The Queen Victoria statue in Leeds

[Sugarplumfairy65]

Her statue has been vandalised with graffiti. The BLM logo and slave trader spray painted all over it. Why?

[Facefullofcake]

I was surprised the Robert Peel statue there didn't get done as well.

[Facefullofcake]

@Facefullofcake

I was surprised the Robert Peel statue there didn't get done as well.

The Peel statue did get graffiti'd when John Peel died, btw. No outrage though.

It's on the other diagonal of the park to the Victoria statue.
I guess the difference is the sentiment.

[Andthenthenewone]

I don’t know what the answer is. Only time will tell. Queen Victoria is not remembered well in a lot of the commonwealth countries of Asia. India went through 1857 under her reign. It’s hypocrisy to call out Blair but have Victoria’s statues everywhere. Or Churchill’s for that matter (a known racist and responsible for millions of deaths in Asia alone).

[Facefullofcake]

Im going to finish harping on about this after this.. I'd forgotten that the Peel statue also had a St George's flag on his face.
I wasn't really comfortable that the graffiti was to celebrate a man who slept with underage girls.

Given the lack of outrage by everyone else at the above, I reckon pointing out slave trade involvement is fine.

[Leaannb]

Because she was a racist. She isn't immune because she has been dead for over a hundred years....I'm waiting for the vandalism of George Washington and Jefferson monuments. It's just a matter of time

[mynamesmrdiggety]

That's crazy. She inherited an empire, what could she have realistically done to change things as a woman in those times.

[user1471565182]

She was pretty awful.

[chickbaa]

I have mixed feelings about this. BAME voices have been suppressed long enough, and whilst I don't encourage anyone to graffiti, there is no deny that history has contributed to the situation we have today.
I wish there was a way to do this without violence or damage but I won't condemn anyone either.

[Andthenthenewone]

@mynamesmrdiggety

That's crazy. She inherited an empire, what could she have realistically done to change things as a woman in those times.

I don’t know what the solution is. What I do know is that we all hate people more if they are in recent memory. Somehow, social media and internet are erasing the concept of time now. Overall, I think it is a good thing. What we do need to do is to put away these statues in museums. And put actual heroes in their place. We have plenty of them.

[Samtsirch]

Thé trouble is, there will be nothing left at all if everything racist or relating to slavery in this country is destroyed or defaced.
Not much in this country is free from an association with slavery or racism.

[Andthenthenewone]

@Samtsirch

Thé trouble is, there will be nothing left at all if everything racist or relating to slavery in this country is destroyed or defaced.
Not much in this country is free from an association with slavery or racism.

Your comment highlights one of the biggest questions this whole situation leads us to: why in the world do we have a shortage of heroes when in real life, we have absolutely plenty of them everywhere!
What kind of a system leads us to believe we need that kind of heroes or we are nothing? Moving these to museums is the best solution.

[Aveisenim]

Didn't Queen Victoria adopt a child after her parents died and was put into slavery or something? I can't remember it fully but I remember hearing about it a while ago and not in history classes. We can't erase our history. Good and bad, it's there. What we need to do is accept it and stop trying to erase it. The statues that are being taken down need to go in a museum so we remember that it must never happen again to anyone.

[chickbaa]

Why museums though? That is still giving them a protected status, and the whole point is that they contributed to today's unrest.

I think it is important to acknowledge, as in timelines etc, but not to protect in any way

[JigglypuffsCaptor]

The English have built a nation of the backs of others for centuries. As a Welsh person the oppression of English rule dates far back before the trans Atlantic slave trade. Same for our other Celtic nations.

The problem is, you can't remove or erase history from sight because you aren't happy with it in today's standards. You can't really even start to tear down all the buildings, there would be nothing left in England standing. The very ground you walk on was made richer by the oppression of the English. It is what it is I'm afraid.

Queen Victoria never asked to be Queen, she didn't personally fund any slave trade, her parliament did. She's a figure head, and since Cromwell a figure head with no real power.

Now Colston statue, that had to go he made choices to be a slave trader. In to the sink with him. Queen V, she had no choice.

[Andthenthenewone]

@chickbaa

Why museums though? That is still giving them a protected status, and the whole point is that they contributed to today's unrest.

I think it is important to acknowledge, as in timelines etc, but not to protect in any way

In museums because that is where they belong. They don’t belong in Town centres and prominent places. Those places should be resevered for real heroes.
Like someone said above, putting them in museum preserves history without glorifying it.

[Samtsirch]

@chickbaa
I think that in a museum, these statues etc can be placed in a proper historical context and educate people about the facts and horrors of the slave trade and about racism .

[Andthenthenewone]

Queen Victoria never asked to be Queen, she didn't personally fund any slave trade, her parliament did.
So why should we put her statue there? Why not full these spaces with real women of this world who actually did break boundaries, were highly relatable and can be real role model for women, and men for that matter?

[Facefullofcake]

@Aveisenim

Didn't Queen Victoria adopt a child after her parents died and was put into slavery or something? I can't remember it fully but I remember hearing about it a while ago and not in history classes. We can't erase our history. Good and bad, it's there. What we need to do is accept it and stop trying to erase it. The statues that are being taken down need to go in a museum so we remember that it must never happen again to anyone.

Sarah Forbes Bonetta.
She was a former slave and a gift to Queen V.

[user1471565182]

oh its you again, claiming the welsh are as oppressed as black people. Absurd.

[Andthenthenewone]

I agree we cannot tear buildings down. But we can put plaques on them. The concept behind these statues is quite different though.
When you see a statue, you think of someone who did something great and deserved a place like that. On buildings, you can put plaques that reflect an unbiased version of history. These plaques in historical places and these statues in museums will be the tea history then, not the disfigures version we get at the moment.

[user1471565182]

Might want to have a little look into Lord Picton and Lloyd George.

[Aveisenim]

@chickbaa what @Samtsirch said. Also we're not the only ones with history of slavery. Egypt has strong historical slavery of Jews should we not learn about their history in museums either? So does Africa where tribes who had fought with other tribes and won kept them as slaves or sold them as slaves. I'm not sure there's a single country on Earth that doesn't have some sort of history regarding slavery. Should we just forget it all or learn about it in historical context? A lot of what I know about history now wasn't taught to me in school. We can't change our history but we can change how we educate people on it.

[Aveisenim]

@Facefullofcake Thank you! I just read up on it, apparently she was due to be executed before the King was persuaded by someone in the Royal Navy to give her to Queen Victoria. History is messy and abhorrent sometimes. Understatement.

[YouSayWhat]

You might also wish to google

1. Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James VI/I
   
2. Her son Prince Rupert of the Rhine and his role in the first slave trade during the 17th century
   
3. her grandson, George 1

[mynamesmrdiggety]

There is a full on racist sitting in the White House right now, pulling down statues is symbolic, but while people are still voting for this idiot nothing will change. I suppose I feel energy could be better channelled to the present day.