To be utterly disgusted by the protests today.

[SoggySocksAgain]

Am I alone here?

I am utterly disgusted by what I have seen in the news.

The OP is BVFU

Packingsoapandwater Marx's monument in Highgate Cemetery is regularly graffitied.

Mittens the slave trade wasn't 'abolished'. It was stopped because it was no longer profitable. The govt of the time bailed slavers out to the extent that Bristol tax payers were still paying back the debt in 2015.

Can't find it in myself to get up in arms about a polyester flag

Nor me. Mind you, seeing it carried and worn by the fascist National Front in the 70s kind of sullied it a bit for me.

Kezzywezzy thanks for the list.

Be disgusted by the prime minister and his government's world beating failure. Be disgusted by Dominic Cummings. Be disgusted by the care home deaths. Be disgusted by the PPE scandal. Be disgusted by 60 000 lives lost. Do not be disgusted by people protesting against racism.

@BristolProud

Be disgusted by the prime minister and his government's world beating failure. Be disgusted by Dominic Cummings. Be disgusted by the care home deaths. Be disgusted by the PPE scandal. Be disgusted by 60 000 lives lost. Do not be disgusted by people protesting against racism.

Absolutely!!

The horse whose nose was broken was in the US. Why throw bicycles or anything at horses? Wtf have they done that's racist I read the British police woman suffered a collapsed lung after she fell from the horse due to things being thrown at it. Obvs her life means nothing though, crack on and hurt the police thuggery.

There are protestors. There are violent people. The two are not the same. There are police. There are murderers.

As i say, he didnt deserve to die, ofcourse he didnt....
But i wouldn't be using this man as an example.
Sadly there are plenty of others they could use as an example of disgusting racism

If you get the (fucking huge massive) problem, why are you squabbling over the trigger to the protests @AMileInMyShoes?

Why did the thousands who were protesting peacefully not stop the tiny minority who were acting totally illegally.?

Why did the policemen around Chauvin not stop him from slowly murdering George Floyd in broad daylight SusieOwl4? Unlike the protesters, they were being paid and signed contracts to maintain law and order. So what did they not do that?

@Dionethediabolist That has no connection with my question . You are trying to turn my point around into something I did not say . I never condoned their action in any shape or form .

I believe the motto of USA police is ' protect and serve'.

That could be just NY.

Saw on the news just now they were newbies. So following the lead of the experienced officer.

The thing with the old man who got knocked over while trying to return a helmet and has severe head injuries. Quite a lot of police in that video looked worried. One tried to stop. They were guided by others to ignore.

It's like a gang thing, an army thing. They go with the group, protect their own. Don't step out of line. This is a top down thing, I would say.

So you have thousands and thousands in London doing a peaceful protest.

A few yobs who came for a ruck.

If there is no problem in the UK, why did the thousands turn out?

BristolProud

Thank you.

@SoggySocksAgain be grateful that you don't have to live a life of oppression! What I can't believe is the lack of empathy people have for others who are protesting for basic human rights that you probably take for granted. Like the right not to be harassed on the street due to your skin colour, having equal opportunities for jobs, education etc.
My opinion is OP that people who are so disgusted by a few people out of thousands who peacefully protested probably weren't interested in the movement anyway so it's not like you were ever going to be won over! It's not the first time Churchill's statue was vandalised either, it also happened also during the May Day protests of 2000 but I bet you weren't disgusted then as it wasn't a fight for rights for black people!

As i say, he didnt deserve to die, ofcourse he didnt....
But i wouldn't be using this man as an example.
Sadly there are plenty of others they could use as an example of disgusting racism

This isn't fucking Tinder; you do not get to choose who you would like to be used as an example of racism, based on your own narrow-mindedness

What a peculiar thing to focus on.

@LakieLady

I know people get offended with the Karen meme, but it really is mainly older white women who are more likely to be against an anti racism movement

Really? As an older white woman, who has been vehemently anti-racist since her teens, I find that offensive. And I very much doubt if all the white women of my age who stood alongside me at Anti-Nazi League and anti-apartheid events in the 1970s and 1980s have become racist over the last 30 years. Even my 82 year old MIL isn't racist and my mother hated racism right up to the day she died 10 years ago.

It's certainly not true of older women on the left. I can't speak for older women on the right, their whole mindset is a mystery to me. Presumably Tory women voted for the racist buffoon who now leads their party.

Agree with all of this.
As an older woman who worked for black rights in apartheid South Africa, I feel I have achieved more to combat racism than most of the young people who attended demos and made sure to post it on social media

Oh Suzie, that has a huge amount to do with your question.

You are holding unpaid, untrained, strangers to eachother, protestors, with no hierarchy of accountability to the police, who who are trained in and paid to uphold law and order.

I am not saying that you condoned anything. I am saying that you are holding the police to lesser standards than people at large. If we hold the police to lesser standards, why pay or protect them at all?

I know people get offended with the Karen meme, but it really is mainly older white women who are more likely to be against an anti racism movement

I was all set to get offended at that as I'm a 40 something year old white woman with a different mindset could quite easily be a Karen.
It's just a descriptor though.
If you don't want to be a Karen, then don't be a Karen

So if Colston can go, and Savile, and Churchill is fair game, why can't we get rid of Marx as well?

Yes, and Oliver Cromwell and Queen Elizabeth and anything related to Nelson...

I am old enough to have seen some of the statue removal and name-change campaigns of certain regimes. Which as we know followed along after previous removals and campaigns of name-changes. In fact it happens again and again in these kinds of situations, the old gods are removed and the new, good and pure ones, are erected. Of course the same old problems return, and they find out the new gods aren't all that, after all.

It's one thing I think to find someone was a criminal, like Saville, and frankly, someone who didn't really do much of anything important anyway and would have been forgotten in two generations even without a scandal. It's a bit different when we are talking about someone who was operating within the laws and thinking of their time, or who unquestionably had a significant historical importance apart from whatever it is we now see as a problem.

One of the functions, I think, of seeing the monuments of the past, is that they give us a more realistic appraisal of the monuments of our own time - they caution a little healthy skepticism.

When there is no longer anyone left to direct their hate on, they are going to have to focus on themselves.

That's what they are scared of.

One of the functions, I think, of seeing the monuments of the past, is that they give us a more realistic appraisal of the monuments of our own time

Another is seeing the monuments of the past being pulled down and got rid of because our society recognises that money and power is not the same as virtue or goodness or worthiness.

Why did the thousands who were protesting peacefully not stop the tiny minority who were acting totally illegally.?

Taking a wild guess here but perhaps they didn't want to fan the flames and/or be accused of acting unlawfully themselves and/or it ending up as one mass brawl.

Would you have intervened, if you had been there?! I would like a truthful answer, not a Mumsnet answer..