Edward Colston statue pulled down

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EACLucifer
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Jun 17, 2020 2:55 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:32 pm
A thing of beauty.
f.ck that b.llsh.t.

Colston was born to a prosperous family, and was a wealthy merchant and Tory MP.

The slave trade he ran was for the benefit of wealthy plantation owners, and wealthy investors

The statue was erected as a result of a campaign by a wealthy industrialist, who stumped up the shortfall when the public proved uninterested in funding it.

The statue was defended by Tory councillors and MPs, and by the Society of Merchant Venturers

So of course some idiotic prick has to put up an ugly, prejudiced caricature targetting the working class. f.ck that sh.t, it wasn't the working class that created the man, nor the statue, nor that kept the statue there.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Boustrophedon » Thu Jun 18, 2020 9:08 am

EACLucifer wrote:
Wed Jun 17, 2020 2:55 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 15, 2020 3:32 pm
A thing of beauty.
f.ck that b.llsh.t.

Colston was born to a prosperous family, and was a wealthy merchant and Tory MP.

The slave trade he ran was for the benefit of wealthy plantation owners, and wealthy investors

The statue was erected as a result of a campaign by a wealthy industrialist, who stumped up the shortfall when the public proved uninterested in funding it.

The statue was defended by Tory councillors and MPs, and by the Society of Merchant Venturers

So of course some idiotic prick has to put up an ugly, prejudiced caricature targeting the working class. f.ck that sh.t, it wasn't the working class that created the man, nor the statue, nor that kept the statue there.
It's not the well to do respectable working class that are turning out to protect statues, though is it? The assorted lowbrow right wingers who turned out to protect amongst others, a statue of George Eliot, are I suspect the target of that particular caricature and not Coulson and his ilk.

Anyway I think the statue of de Gaulle should go, he hated the British, resented our help during the war and still bore a petty grudge when we applied to the Common Market, so pull him down while you are at it.
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Fishnut » Fri Jun 19, 2020 9:05 am

While it was written the day after the statue came down I've only just seen this interview with Superintendent Andy Bennett, the one who made the call not to let the police intervene. It's a great interview and he sounds like a really level-headed guy.
“I called HQ and I said, ‘In our decision-making we need to think about what’s most important.’

“People will say we allowed them to roll it all the way to the docks. What would have happened if we stopped people and arrested them?

“We would have had to guard the statue. If you’ve got a police cordon protecting a statue of a man who made his money trading slaves, you can imagine how different things might have been.”
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Tessa K » Fri Jun 19, 2020 9:50 am

Fishnut wrote:
Fri Jun 19, 2020 9:05 am
While it was written the day after the statue came down I've only just seen this interview with Superintendent Andy Bennett, the one who made the call not to let the police intervene. It's a great interview and he sounds like a really level-headed guy.
“I called HQ and I said, ‘In our decision-making we need to think about what’s most important.’

“People will say we allowed them to roll it all the way to the docks. What would have happened if we stopped people and arrested them?

“We would have had to guard the statue. If you’ve got a police cordon protecting a statue of a man who made his money trading slaves, you can imagine how different things might have been.”
Good article. I like the detail that he arrived on his bike.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Fishnut » Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:24 pm

Bristol City Council have reverted to idiotic form - they have decided to treat the statue removal as criminal damage and have made it a criminal case that the police not have to investigate. Not only that, but no-one in the council is admitting to being the one who made the official report. According to the Bristol Post,
We don’t know if the decision was made by the mayor himself because the council has so far refused to tell us. In fact, it has ignored our questions asking why and when its “evidential statement” was submitted to the police. Or who signed it.
The Post has decided not to publish the photos of the suspects and gives a really clear explanation of why they don't support the prosecution,
We think the majority of Bristolians accept that the years of frustration and offence at the statue’s existence mitigate what happened two weeks ago. That is why the Bristol Post or Bristol Live will not publishing the police photographs. We are not criticising the police and - unlike the council - have no influence over whether or not those responsible should be sought. But we do not agree that the actions of those young people should be reduced to a simple act of criminal damage which ignores the complex context and history around it.

Furthermore, we think that the council has made the wrong decision to make a formal complaint. In a city which prides itself on its liberal non-conformity, this was the council’s chance to demonstrate to those offended by the statue that they had been heard and that the future would be different.

But it has squandered that opportunity.

Worse still, its refusal to either take responsibility for or to be open about its role in potential prosecutions has simply emphasised the fact that nothing has changed. Which is exactly why the statue was pulled down in the first place.
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Bird on a Fire » Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:45 pm

I imagine it'd be tricky finding a jury for that case. Gotta exclude people who are opposed to celebrating human traffickers on the one hand, and racists on the other, so you're looking for 12 non-racists who are fine with monuments to slavery.
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Woodchopper » Mon Jun 22, 2020 2:00 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jun 22, 2020 1:45 pm
I imagine it'd be tricky finding a jury for that case. Gotta exclude people who are opposed to celebrating human traffickers on the one hand, and racists on the other, so you're looking for 12 non-racists who are fine with monuments to slavery.
That's not really how it works in Britain. There is much less scope to challenge a jury member than in the US.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by snoozeofreason » Mon Jun 22, 2020 2:07 pm

Any prosecution would have to pass the CPS's usual two stage test. There would need to be evidence likely to convince a jury that the defendant(s) had committed the crime (which there might well be). But there would also have to be reason to think that prosecution would be in the public interest, which would be a harder point to argue. I'd guess that CPS would take advantage of the public interest test to avoid launching a controversial prosecution, particularly given that Covid has added to an already significant backlog of more serious cases.
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Martin Y » Mon Jun 22, 2020 4:12 pm

Perhaps their intention is actually to discourage future groups of protesters from deciding to follow suit and spontaneously remodel the town centre to reflect their own cause, whatever it turns out to be.

"Well, you didn't go after those guys. You're obviously just biased against hedgehog rights, you fascists".

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by FairySmall » Mon Jun 22, 2020 8:00 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Mon Jun 22, 2020 4:12 pm
Perhaps their intention is actually to discourage future groups of protesters from deciding to follow suit and spontaneously remodel the town centre to reflect their own cause, whatever it turns out to be.

"Well, you didn't go after those guys. You're obviously just biased against hedgehog rights, you fascists".
Given what happened to the grave of Scipio Africanus (no, not that one), it's a fair guess. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-53112915

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by jimbob » Mon Jul 13, 2020 6:44 pm

This is eye-opening in the US

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/co ... e-statues/

Statues commemorating Confederate heroes erected on courthouse grounds upto 2015.
Have you considered stupidity as an explanation

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Tessa K » Tue Jul 14, 2020 11:49 am

jimbob wrote:
Mon Jul 13, 2020 6:44 pm
This is eye-opening in the US

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/co ... e-statues/

Statues commemorating Confederate heroes erected on courthouse grounds upto 2015.
I knew many of them were put up on the 20th century but not that recently.
'These [Confederate] statues were meant to promote white supremacy and intimidate Black people, not just to pay homage to Southern pride'.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Tessa K » Wed Jul 15, 2020 7:39 am

The statue has been replaced, possibly temporarily.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... are_btn_tw
The statue of slave trader Edward Colston was replaced in Bristol on Wednesday morning – with a sculpture of one of the protesters whose anger brought him down.

The figure of Jen Reid, who was photographed standing on the plinth with her fist raised after the 17th century merchant was toppled by Black Lives Matter demonstrators last month, was erected at dawn by a team directed by the artist Marc Quinn.
Image

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Martin Y » Wed Jul 15, 2020 7:43 am

I rather like that. Nice example of public art.

Though I give it about a day before it gets attacked.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Tessa K » Wed Jul 15, 2020 7:56 am

Martin Y wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 7:43 am
I rather like that. Nice example of public art.

Though I give it about a day before it gets attacked.
It's certainly going to generate a whole load of ranty comments from racists online and elsewhere. Plus it's a woman, so that's double outrage.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Lew Dolby » Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:58 am

whether or not it's attacked, it keeps the issue in the public eye. That's a win, isn't it ??
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Martin Y » Wed Jul 15, 2020 9:10 am

Lew Dolby wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:58 am
whether or not it's attacked, it keeps the issue in the public eye. That's a win, isn't it ??
Honestly, it might be a win in the sense of that "... win stupid prizes" saying. Right now it looks great. A nice piece of thought-provoking public art, which says "this is how we feel about this stuff now". But it's only how some of us feel about it. People with different agendas, who try to pull it down and chuck it in the water or just spray it with racist graffiti, will be keeping in the public eye the fact that they're still among us, turning something positive and uplifting into something depressing and ugly.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Tessa K » Wed Jul 15, 2020 11:52 am

Martin Y wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 9:10 am
Lew Dolby wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 8:58 am
whether or not it's attacked, it keeps the issue in the public eye. That's a win, isn't it ??
Honestly, it might be a win in the sense of that "... win stupid prizes" saying. Right now it looks great. A nice piece of thought-provoking public art, which says "this is how we feel about this stuff now". But it's only how some of us feel about it. People with different agendas, who try to pull it down and chuck it in the water or just spray it with racist graffiti, will be keeping in the public eye the fact that they're still among us, turning something positive and uplifting into something depressing and ugly.
The artist has said it's not intended to be permanent. The Mayor of Bristol has said that there will be a discussion for local people about what goes there permanently. That seems fair to me. Anyone who doesn't like it can have their say about what should be there. I suspect it will be a long discussion given that the discussion about putting up a plaque on the Colston statue to reflect the full facts went on for many years and wasn't resolved.

I hope there's CCTV in the meantime so anyone trying to damage or remove it will be caught.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Martin Y » Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:17 pm

I think having the police regularly show they're keeping an eye might be needed, as CCTV only lets you watch people doing what you don't want them to do. I hope it does survive long enough for the town to have a grown-up discussion about it, but it doesn't take many hothead morons to ruin things.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Tessa K » Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:21 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:17 pm
I think having the police regularly show they're keeping an eye might be needed, as CCTV only lets you watch people doing what you don't want them to do. I hope it does survive long enough for the town to have a grown-up discussion about it, but it doesn't take many hothead morons to ruin things.
Agreed although conspicuous CCTV may be a deterrent.

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Aitch » Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:29 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:17 pm
I think having the police regularly show they're keeping an eye might be needed, as CCTV only lets you watch people doing what you don't want them to do. I hope it does survive long enough for the town to have a grown-up discussion about it, but it doesn't take many hothead morons to ruin things.
Yeah?
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Tessa K » Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:37 pm

Aitch wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:29 pm
Martin Y wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:17 pm
I think having the police regularly show they're keeping an eye might be needed, as CCTV only lets you watch people doing what you don't want them to do. I hope it does survive long enough for the town to have a grown-up discussion about it, but it doesn't take many hothead morons to ruin things.
Yeah?

coned.jpg
Is that real? It looks Photoshopped

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Aitch » Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:39 pm

Tessa K wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:37 pm
Aitch wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:29 pm
Martin Y wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 12:17 pm
I think having the police regularly show they're keeping an eye might be needed, as CCTV only lets you watch people doing what you don't want them to do. I hope it does survive long enough for the town to have a grown-up discussion about it, but it doesn't take many hothead morons to ruin things.
Yeah?

coned.jpg
Is that real? It looks Photoshopped
Of course it's Photoshopped* - look who posted it! :roll:


* Elements, actually, but the same principle.
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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by Martin Y » Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:19 pm

I'm told that Glasgow's equestrian statue of Wellington, a traditional wearer of a traffic cone, sported a chic black one during the BLM protests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestria ... n,_Glasgow

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Re: Edward Colston statue pulled down

Post by bmforre » Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:27 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:19 pm
I'm told that Glasgow's equestrian statue of Wellington, a traditional wearer of a traffic cone, sported a chic black one during the BLM protests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equestria ... n,_Glasgow
In his case shouldn't it be "Irish lives matter" ?

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