Black Lives Matter

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Carth

anyway, history is history, if you start taking the bits out that you don't like, it becomes a fairy tale

It's not about taking bits out, it's about adding facts of history that weren't in 'recorded' history before.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Hugh

They don't want to eradicate our history, they would just like a less whitewashed version of it...

Our culture has always been about adapting and including - cultures grow, because if they get static, they decay; you know, cultural institutions like tea (from India), curries (mostly from Bangladesh), Punch and Judy (Italian), the Women's Institute (Canada), the C of E (breakaway from the RC church), our Royalty (Sax-Coburg-Gotha), the English Language (Latin and Germanic roots), etc., etc.

Every culture is an amalgam of the cultures around it combined with their own particular cultural experience and history

Yours seems to be an altruistic view of what's just happened in Bristol and London.

The Colston statue dumped into the estuary smacks of an eradication to me.
Branding Churchill as a racist smacks of rewriting hiustory, to me.

You list a range of cultural importations. Let me list some more:

Gangs (Albanian); knife crime (Somalia); begging (Romania).



---------- Post added at 16:42 ---------- Previous post was at 16:41 ----------

Originally Posted by BenMcr

It's not about taking bits out, it's about adding facts of history that weren't in 'recorded' history before.

What? What's being added that wasn't there before?

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

What? What's being added that wasn't there before?

Well here's an example
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ufmann-history

Africans were already known to have likely been living in Roman Britain as soldiers, slaves or even free men and women. But Kaufmann shows that, by Tudor times, they were present at the royal courts of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James I, and in the households of Sir Walter Raleigh and William Cecil

It doesn't take away anything that we already know about the Tudor period, but adds to our understanding. But it would have likely been excluded in later history records as didn't align to the views expressed within society at the time.

[papa smurf]

It seems some idiot has decided we need a BLM protest in cleethorpes this weekend, should be interesting.

https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/n...t-held-4201906

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

Well here's an example
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...ufmann-history

It doesn't take away anything that we already know about the Tudor period, but adds to our understanding. But it would have likely been excluded in later history records as didn't align to the views expressed within society at the time.

Oh please, Ben. On that basis people might argue that we're really Italian, or Danish, or Celtic or whatever.

By all means add that stuff into History syllabuses but do please recognise that these demonstrators nor any ethnic group should be allowed to eradicate already written factual history.

[Carth]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

It seems some idiot has decided we need a BLM protest in cleethorpes this weekend, should be interesting.

https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/n...t-held-4201906

Not much left to wreck there, maybe it will end up being a peaceful 'fish n chips' protest

[downquark1]

Maggy, a few months ago I had a discussion with someone saying they want to drop World War I from the syllabus. Do you know anything about this?

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Branding Churchill as a racist smacks of rewriting history, to me.

I think it's pretty clear that Churchill held some views which we would now term racist. Rewriting history would be to airbrush this aspect of him out. A better approach would be to acknowledge and contexualise his views.
https://inews.co.uk/news/winston-chu...plained-440668

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Carth

Not much left to wreck there, maybe it will end up being a peaceful 'fish n chips' protest

Well there's been no boozers open, no football matches for months so i predict a huge punch up and very busy police cells on Saturday night,it'll be like life as returned to normal again.

Originally Posted by downquark1

Can you offer specifics?

How about the de-industrialisation of India in the 1700s & 1800s, the export of food need to feed starving Indians during the famine of the 1870s, the deaths of nearly 30,000 (mainly) women and children in the concentration camps during the Boer War (out of around 100,000 captives), the minimisation of the fact that over 2 million soldiers from India, Africa, and the Caribbean fought for the British during the First World War, and the (until recently) erasure from the history books of Mary Seacole.

Originally Posted by downquark1

Maggy, a few months ago I had a discussion with someone saying they want to drop World War I from the syllabus. Do you know anything about this?

When I was at school WW1 took a backseat to WW2. I wouldn't be surprised if that trend was continued as time moves further on.

---------- Post added at 18:39 ---------- Previous post was at 18:34 ----------

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

[
Branding Churchill as a racist smacks of rewriting hiustory, to me.

Why? It's not rewriting history so much as adding more depth to it. Churchill is celebrated for leading the country in WW2, complete with the tenacity in doing so, his ability to motivate the nation during the darkest parts of the Battle of Britain and in recognizing the threat Hitler posed. None of that precludes the idea he expressed racist views, it's just that his achievements are far more significant that to dismiss him as a racist would be stupid and simplistic.

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by Hugh

How about the de-industrialisation of India in the 1700s & 1800s, the export of food need to feed starving Indians during the famine of the 1870s, the deaths of nearly 30,000 (mainly) women and children in the concentration camps during the Boer War (out of around 100,000 captives), the minimisation of the fact that over 2 million soldiers from India, Africa, and the Caribbean fought for the British during the First World War, and the (until recently) erasure from the history books of Mary Seacole.

Sure if you also cover Adam Smith, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

Originally Posted by downquark1

Sure if you also cover Adam Smith, the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

The point is typically those do get more coverage than the negative aspects of our history.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Oh please, Ben. On that basis people might argue that we're really Italian, or Danish, or Celtic or whatever.

And what would be so wrong in realising that most of the people in the UK today have connections with somewhere else in the world at some point in the their family tree?

By all means add that stuff into History syllabuses but do please recognise that these demonstrators nor any ethnic group should be allowed to eradicate already written factual history.

And who exactly is say that? Pretty sure that no-one in BLM is suggesting not talking about existing history, but to ensure what we do learn is re-contextualised within the wider world view that a lot of recent history teaching doesn't cover or allow for.

[downquark1]

Originally Posted by Damien

The point is typically those do get more coverage than the negative aspects of our history.

Except that is a lie. When I was in school there was nothing about those periods at all. In the last ten years people are falling over themselves to lecture me about Mary Seacole.

When I want to learn about the British Raj I pretty much have to find a Hindu nationalist to yell facts at me.