Did anyone else watch the Rivers of Blood programme on BBC2 tonight?

[foxinsocks]

Was quite fascinating I thought. There was a fair bit of footage from the July bombings that I hadn't seen before (quite disturbing actually).

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

Yes, really interesting.
Once the famous quote was put in context with the rest of Powell's speech he came out looking worse rather than better. It is astonishing to think how much fear there was around 'black people' just for being black....

[marina]

Missed it . Did they give any coverage at all to the interesting fact that Powell and Michael Foot of all people enjoyed a long and loyal friendship? Dh is reading Dominic Sandbrook's excellent book on the 60s and we were astounded to discover that despite Powell's views he was held in high regard by quite a few politicians.

[foxinsocks]

yes, he was highly regarded (they mentioned that but didn't mention the friendship). I think he was thought of as a very intelligent man (Powell).

I also thought the parallels between the way the 'man on the street' felt then and now were very interesting (also the perception, at the time, that all foreigners/problems to be caused by foreigners were by non-white people whereas that is all different now with the European borders opening up).

[foxinsocks]

it's probably repeated Marina. It started out painting a moderately positive picture of Powell but by the end, you were left in no doubt as to what legacy he left behind.

(yes, I thought that was shocking too kathy - the blatant fear just because of skin colour)

[foxinsocks]

(and actually, I have to say, I felt quite uncomfortable because I felt they painted a FAR too positive picture of Powell. Don't know if you got that impression Kathy).

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

I missed the beginning Foxinsocks.
Prior to watching I had heard several people (not particularly racist) say that actually Powell was more subtle than he is generally painted, gets taken out of context etc. Well, I don't think that's the case - in fact it seems that when you put what he said back in context it is even worse.
And it was interesting how even though he clearly WAS very intelligent, what he was saying here had nothing to do with his brain and everything to do with his emotions. The Virgil quote has been a bit of a smokescreen to make the speech look more intellectual than it was - understanding Virgil's Aeneid doesn't make it any more reasonable.

Also, it's easy now to say 'well he was sort of right because the streets ARE running with blood (ie London bombings)', but he didn't think it was going to happen because of culture, he thought it was because of race and 'black people being different from white'.