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As an American I have no words... Well, I have them but they would hardly be cohearant right now. I'm sure others among us can put the deep and disturbing heart-hurt aside long enough to be eloquent on the topic. I find that I cannot.
“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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'The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which allows same-sex marriage in England and Wales, was passed by the UK Parliament'
Remind me which government was in power at the time ...
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"The Composer wrote on Tue, 02 June 2020 13:27"'The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which allows same-sex marriage in England and Wales, was passed by the UK Parliament'
Remind me which government was in power at the time ...
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The same Government but a very different Prime Minister... and no svengali in the background.
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and Cats." - Albert Schweitzer
It's like Mad Max out here: guys doing guys, girls doing girls, girls turning into guys and doing girls that used to do girls and guys!
- from Alex Truelove
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"Camy wrote on Tue, 02 June 2020 17:11"
"The Composer wrote on Tue, 02 June 2020 13:27"'The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which allows same-sex marriage in England and Wales, was passed by the UK Parliament'
Remind me which government was in power at the time ...
--
The same Government but a very different Prime Minister... and no svengali in the background.
--
I think I need to be pedantic. It was a different government, but it was the same party of government.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001, with the law coming into effect on 1 April (no joke!) That day, Job Cohen, the Mayor of Amsterdam, married four same-sex couples after becoming a registrar specifically to officiate weddings.
It took 12 more years for the UK and the rest of Europe to follow amidst outrage and backlash from the conservative right and Catholics.
The Netherlands stands alone as an example of a country where human rights and equality and freedom stand out. The country decrimalised cannabis for personal consumption in 1976!
The Netherlands has become one of the most culturally liberal countries in the world, with recent polls indicating that more than 90% of Dutch people support same sex marriage.
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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It's good to see someone from France defending the Dutch.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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I'm somewhat surprised at the lack of...
Yup, that was it.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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"timmy wrote on Mon, 01 June 2020 21:45"I have no frame of reference for the USA save pure human disgust at the reckless disregard the USA and its law officers have for Black Lives. Any further comment from me would be out of disgusted ignorance.
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Do you really need one? It's not a uniquely American problem, by any means. Ask Mark Duggan (with whom I had a nodding acquaintance). Ask Sean Rigg. And there are sadly a number of other English black bodies to testify that a racist disregard for black people - males in particular - is endemic in the police forces of our major cities.
Sadly, the Tottenham riots following Mark Duggan's death failed to achieve lasting change. I wish our American cousins better luck.
"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night devoid of stars." Martin Luther King
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"NW wrote on Fri, 05 June 2020 11:46"
Sadly, the Tottenham riots following Mark Duggan's death failed to achieve lasting change. I wish our American cousins better luck.
--
Well, we've had what? a decade now of "Black Lives Matter" protests here in the states? And before that we had the Rodney Kind riots in South Central LA. We had the race riots of the 60's including the Watts Riots, again, in LA? Plus many, many other individual marches and protests. None of those has done much to change the racism and white privilege that seems to be endemic in certain sectors of our society. Unarmed black men and boys are still dying at the hands of the police at appallingly high rates. People like to quote statistics that many more white men die at the hands of police than do black men, but in doing so they fail to take into account the percentages. I'm sure they overlook the percentage statistics purposely because were they to do so they'd learn something they don't want to know.
So no, while I appreciate your wishes for a more fortunate outcome of our protests than you've seen there, that ship has already sailed, unfortunately. We're doing no better than y'all are over there across the pond.
“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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That shows me, Teddy, that my own frame of reference was already useless. Indeed I think it would be at best impolite for me to try to comment within my own outdated and useless frame.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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If for a moment you leave aside police racism and homophobia, you can take a look at the societies (not restricted to America) in which racism arises and see how it results in murdering black people. The chance of being killed by the police (or anybody) in America is already higher than in a lot of other countries. Add in the accepted norm that anyone can kill someone who trespasses and you can see a link to a societal thinking equating justice and the right to kill. The property owner shooting the supposed burglar, the police officer the supposed criminal. It is not rare for the American police to over react, shoot first. This whole way of society makes it possible for terrible things to happen. What I'm saying is that it is not as simple as racism or police violence, but all this is born out of the whole of the society. A society which accepts things as normal (carrying weapons and killing people) which are not normal in a civilised world.
From a foreigners point of view it seems the police in America have the right to shoot anybody without having to justify it. In France it is rare for a policeman to draw their weapon, and if they shoot someone they must justify before a judge that it was in self-defence. In other words, that they were shot at or in a life threatening situation.
It isn't difficult to see that if it's allowed to carry weapons and shoot people, then using excess force and killing someone during an arrest is another aspect of a society out of control. Racism is not confined to the police, that is maybe the most visible reflection of the society.
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Everyone's comments on this subject are well taken, and describe endemic racism as a universal, militaristic policing policies, compounded as Talo points out, by the American fixation with guns and what that creates in society at large. There is also another dynamc going on with Black Lives Matter and the responses in the US and elsewhere in the two weeks since the murder of George Floyd, and that is the hard line response about dominating the streets and protestors in a military manner. That is all about maintaing the established order that is controled by priveleged and wealthy whites!
Roger Cohen wrote a telling Op-Ed in today's New York Times, titled "Get Your Knee Off Our Necks," in which he summarizes the "dominate the streets" response from Trump and Cotton by saying that this is "to assert with a great show of force, after the slow-motion murder of George Floyd by a white police officer, that the oppressive system that produced this act is not about to change and armed white male power in America is inviolable. That is Trump's fundamental credo. His Bible-brandishing, American Gothic portrait this week outside St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington is one of the most disturbing portraits of psychopathic self-importance seen since 1933."
You can read Cohen's piece by clicking here.
[Updated on: Sat, 06 June 2020 15:22]
Bensiamin
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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How many white men have been killed by US police?
'429 civilians having been shot, 88 of whom were Black, as of June 4, 2020'
I think the problem may possibly lie with American police forces.
This latest event occured in a city run by the Democrats for decades. Why haven't they sorted their police forces out?
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Because American police have been trained to use force and violence as needed. Remember, they all carry sidearms - do police elsewhere? Sadly, it's become "standard practice" even in cities and states with Democrat official in place.
On top of that, since 9/11 something else has happened in America - the police have been militarized. By that I mean that city police departments have been stocked with military vehicles, military weaponry, military riot gear, etc., etc. It's not true "military police' in the tarditional sense of the word, but it is damn close.
When your city police department can roll out military grade Humvees and MRAPs, and take to the streets with M-16s, something dramatic has changed...and not for the good.
Bensiamin
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"The Composer wrote on Sat, 06 June 2020 11:36"This latest event occured in a city run by the Democrats for decades. Why haven't they sorted their police forces out?
--
You ask a great question. As has been pointed out by a number of city mayors around the US over the last couple of weeks now, A huge part of the problem is the collective bargaining agreements that have been agreed on over the years. The labor unions that are representing the police officers have more power at this point, due to those collective bargaining agreements, than do the mayors and city managers. Bad policing and bad police officers have become increacingly more difficult to control, to the point that in some cases there is very little that can/could be done, even when the violations were egregious.
“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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Margaret Thatcher would have sorted that one ...
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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Interesting to see that you make the comment that in France it is rare for a policeman to draw their weapon.In the UK, apart from very special circumstances, policeman do not carry weapons.A couple of months ago, I went on a conducted tour of the House of Commons, organised by my former college. As the event came to an end, I was walking out with someone who had been the Serjeant at Arms in the past, and had moved on. In front of us were a couple of policeman carrying what I might describe as submachineguns automatic weapons. I have never seen this before in the UK, and said this to my colleague. He shrugged, and said, "That's how it is these days."It was a time of fairly enhanced security the state opening of Parliament was due in the next day or two, but it is, I think, the only time I have seen policeman in the UK carrying firearms.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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I have seen them for several years at airports, heavily armed, with sidearms and more substantial militaristic medium-long weapons. I am not reassured by the weaponry, preferring not to get caught in crossfire.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"The Composer wrote on Sun, 07 June 2020 12:15"Margaret Thatcher would have sorted that one ...
--
I feel your tongue is in your cheek, rather. I'm not sure she was at all interested in police brutality unless it was against the miners' union. Then it was not exactly discouraged.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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It was either that or capitulate.
Remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saltley_Gate ?
That was intimidation pure and simple, and Scargill intended to repeat those tactics against Thatcher. He wasn't interested in mine closures; he was interested in bringing down a government by direct action. That would have been A Very British Coup.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"The Composer wrote on Sun, 07 June 2020 20:27"It was either that or capitulate.
Remember https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Saltley_Gate ?
That was intimidation pure and simple, and Scargill intended to repeat those tactics against Thatcher. He wasn't interested in mine closures; he was interested in bringing down a government by direct action. That would have been A Very British Coup.
--
By that logic should police brutality be used as a tool to stamp out human rights for those in the UK and USA who are not white, not protestant, not churchgoers, not the elites?
It woudl be either that or capitulation, surely?
I'm clear myself on where the line is to be drawn. It was not where Thatcher drew it. Are you arguing that she was correct in allowing brutality, or are you arguing in orde to show that she was not?
And now what of the documented instances in the USA over the past few days? Macing a 9 year old girl? Using a baton round on a wheelchair user? Dr9ving an unmarked SUV into a protestor? There are many more examples. Should we justify those as necessary to avoid capitulation?
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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Um ... which human rights did Thatcher stamp out?
I'm not making any argument for America - although if human rights is your issue, there are far far worse places.
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Geron Kees
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Likes it here |
Location: USA
Registered: February 2016
Messages: 151
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"The Composer wrote on Sat, 06 June 2020 18:36"How many white men have been killed by US police?
'429 civilians having been shot, 88 of whom were Black, as of June 4, 2020'
I think the problem may possibly lie with American police forces.
This latest event occured in a city run by the Democrats for decades. Why haven't they sorted their police forces out?[/font-family][/font-size]
--It's very simple: police unions. Unlike most unions these days in America, police unions are still immensely strong, very politically connected, and very protective of their members. Police unions are too often behind minimizing complaints against officers and covering up histories of improper conduct. With everything in the world being about power and money anymore, none of this is surprising in the least.
Whenever anyone crusades for police reform, these unions pull out all the stops to thwart them, even orchestrating smear campaigns against politicians that are looking to upset the police status quo. It will take more than local level politicians to sort these people out. A federal program pushed by congress and a president, to monitor police AND the conduct of their unions, is necessary in order for real change to take place.
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Geron Kees
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Likes it here |
Location: USA
Registered: February 2016
Messages: 151
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"Talo Segura wrote on Wed, 03 June 2020 06:14"The Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage in 2001, with the law coming into effect on 1 April (no joke!) That day, Job Cohen, the Mayor of Amsterdam, married four same-sex couples after becoming a registrar specifically to officiate weddings.
It took 12 more years for the UK and the rest of Europe to follow amidst outrage and backlash from the conservative right and Catholics.
The Netherlands stands alone as an example of a country where human rights and equality and freedom stand out. The country decrimalised cannabis for personal consumption in 1976!
The Netherlands has become one of the most culturally liberal countries in the world, with recent polls indicating that more than 90% of Dutch people support same sex marriage.
--Being gay in Nederlands has been legal since 1811. The Germans made it illegal during the occupation, but after the war it became legal again, and has stayed that way. The Dutch military has been accepting openly gay recruits since 1974. The gay revolution in Nederlands happened fifty years ago, pretty much, well ahead of everyone else.
There have been no moves backwards in recent times, either. Why is this? Today, fifty percent of the Dutch people claim not to be religious at all. Of the rest, 43 percent list themselves as Christians. But religion in Nederlands bears no resemblance to what you see in countries like America today. The Dutch believe very strongly that religion has no place in politics, and take strong steps to ensure it stays out. This is one reason -and perhaps the primary reason - that freedom and liberal thought have maintained in Nederlands.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"The Composer wrote on Mon, 08 June 2020 00:08"Um ... which human rights did Thatcher stamp out?
I'm not making any argument for America - although if human rights is your issue, there are far far worse places.
--
My issue was police brutality, generally. But Section 28 removed substantial human rights from gay kids. Police brutality itself removes the right to peaceful assembly and protest.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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Has the right to peaceful assembly and protest been removed in the UK? It wasn't during the miners' strike.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"The Composer wrote on Mon, 08 June 2020 14:10"Has the right to peaceful assembly and protest been removed in the UK? It wasn't during the miners' strike.
--
There is a danger of this turning into a debate of minutiae, and distracting fomr the main issue, rather like throwing Colston's statue into Bristol Docks
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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This next observation risks going off on another tangent, still, it's something I keep thinking about. It is probably unique to the UK, but then racism has unique country properties. I don't see racism in America, Australia, and Britain as exactly the same.
Anyway, my observation: why are black people more prone to mistreatment and racism than Asian people whose origins come from India and Pakistan. There were waves of immigration into the UK, first black afro-caribbeans, then afro-asians of Indian descent as well as those direct from India and Pakistan. The black people have largely remained second class citizens working in poorly paid jobs, with a few exceptions especially in sport. Black people, rightly or wrongly are associated with crime and drugs. Asians on the contrary, second or third generation, have taken over a large part of the country, integrated, although that is another debate. Nevertheless, they are professionals, doctors, solicitors, and government ministers. They are not prone to mistreatment and racism. Both blacks and Asians have been subjected to British racism at its worst, but blacks stay down and Asians are running the country. How is there such a different result?
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Talo;
Terrific observation, and I don't claim to have the answer, but my hunch is that it goes way back in history where most empires were built on militarism and slavery. Slavery has been endemic in human history, and that has an economic consequence: free labor! It's much easier to build an empire if your labor is free!
What goes along with slavery is a need to re-categorize the person that is now a slave as "The Other" (in phenomenological terms). That way they can be denigrated and treated as less than human and we can feel good about it. I contend it's how most religions oppose and repress homosecuality, and you can find a new article on it in the "LGBTQ and Faith" section by clicking here.
Specific to your observation, how did blacks...which is to say black skinned humans mainly from Africa end up being treated differently from Asians? I think we now have to more to European colonialism and look at the source of most slaves (Africa) and then by extension what most of those slaves were (black skinned), and then the answer begins to come into focus. The European colonial empires didn't take too many Asian slaves, to my knowledge. Most were black (though there were plenty of indigenous slaves in South America under the Spanish and Portugese thumb), and in the USA, like much of the Britich empire, almost all were black. If we have knowledgable historians in the Forum, we need to hear from you!
An eye-opening treatment on the subject, that everyone who wants to understand racism should watch, is a nine minute video with Jane Elliott, a diversity trainer, who looks like a sweet white-lady grandmother! LOL!
It was taped during the last Presidential campaign, but is even more relevant today. Some take aways:
1. Racism is a learned response
2. Human beings are not naturally racist: one has to be taught to be a bigot
3. There is no "black race" or "brown race" or "white race," there is only the human race
4. White, black and brown races (with white at the top!) are artificial categories created to arbitrarily lower the status of The Others
That interview is on Youtube and can be viewed by clicking here.
Bensiamin
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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To give an extraordinarily broad generalisation, I think that a large number of the immigrants of Indian origin, particularly the refugees from Uganda, have valued education, and have been determined to see their children acquiring some form of professional status.Again, at the expense of a very broad generalisation, this is also being true of the Jewish immigration into America, where the children were pushed into being doctors, lawyers et cetera.Again, at the expense of very broad generalisation, this has not been true of people from the Afro Caribbean community.
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You also generally find a very strong family structure and adherence to societal rules that Asian Indian and Jews bring with them. These rules do present barriers to integration, but also preserve a kind of unity and being family based they don't present as a total negative. However, from the outside they do still set up big differences, like arranged marriages, separation of males and females, marriage within religion, basically separation. Afro-carabbeans by contrast have weak family structures and their religion is majority Christian imported by colonialist invaders. Africa was conquered and divided up, with millions displaced as slaves to the Americas. Although this was largely western Europe's responsibility, there were Arab slavers before Europeans. India by contrast was subdued by the British Empire, the dark skinned Asians became (almost valued) second class citizens. The country and empire could not have functioned without them. Plus very many of those second class Asian citizens, all who were in East Africa were given British passports, not the same with Afro-Carabbeans. When these Asians were expelled from Uganda and Tanzania by newly independent (racist) African countries, they could not be refused entry to the UK.
There are a lot of socio-economic and historic reasons that have left (learnt) racism where it is today and at the risk of inflaming American and Australian sentiments, one shouldn't forget the origins of these countries founded by the poorest underclasses, and criminals from Europe who were essentially second class Europeans and so exported their society view and applied it in those new countries, where the new underclass in America were the ex-Black slaves and in both America and Australia the indigenous people. Australia had a complete ban on black immigration taking only white people as immigrants to build the country.
Therefore, racism is historical, learnt, and it's form is governed by which race is in control. Whites in Asia, America, and Australia, but racism is not exclusively White. Japanese, Chinesse, and Black Africans have their own racism, as do Jews. Jews refer to non-Jews as goy, I'm no expert, but doubt it's complimentary. I guess you could say racism is viewed as Black and White, but it's a little more complex and whilst learnt, it's endemic across many societies and always has been, back into antiquity.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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Racism is natural, and comes from the time before civilisation (in the true sense of the word). It was essential to survive, and humans feared, thus fought, others different from themselves. People from the next settlement were feared. That fear led to conquest, of or by the next settlement.
That something is natural does not make it right.
As society has started to realise that humans are humans so the majority of people are learning (note the present continuing verb form) not to discriminate based upon race. Yet most people do not partner with those of other races. Perhaps that will come.
My upbringing was based upon received racism
It is a racial discrimination in evidence today, perpetrated both by and against those with that ethnic attribute. I share half the genes and none of the religion nor religiosity.
At my school 'yids' were persecuted. We also used the epithet 'spastic' for anyone first mal co-ordinated and second unlikeable in a trivial manner. We were elitist, snobby. That is all discrimination.
We have this man in government now. He is the epitome of the arrogant snob, unlikeable. Is it discrimination to say so? Does he display it with his obvious contempt for those he appears to see as inferior?
I have spent some time in Jamaica, enough to meet and talk to some ordinary Jamaicans. The people were obviously imported from the slave trade endemic in Africa, a trade still ongoing behind borders. They were very christian, and had a huge emphasis on family and on school learning, yet many of them live in abject poverty. I don't think we can generalise that people of African origin eschew education, nor that they are lazy. But in a white majority nation they are an easy people to see, and we remember the ones that do not meet 'white man's standards' more easily than those who do
When I was eight my nose was broken by an unpleasant lad who would not give me my tennis racquet back. He was the only black lad in school, and was the son of a Nigerian chief. He was not punished. His education continued and he became a barrister. He was de-frocked for fraud. Do I say he was a 'typical fucking Nigerian', or do I say he was an unpleasant man?
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[Updated on: Tue, 09 June 2020 09:50]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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'He was not punished.'
Why?
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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He was not punished through simple favouritism. He was the teachers' (plural) pet. I doubt that was to do with his race, but more to do with paternal wealth.
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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I heard they are pulling down all the statues of historical figures from a slave trader in Bristol to Sir Francis Drake in Plymouth. I can remember a similar debate about road names, a road in London called Black Boy Lane, which some folks thought derogatory for black people and wanted it changed. I think that's started up again as well. You could wipe out all heritage if you think about it. I would think Sir Francis Drake is honoured for defeating the Spanish Armada, but then others may not agree, demonstrators graffittied Sir Winston Churchill's statue in London. Black lives matter, but so does heritage, you can't re-write history, only learn from past mistakes.
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"Talo Segura wrote on Wed, 10 June 2020 10:34"I heard they are pulling down all the statues of historical figures from a slave trader in Bristol to Sir Francis Drake in Plymouth. I can remember a similar debate about road names, a road in London called Black Boy Lane, which some folks thought derogatory for black people and wanted it changed. I think that's started up again as well. You could wipe out all heritage if you think about it. I would think Sir Francis Drake is honoured for defeating the Spanish Armada, but then others may not agree, demonstrators graffittied Sir Winston Churchill's statue in London. Black lives matter, but so does heritage, you can't re-write history, only learn from past mistakes.
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They've also started another round of pulling down statues of Condederate Cival War General Robert E. Lee, here in the states, as well as pulling down Confederate flags and renaming streets, roads, and boulevards. The US military is taking various steps, depending on the branch of service in question to eliminate such also. The Right Wing folk are yelling that history is being destroyed. The left is yelling back that it's time to quit glorifying evil and bigotry. No one is listening to anyone else except those with whom they agree. It's a massive clusterfuck.
“There's no grays, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.” - Terry Pratchett
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13772
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"Talo Segura wrote on Wed, 10 June 2020 18:34"I heard they are pulling down all the statues of historical figures from a slave trader in Bristol to Sir Francis Drake in Plymouth. I can remember a similar debate about road names, a road in London called Black Boy Lane, which some folks thought derogatory for black people and wanted it changed. I think that's started up again as well. You could wipe out all heritage if you think about it. I would think Sir Francis Drake is honoured for defeating the Spanish Armada, but then others may not agree, demonstrators graffittied Sir Winston Churchill's statue in London. Black lives matter, but so does heritage, you can't re-write history, only learn from past mistakes.
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In Hungary they had a better idea, and migrated their politically undesirable statues to Memento Park. I visited it, I think in 2007. It was impressive and told a story. It was also pretty inaccessibe, at the end of a tram line, and then a bus to 'nowhere at all' in the countryside. To me this is a far more desirable route than simply tearing them down and disposing of them. The history of how we got here is important, perhaps especially the unpalatable elements.
With luck we will grow up.
The statues removed are destined for museums here where they will be interpreted
[Updated on: Wed, 10 June 2020 19:35]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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And, today the Lincoln Project (formerly the Never Trumpers) released an ad labeling all the leaders of the Confederacy what they were called at the time: guilty of Treason. And then, but implication because he's done such a good job of associating himself with Confederate imagery and so many Trump supporters are Confederate flag fans, Trump gets kind of labeled as guilty of treason too!
Steve Schmidt's intro line was: "Donald Trump, the second Confederate President has embraced the flag of treason. America or Trump."
It's going to be a wild five months from now till the election!
Bensiamin
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The Composer
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Toe is in the water |
Registered: September 2018
Messages: 87
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"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past."
― George Orwell, 1984
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