National Trust AGM

[PRAMtran]

I’ve received an email from the National Trust inviting me and all other members to vote in their AGM. Does anyone know if there are any things a woman’s rights advocate should vote for or against. Eg TWAW by stealth.

Slightly tangential, but here is a link to an interview with Peter Boghosssian on ' How the Academy Got Woke'. I mean we all know it, but it is always interesting to have it spelt out clearly from someone who has witnessed its formation from the inside. It is helpful to really understand what 'Diversity, Equality, and inclusion' really means in practice:

Come on, surely they're fifth columnists, secretly working on behalf of the RT lobby.

They have to be.

😆🤣😆🤣

Can you tell us the names of even some of those plants you saw that came from the sugar plantation, @DatumTarum? I've been to the Caribbean and the climate is a teeny bit different from ours in the UK.

I’m also intrigued to know which plants came from the sugar plantations. I mean, hibiscus, frangipani, bougainvillea and so on just thrive in British winters.
@DatumTarum please tell us which plants were brought here from the West Indies.

I’m intrigued too. I wonder if we’ll have to wait long for the answer?

I first asked what the NT property was that had a beautiful garden entirely consisting of 200 year old plants from the plantation on Monday.

Unfortunately, despite repeated asking, they haven't confirmed which NT property has a bountiful green house garden full of CRT appropriate plantation flora.

Has anyone formulated Critical Gardening Theory yet?

Once the weather turns, as it inevitably will, I may have a go at it myself for a winter project.

Give me a shout if you need any help identifying the racist plants 🌱

@GodessOfThunder - I’ve already responded to all main themes the comments and the specific comments in which I was tagged/tagged.

No you haven't. You have not responded to my earlier post questioning your enthusiastic support for queer theory in schools - in which you were tagged.

@PRAMtran said - Actually I started this thread not wanting to vote for TRAs

And you haven't addressed that either. Instead, you and @DatumTarum have thoroughly derailed the thread so it's now all about slavery.

A couple of years ago, a UK plant nursery (in London?) said it particularly welcomed applications from "BIPOC" people. I'm sure the staff wanted to be considerate but they forgot to actually think through their terminology. For those unaware, BIPOC is an American initialism for Black, Indigenous and People of Colour, where "indigenous" means native Americans. What is it it supposed to mean here in the UK? Picts?

Something something Japanese Knotweed?

This could help us identify the garden!

Warning: includes references to Victorian plant collectors. National Trust: Plant Collectors and Historic Gardens

It always amuses me, @NeighbourhoodWatchPotholeDivision, when they import American stuff and it means the opposite here from what they expect.

I seem to recall looking up the indigenous people of the British Isles and it basically seems to be Ancient Britons, who go by a few other names too.

@RebelliousCow

do you believe that all progressive diversity and inclusion initiatives are simply the work of critical social justice theory? Do you see
any threshold between positive change and awareness raising and divisive ideological identity-politics?

Actually do you fundamentally believe the NT is wrong in raising awareness with visitors where the estates they are visiting were founded on the wealth obtained by slavery and mercantile colonialism?

Some on this thread dont seem
to have a problem with this as long as it is not shoehorned or domineering. Others freely admit to wanting their weekend outings not to be spoilt by horrible history. And the final few are much more concerned with the ideological motivations of the NT and those who approve of what they have done rather than the crux of the argument itself.

@Clymene thank you for the book recommendation, I've seen This Is Not America talked about in a few places, it's now on my reading list.

This thread moves so fast that I might be mistaken but I think it was @GodessOfThunder who asked for an example where on over emphasis on connections to slavery had left visitors without information on other aspects of the property. I knew I had read something on this and it was about Penrhyn House whose builders had made their money investing in sugar plantations, a fact which visitors seem well informed about, but here are quotes from reviews on trip advisor about a temporary exhibition in 2022, which has now been removed.

'An amazing building, gardens and history ruined by an unremitting display of wokeness! There was no information about the castle, its history or the people involved. Just a one sided diatribe presented as fact and without comment, sucking all joy out of what should be an uplifting experience. Even the exotic stuffed birds, which our kids loved, weren't spared from forming an object to preach about how wicked, everything associated with the castle is. So predictable, dismal, boring, dull...

......come on National Trust, get off the populist bandwagon, think for yourself. NT members (like our family) deserve so much more.'

'Beautiful property and garden, completely ruined by the current exhibition. What a narrow interpretation of history. What a way to brainwash the young generation. I learnt nothing about the style the castle/house was built in, nothing about the artefacts on display, nothing about the skill that must have gone into creating such grand property. Had I been a visitor with minimal knowledge of British history, I, based on the presentation in Penrhyn, would have concluded that the British have zero skill apart from enslaving African population and using the wealth made on slavery to obtain (steal) objects of art from other countries. National Trust should educate and allow visitors to come to their own conclusions, not manipulate and present history with the 21st century optics. The narrow (and oh so fashionable) angle taken to present a complex subject (which history is) reminds me of the way the Communists rewrote history of my native country in the 1950s.'

Thank you for engaging on this thread @TheHoover two days after you attempted a TAAT on the 'white feminism' thread.

my apologies pencil, I wasn’t aware I was entering territory where I, as a poster needed a special welcome and gif.

what is a TAAT.

I think that a lot of posters are being very unfair to DT and GOT. If the NT stopped spending money on interpretations, reinterpretations and re-curations of the grand houses that they hold in trust, it would threaten DT's and GOT's actual or potential income. They must be entitled to use all weapons at their disposal to protect themselves.

DT and GOT are now discussing this thread on the white feminism thread. I though that was bad form?

Sorry cross posted

1. Currently, yes I do ( the clue is in the term 'initiative')
2. Yes, I do - but I believe it best happens more organically
3. I don't agree entirely with the premise of this question( even though I'm aware and accepting that great wealth tends always to have costs. I don't believe these particular costs have hitherto been hidden)

A link to a review I've just read about an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam in Cambridge: Black Atlantic: Power, People, Resistance:

"In what ways did the transatlantic slave trade shape the museums of Cambridge? This is the question proposed by the curators of this exhibition at the Fitzwilliam. They are keen to emphasise that the exhibition is not about attaching individual blame and that it’s not about guilt. It is instead about improving our knowledge of the relationship between the slave trade and works of art.........Sadly Black Atlantic is not free of the kind of jarring didacticism that mars so many of our exhibitions — especially when it comes to the issue of race and empire.........It is impossible to completely divorce politics from art that emerged from, or is in conversation with, the exploitation and subjugation of black people. Any exhibition that seeks to explore this topic and impart knowledge to the general public will thus have some political dimension to it. But exhibitions should also be about aesthetic bliss; I always remember this whenever I have the sense of being morally lectured to in an art exhibition" ( this is where I'm personally at with all of this recent push for re-education)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/black-atlantic-review-where-art-meets-the-slave-trade-8vt7tld7t

ok, that’s pretty clear. my line of work is heavily involved in initiatives to improve inequitable outcomes in healthcare. I have successfully been involved in obtaining funding for carers in specific scenarios, improving translation services, clinical research trials, targeted outreach programmes, prevention and early detection of major illness campaigns in communities that don’t talk about their health and a few more.
Leaving these things to improve organically would mean nothings changes and differential outcomes prevail.

TAAT is a thread about a thread. Technically it's against MN rules to talk about one thread on a different thread and posters are encouraged to engage on the original thread that they are talking about.

I strongly agree with this rule. I think nothing good comes from talking about people behind their backs which is why I thanked you for engaging on this thread. Nevertheless I have learnt that MNHQ are somewhat flexible about TAAT so I hope it's OK with them if I reference the 'white feminism' thread on this thread (and if not then I want a good reason).

It's not a gif it's an image. I went looking for a thumbs up emoji but there isn't one on MN and I suspect that's because someone decided it was 'problematic'. In the absence of an emoji David Shrigley's sculpture best expresses what I intended to convey.

You rate yourself pretty highly, and judging by comments on other boards ( which i tend to have no real interest in tbh. I'm not involved in social media at all - though the FWR board is my one place for women's rights as they relate to other post modernistic ideologies, specifically in the form of gender identiy theory). You seem fond of the misrepresentation of others - who you categorise in very predictable ways, and seem totally resistant to the idea that other people can disagree with you without being rampant right wing bigots of one sort or other.

I'm pretty sure I've been just as involved, if not far more than yourself, in activities, projects and campaigns which are directed at humanism and human rights over the years, as I'm sure many others her have too.

It's kind of boringly predicatble to see your mis- characterisations, based entirely on your own moral certainty.