The English started the slave trade

[Annamaria14]

I just saw a black American woman post online,

"The English started the slave trade. They caused all our problems, they hurt generations of people. I will never set foot in that country".

What do you think? I felt a bit guilty, because the English did cause a lot of problems around the world. Have we learned from our past. How can we do better in the future

Downton Fucking Abbey has a lot to answer for. It is how much of the world sees us.

Well...someone in the US once asked me if we had running water and television in Scotland when I was a child. Unsure if post Downton Abbey they'd expect us to have servants in uniforms instead or if Scotland would be seen more as Trainspotting.

@MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing

We had it suggested earlier that those Victorian Mancunians desribed by Engels were all beneficiaries of slavery because they put sugar in their tea.

No sugar. No tea. No cups.

Downton Fucking Abbey has a lot to answer for. It is how much of the world sees us

I think that is a big part of the problem. The poverty that existed here was densely hidden in the slums of the East End, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow.

It still has a legacy in those areas and it has never sat comfortably alongside progress - perhaps because it is not fully recognised?

someone in the US once asked me if we had running water and television in Scotland when I was a child.

Happens all the time. British designers meet amazement from their foreign clients when they learn we have computers. Who do they think invented fucking computers?

Visions of us all scratching away with quills.

Have you ever been to Disney's carousel of progress. The USA had lots more mod cons before the British.

Yes, it is a historic statue. It is listed by Historic England.

And ? Are Historic England papally infallible ?

Still doesn't address the points I subsequently made though.

Yes Mockers, I was astounded when I read the book. I thought it would be all political theory but far from it. People had absolutely nothing. They worked for that day’s food and that was it & healthcare forget it. It was normal not to have shoes

The destruction of a historic statue is cultural vandalism.

The destruction of a statue paying homage to a person who profiteered from the slave trade is about as far from cultural vandalism as it's possible to get. It should have been taken down years ago, it's happened now and anyone up in arms about it needs to think about why they're choosing to be offended about a statue of a man who transported 80,000 slaves to their deaths during his lifetime. He isn't a part of British history worthy of recognition or celebration, is he?

I'd say the video of the act of pulling it down was a greater piece of Art than the bloody thing ever was when it was up.

I nominate it for the Turner Prize. ...What do you mean, cancelled this year because Covid???

@DGRossetti. Nothing justifies the cultural vandalism of a historic statue.

Have you ever been to Disney's carousel of progress. The USA had lots more mod cons before the British

My first visit to the US in 1990, I caught a business programme on PBS that was breathlessly describing how US brains had realised that they could use the 4 "spare" lines in TV signals to transmit data that a suitably equipped receiver could display as text. The presenter interviewed an engineer who forsaw it could be used to transmit news and weather in the future.

It took me a while to twig that they were discussing teletext ....

Same trip I had a US veteran explain how the US "gave" Britain radar in 1942.

I've always been very wary of American "facts" since.

When I first went to the US in 1980, they did not have kettles, self-service petrol pumps or hole-in-the-wall cash machines.

Pulling down statues of people who've done bad things is an act of political theater and expression of collective anger that happens all over the world, and will continue to happen. In most cases those statues aren't exactly great works of art.

If anyone is that concerned about the fate of the statue I'm sure it can be fished out of the water later.

@DGRossetti

What point precisely have you made? You suggested earlier that there was some frisson of similarity between this and the collapse of the Berlin Wall. A comparison so absurd, it's beyond parody. The Manichean certainties which drive the statue smashers? You may think that is something to celebrate. History teaches otherwise.

When I first went to the US in 1980, they did not have kettles, self-service petrol pumps or hole-in-the-wall cash machines.

Is Chip and PIN still regarded as black magic ?

why they're choosing to be offended about a statue of a man who transported 80,000 slaves to their deaths during his lifetime

Not exactly.

He joined the Royal Africa Company, replacing his father. During the time he was a member (1680-1692) that number of slaves were transported.

He rose to became deputy governor of the company, from 1689 to 1690.

Bristol, as a port, profited from the slave trade. The Royal African Company was not solely a slave trading company, but also traded in other commodities.

I had a US veteran explain how the US "gave" Britain radar in 1942.

That could be the cavity magnetron, making centrimetrc radar small enough to fit in an aircraft, developed at the University of Birmingham. The one where they know how to say Birmingham. Supplied free of charge to the US along with the jet engines, the nuclear secrets, etc.

@DGRossetti. Historic England are the national experts in what heritage should be protected and the sources are quoted in the list description which I gave a link to above.

However protected it is in law, clearly can't protect it from cultural revisionists.

We should learn from history not delete it.
There could have been a notice by the statue to have given some historic balance, now, that would have been constructive.

mockers they don't seem to like kettles more coffee makers but definitely seemed to have fridges in the 50s according to Disney?

Chips eventually arrived, long after Europe had them. Some shops programmed the card machines to play sounds when the transaction was finished, which rather disconcerted me upon first encounter because it was Thanksgiving so it played the sound of a turkey squawking.

Nothing justifies the cultural vandalism of a historic statue.

One persons cultural vandalism is another persons political protest.

I'm not a massive fan of destruction as an agent of social agitation - it's too easily corrupted.

But I'm also not a massive fan of absolute commandments. Especially when they aren't universal but mysteriously only apply to the little people.

If you want to talk about cultural vandalism, what about the works around Stonehenge. For a start. And I'm sure other posters can cite examples where the government has destroyed historic monuments in the name of profit progress.

@MockersxxxxxxxSocialDistancing

chocolateclass.wordpress.com/2015/03/11/sugar-a-necessity-of-the-british-working-class/

The British pretty much ate all of the sugar imported from the British Caribbean: the French re-exported a large part of theirs across Europe. Britain had a full-scale industrialization where cheap food energy in the form of sugar may have played a part.

Cucumber sandwiches no, bread and jam maybe.

And yes, for some reason electric kettles have been very slow to be adopted. First time I saw someone boiling water on a gas cooker I was so confused, and the whistling sound is annoying.

The destruction of a statue paying homage to a person who profiteered from the slave trade is about as far from cultural vandalism as it's possible to get. It should have been taken down years ago, it's happened now and anyone up in arms about it needs to think about why they're choosing to be offended about a statue of a man who transported 80,000 slaves to their deaths during his lifetime. He isn't a part of British history worthy of recognition or celebration, is he?

The statue should have been removed years ago.

It would good to have statues of people like Mary Seacole.

It is the great anachronism in Mrs Miniver, made in Hollywood, where the English lady in her thatched cottage in 1940 has an LA fridge the size of a double wardrobe for the Nazi paratrooper to bang his head on and snuff it.

The information film they made for the GI's coming to Britain is worth a look, specially the bit about how British West Indian troops are not to be addressed as "boy" if you value your teeth.