The statue of Colston in Bristol has been taken down by the protestors

[MrsPeacockInTheLibrary]

If you know anything of the history of Bristol and the slave trade - his name and legacy is deeply controversial. There are two sides to it at least.

I don't know who was responsible for it being torn down. But it is a big development for this city and its long history of protests.

This is apauling lawlessness. Yes he is controversial figure but he is prominent in the history of the area. History maybe inconvenient but when it is its best remembered! I hope the police bring charges against anyone that is traceable.

Nobody’s said statues of dead slave traders are more important than the fight for racial equality. Or anything remotely like it.

Even the Berlin wall had to come down eventually. It didn't rewrite the old history it just made new history.

The City Council have been stuck trying to work out how to have the darned thing removed for many years
they must be delighted that the right thing has happened
even if in a rather surreal way

History has not been rewritten
It has been updated
Which is as it should be

What shocks me more is that a statue of a slave trader was still there in 2020.

Good riddance and I don't care if I am judging Colston by today's standards. He was a slave trader and statues of slave traders need to go.

What I am worried about is a lot of black lives being lost to Covid in the coming weeks and months after all the thousands of people mixing together.

Lawless vandalism can't be tolerated or encouraged. We live in a liberal society. Our aim should be equality of opportunity. Actions like this are vile mob rule at its worst.

@alsohuman

Who is rewriting history now?

Hitler was thought of as a saviour by many. Hated by many more.

I can imagine Colston was thought of as rather wonderful in Bristol in his day. Probably not so much by the slaves and their families.

You can't argue for 'right' by doing wrong though. It makes a mockery of the cause imo.

I have never heard of Colston, but as he was a part of your history I would respect it.
mrnimmanimma Where I live all history/social studies books for grades 1-12 are being pulled and will be "examined and revised" to reflect "reality". Statues are being removed, street names are being changed -- the Civil War is being rewritten and erased.

It seems like "if you can find anything bad to say about someone then you aren't allowed to say anything good". I have started to buy history books and biographies of men and women from the Civil War era so that someday my grandchildren can read about this "erased" time in history.

Civil disobedience often has a place in changing things for the better. Bristolians have been trying for decades to get the glorification of Colston removed by democratic means for decades, but institutional racism prevented them. I’m white and middle-aged but I cheered when I saw that video of the statue being toppled. It’s an inanimate object, no one was hurt.

@georgiagirl

What good things do you have to say about Colston?

Why not give Hitler a try at the same time??

Taking down a statue is NOT erasing history.

Have you ever been to Bristol? Do you know how much of it's history there is available in the MShed and other places.

You can't argue for 'right' by doing wrong though.
Yup, be a peasant
never stand up and demand change

are you a woman who has the vote ?
are you a non white who has the vote?
are you a non homeowner who has the vote?

wake up

Yup, be a peasant
never stand up and demand change

You can do this without ripping down statues

are you a woman who has the vote ?
are you a non white who has the vote?
are you a non homeowner who has the vote?

wake up

Wake up to what?

I think it was wrong to do that. It isn't indicative of my feelings on change or how to achieve change.

@listeningquietly we should be standing up and demanding change at the ballot box

I'm actually shocked to have learnt today that a statue to a Slave Trader - of all people - still existed until today!!! That's akin to keeping a statue of Hitler in Berlin & expecting Jewish residents to be happy with it - cos its history innit!!

I agree with peaceful protests & im usually the first to condemn violence but in this case I'm glad this statue has been removed.
Disgusting it stayed for so long.

[quote mrnimmanimma]@alsohuman

Who is rewriting history now?

Hitler was thought of as a saviour by many. Hated by many more.

I can imagine Colston was thought of as rather wonderful in Bristol in his day. Probably not so much by the slaves and their families.

[/quote]
However highly Hitler might have been regarded by certain people, the majority of the world recognised him as what he was. That why millions of people died to defeat him. His deeds weren’t regarded as universally acceptable in any historic context.

BTW, before anyone gets carried away with whataboutery about other famous figures, bear in mind that Colston didn't merely, say, keep a couple of enslaved people while discovering antibiotics or getting women the vote. (I say "merely" for scale; I'm not minimising the impact on people enslaved).

The statue was essentially celebrating Colston for his massive slaving activities, since these generated a lot of the funds with which he endowed the city, prompting the erection of the statue.

I can easily name many famous people who have done something abhorrent or at least unacceptable by my standards, but who've also done things I'm prepared to celebrate. That racist Churchill, that sexist Gandhi, and so on. I'm not going to pretend they're perfect, but I am prepared to value them for their contributions to humankind. Colston... well you don't get the donations without the exploitation. And he wasn't exactly going hungry after sharing his widow's mite, was he?

Rowantree
The ballot box and campaigns and the democratic process have tried to have that statue removed for YEARS
but the behind the scenes power kept it there

a bit like Cummings really running the country
we cannot vote Cummings out as he was never elected

some things just need to be DONE

@alsohuman

However highly Hitler might have been regarded by certain people, the majority of the world recognised him as what he was. That why millions of people died to defeat him. His deeds weren’t regarded as universally acceptable in any historic context.

Sorry so you're saying that Colston was universally accepted In his time??

Sorry but you are the problem here.

Colston being 'universally accepted' means 'by white people in England.

Not by black people in the countries he enslaved.

Hitler was 'universally accepted' pretty much by white, Christian Germans.

Not by the Groups that he persecuted.

You are seeing history from a white, imperialist perspective.

I can imagine any slave or family of slaves that lived in Colston's times would have cheered at the scenes today.

@ListeningQuietly but who decides on what things ‘just need to be done’? Clearly the statue should have been removed sooner and it sounds like the democratic process failed. But where does it end if people just take matters into their own hands?

I live in Bristol and was there this afternoon. It wasn't mostly white people involved with removing the statue at all for whoever said that.

The council have been dithering about this for ages, agree this is the best way it could have happened.

@Nellydean21

Hitker got Times magazine man of the year in 1938. I think you need to re visit that thought.

That wasn't a compliment, though:

Hitler appeared on the cover of TIME on multiple occasions — most famously perhaps on Jan. 2, 1939, when he was named Man of the Year. That choice abided by the dictum of TIME founder Henry Luce, who decreed that the Man of the Year — now Person of the Year — was not an honor but instead should be a distinction applied to the newsmaker who most influenced world events for better or worse. In case that second criterion was lost on readers, the issue that named Hitler dispensed with the portrait treatment that cover subjects typically got. Instead he was depicted as a tiny figure with his back to the viewer, playing a massive organ with his murdered victims spinning on a St. Catherine’s wheel. Underneath the stark, black-and-white illustration was the caption, “From the unholy organist, a hymn of hate.”

Person of the Year is supposed to be a neutral title; there was even talk of naming Osama bin Laden Person of the Year in 2001 (although the editors chickened out due to fear of backlash).

Rowan
but who decides on what things ‘just need to be done’?
History and hindsight.
And sometimes the moral imperative.

• Berlin Wall
• Emily Wilding Davison
• Poll tax riots
• Brixton Riots
• Battle of the beanfield

sometimes the events are the culmination of hidden events and the long term outcome becomes clear later.

In this instance, the people of Brizzle knew it had to go
and had exhausted all normal channels
BLM proved the channels wrong and the instinct right