across. There have been many peaceful protests for decades, and there is still racial disparity. So this bold demonstration is also a way of saying "we really really really aren't playing around this time."  

You say "Khan is saying that he's looking into dismantling" which can sound flaky to many people. Of course, changes take time, but BIPOC have heard statements like that before. An announcement about an announcement. And we're still in the same boat.
Pun intended.     

There's probably a lot of statues of men out there who were sexist. I'm a woman and a feminist and this doesn't really concern me, nor does it seem to concern any other women. I also don't see the LGBT community pulling down statues of homophobic people. And what about statues of sexual predators? Point is, there's a lot of good reasons to pull down many statues, why is race the only reason that gets us fired up enough to actually do it? If someone wants to take them down, it wouldn't bother me but I definitely wouldn't try to take it down myself. If it's a statue devoted to a person who is still alive or died very recently, then fair enough. If there was a statue of Jimmy Savile and a mob brought it down and chucked it in a river then I'd be all for that because he was around not long ago and affected a lot of people around today who are still living and suffering. The pain is very recent and current so taking down such a statue has meaning. But a slave trader who died in 1721 and affected no one personally in the current day - that's too distant to really be that annoyed by.

But granted, I didn't realise how long calls to remove the statue had been going on (the 90's onward) and that art installations were put in front of it on Anti Slavery Day and still nothing happened. Admittedly, the council are never usually quick to act. At least the public showing how quickly and easily it can be done is proof that there's no excuse for professionals to be procrastinating.

1 hour ago, Varys said:

I could respond to this and tell you the harsh truth but I'm not going to do it since I don't think you can handle it and you wouldn't listen anyway. its kinda sad

Oh, I'm very interested to hear it. That they're just afraid to tell me that I need to tell the truth because they're my friends or something? I can assure you when asked that they've been nothing but supportive. They're just not people who post a lot in general. I'd quote their names but then they didn't ask to be part of this conversation, so I won't.

[Economy 52,951]

9 minutes ago, StrawberryBlond said:

There's probably a lot of statues of men out there who were sexist. I'm a woman and a feminist and this doesn't really concern me, nor does it seem to concern any other women. I also don't see the LGBT community pulling down statues of homophobic people. And what about statues of sexual predators? Point is, there's a lot of good reasons to pull down many statues, why is race the only reason that gets us fired up enough to actually do it? If someone wants to take them down, it wouldn't bother me but I definitely wouldn't try to take it down myself. If it's a statue devoted to a person who is still alive or died very recently, then fair enough. If there was a statue of Jimmy Savile and a mob brought it down and chucked it in a river then I'd be all for that because he was around not long ago and affected a lot of people around today who are still living and suffering. The pain is very recent and current so taking down such a statue has meaning. But a slave trader who died in 1721 and affected no one personally in the current day - that's too distant to really be that annoyed by.

But granted, I didn't realise how long calls to remove the statue had been going on (the 90's onward) and that art installations were put in front of it on Anti Slavery Day and still nothing happened. Admittedly, the council are never usually quick to act. At least the public showing how quickly and easily it can be done is proof that there's no excuse for professionals to be procrastinating.

Oh, I'm very interested to hear it. That they're just afraid to tell me that I need to tell the truth because they're my friends or something? I can assure you when asked that they've been nothing but supportive. They're just not people who post a lot in general. I'd quote their names but then they didn't ask to be part of this conversation, so I won't.

I more or less agree depending on the situation and how deep it goes

 

Statues of people from a long time ago, let's be honest values have changed so much that almost every single statue of somebody put up u can probably find something wrong with them by today's standards. Whether it be sexism, homophobia or racial like u said, that would be like 99% of people back then and therefore pretty much every statue so I think some people go overboard with this taking down statues with any bit if stain

 

But on the flip side of they were exeptionally bad then I would support them being taken down.

 

If they had racist thoughts or prejudice opinions, again that was almost everyone back then especially white people... But if they were involved in actual slave trading or opression, then I would say that's enough of a reason to take it down

 

Most people may have been bigoted or sexist or homophobic. But theres a clear distinction I think from saying things that show those thoughts be being one of the big problem contributes (like slave owners)

 

My comment is very generalized tho. I know very little about this particular statue or person behind it

 

[StrawberryBlond 15,618]

11 minutes ago, Economy said:

I more or less agree depending on the situation and how deep it goes

 

Statues of people from a long time ago, let's be honest values have changed so much that almost every single statue of somebody put up u can probably find something wrong with them by today's standards. Whether it be sexism, homophobia or racial like u said, that would be like 99% of people back then and therefore pretty much every statue so I think some people go overboard with this taking down statues with any bit if stain

 

But on the flip side of they were exeptionally bad then I would support them being taken down.

 

If they had racist thoughts or prejudice opinions, again that was almost everyone back then especially white people... But if they were involved in actual slave trading or opression, then I would say that's enough of a reason to take it down

 

Most people may have been bigoted or sexist or homophobic. But theres a clear distinction I think from saying things that show those thoughts be being one of the big problem contributes (like slave owners)

 

My comment is very generalized tho. I know very little about this particular statue or person behind it

 

Edward Colston was a slave trader and even though he gave the money he made to charities and hospitals, he wouldn't allow it go to people who didn't support his religious or personal views. There really is no need to keep such a statue up in today's society. A statue of Robert Milligan was removed by the authorities today, so it looks like this will become a common thing. Basically every statue that's on this list complied by BLM supporters were undeniably bad people, this is all documented stuff. It's more than just people who had racist thoughts, they did racist things. And there's calls to put statues of much more positive people in their places. You really can't argue with that.

There's undoubtedly more important stuff for the authorities to focus on but if it'll stop more acts of vandalism and police being out on the streets when they could be dealing with more important matters, then fair enough.

[PhantomOfTheDance 13,795]

peace y'all!

[God Control 2,181]

On 6/7/2020 at 1:28 PM, Cookies said:

erasing history won't erase racism.

Honestly I don’t know how to feel about this. I understand that some of these monuments were built centuries ago and they’re kept for their historic value and of course, erasing history won’t erase racism and in 100% against changing history books or making movies that pretend racism didn’t happen or censoring dialogue and symbols between actors to remove racist, sexist or homophobic words or nazi symbols.

I’m completely against all of that, because if you wanna portray a setting, you have to do so accurately, rather than have a revisionist portrayal of how you think people of color or women or LGBT should have been treated. That’s just BS, and I’m against it.

However, I can understand why they don’t want statues removed, statues that are public and not in some museum. I get the logic of not wanting the statue of a space trader to stand tall for centuries as if it’s a symbol for the country when that symbol hurt, killed and humiliated so many people.
 

On the other hand, I wonder where would we draw the line? Do we destroy the statues of pharaohs for how they treated the Hebrews? Do we destroy Babylonian statues of historical figures for exiling Jews from Mesopotamia? Do we abandon the writings of Newton or Einstein because at their time, they might have held racist, sexist, homophobic or transphobic views? 

[GipJo 2,912]

Everyone in the past is either racist, sexist or homophobic. Let's destroy every statue for good and pretend they didn't do something great and made history.

[PunkTheFunk 125,719]

1 minute ago, GipJo said:

Everyone in the past is either racist, sexist or homophobic. Let's destroy every statue for good and pretend they didn't do something great and made history.

There is a difference between being a historical figure who did great things but had some racist views, and being a historical figure who TRADED SLAVES and MURDERED PEOPLE 

[Jessica Germ 2,129]

Wasn’t churchill nice?

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