Re: Black Lives Matter
 

You must be rich beyond the dreams of avarice:rolleyes:

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

Totally agree - all this fuss over one statue...

---------- Post added at 09:26 ---------- Previous post was at 09:24 ----------

That’s not what the U.K. BLM movement’s about, no matter how many times you say it...

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

How many people in the movement have degrees in "communications"?

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

I'm a bit worried about the jolly Fisherman statue at skeggy:)

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

The original post was tongue in cheek, anyway.

[off topic]Any one that claims to know how or why the pyramids were built is talking out their backside. We don't know why or how they were built and probably never will[/off topic]

now back to the BLM nonsense.

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

What about John Newton who was a slaver then became a Christian, was convicted of that trade and changed? He penned the hymn Amazing Grace, do we rip that out of the hymnal because it likely wouldn't have been written without his experience as a slaver?

Some of these slavers and owners of slaves made their wealth that way and then changed and left wealth to charities not as "penance" (can't buy you way into heaven) but to demonstrate that change or even just to benefit the community.

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

Somebody get the ouija Board out so we can help this lady.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFNhFFSd1rw

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

https://www.indy100.com/article/fion...racist-9568041

Another loony lefty.Give it a rest.

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

Admittedly I've not read much of this thread but here's something that often vexes me. To the best of my knowledge I've not displayed racial attitudes to anyone. True, the Indian woman I was with for 10 years, I cannot stand the very fabric of her being but that's for a number of reasons, none of which are anywhere connected to her race. In fact we have a mixed race son together but that's all going off the point I'm making.

This could be down to my own perception, I accept that's a possibility but recently it has felt as if I (and other whites) ought to feel some sort of shame or embarrassment etc due to the racist attitudes and actions of some of my forefathers who may (or may not, I don't know much about them) have been racist, kept slaves etc. All of which would be abhorrent behaviour but is not something I feel I ought to apologise for, or display shame etc.

It wasn't me, and had I been around in those days I cannot imagine myself treating another human so disgustingly purely based on their race.

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

A point I made earlier in the thread and also my position on the matter.

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

My support is for the US BLM. The British version was meant to be about discrimination by British police.

The statue wreckers are the anarchists who are just looking for aggro.

---------- Post added at 13:06 ---------- Previous post was at 13:03 ----------

I agree, Russ. I think people are running out of ideas on what to protest about! It's all getting rather tiresome.

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

It isn't about feeling personal shame but rather a recognition it happened. The main argument activists have isn't that white people should feel guilty but to have a greater understanding that it happened, that is was really bad and that consequences of racism linger.

Even over this statue debate there is a lot of 'he did some good things, he did some bad things' but that seems to underplay just how bad those things where. It does still seem like we're resistant to properly confront that part of British history, handwaving it away.

You probably would. As I probably would. As most people would have and did. You are conditioned by the society that you grew up in. Few people are ever actively railing against what is considered normal at any one time in history. Even in the last 100-150 years there was a time when it was only a small minority who argued women should have the vote, or that homosexuality should be legal and within our lifetime it was a majority opinion that gay marriage should be illegal.

The interesting thing with that thought is what do we consider acceptable now that we won't in 50, 100, 200 years?

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

Are you honestly saying that people didn't know there was slavery all those years ago? I certainly did, and I dare say you did, too. It is no secret, it is in the past, and it has not directly affected any living person.

The big thing now that we should be concentrating on is ironing out the inequalities, which 50 years on from the Race Discrimination Act, still persist today.

The concentration on slavery and choice of words people use are little more than devices to change the subject. There is no excuse for treating black people differently for no good reason and people need to learn that. However, given the attitude of some people towards race equality legislation ("Why are they getting more privileges than me?") and Black Lives Matter ("All lives matter"), perhaps we need to ditch existing legislation for all groups and simply have equality legislation that applies to everyone. People might get it then.

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

The US have supposedly had that since 1964 - not sure it's really worked out that way though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

Re: Black Lives Matter
 

I think that people being more interested in getting angry about statues rather than the wider issue of racism itself sort of validates the whole debate.

From my point of view, the damage to Colston statue was, on balance, merited. The others are not ..