Protests following the killing of George Floyd

Mr Pigeon said:
I can't really think of an end goal tbh. By all means the force can deal with it but I'm just questioning how it looks to the public. I was admittedly snarky before because personally my trust in the police is low as hell (no point going into it because it's boring but suffice to say it was one incident in many that just confirmed/instilled what I think about our local officers) and for a lot of people I know it's the same - even some of my family (who are sizeable police and military funnily enough). I guess it depends on individual experiences but when you've got an atmosphere that's fuelling distrust in the police, and the way the service goes about their business, to say that it'll be investigated internally is a little on the nose for me.
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The problem at the moment is again it isn't a straight forward one to judge. Some people will look at it and see racism, others will look at it and see the police doing their job. Others will look at it and feel they need more context to know where it falls between these two things.

I do think the police make a rod for their own back to an extent because if they don't provide clarification as to when and why they use force or act in self preservation, they open themselves up to be accused of being excessive or targetting groups of people...and they also allow less accountability if one of them does want to abuse their position. I don't really think a statement saying "we're satisfied procedures were followed" or "it's being investigated" cuts it. It's not actually telling anyone anything about what the procedures or guidelines are. The procedure could be "tazer them if they're black" for all we know.

I don't think posting videos to try and incite hatred or mistrust in the police is helpful and nor are some of the angry and confrontational attitudes that are going with it, but at the same time it would help if there was an acknowledgement from the police that these emotions and attitudes don't just spring up in thousands of law abiding people for no reason. They are literally enforcing laws and protecting themselves/others so if they are doing it consistently and fairly it should actually be quite easy to communicate the guidelines as to how, rather than just close ranks


I'm also quite concerned about tomorrow as the extreme right wing loons have inevitably appeared from the woodwork, we've had a week of many people inciting emotions rather than trying to calm them and there'll be a lot of people just out to look for trouble in London. Hopefully it wont go beyond a few yobs throwing stuff but we know the media and Boris will jump on any trouble that crops up and make that the story.
 
Irwin99 said:
Are the comments in the rest of Europe regarding this issue more positive on social media or are they full of 'keep politics out of football/gaming etc'?
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I think sports can be a good platform to make political/social /moral statements. But someone who feels 'keep that out of ...'. aren't being 'negative' purely because they have a different view to yours. If they're hateful and discriminatory then sure, that's a real problem. Everyone being 100 per cent in agreement with every single part of your cause, isn't.
 
I bet a good amount of those people complaining about mixing football and politics are the same people outraged when a player chooses not to wear a poppy during a match.
 
VeevaVee said:
Read the comments on here (or any similar post) if you want to remind yourself why you despise half this country

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Surely no one is actually surprised by this.

fergosaurus said:
I bet a good amount of those people complaining about mixing football and politics are the same people outraged when a player chooses not to wear a poppy during a match.
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Game.Set.&.Match.
 
noodlehair said:
They're inanimate historical objects. They don't deserve or not deserve anything.

No one knew half these statues existed a week ago and now, and now everyone's getting so angry about them as if they are some grand source of power. You have one set of people literally acting as body guards for a statue while another set of people want to throw it in the ocean. It's a lump of metal by the sea. Birds crap on it every day.
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These monuments of slavers were shown outside to commemorate them, while inanimate objects for purely historical purposes are usually found in museums. Regardless, if his contribution to history was large enough, he would already be in a history book or a museum. It has nothing to do with power. It's about respect, baseline level at that.
 
MackRobinson said:
These monuments of slavers were shown outside to commemorate them, while inanimate objects for purely historical purposes are usually found in museums. Regardless, if his contribution to history was large enough, he would already be in a history book or a museum. It has nothing to do with power. It's about respect, baseline level at that.
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If there's a person who brought society mostly harm then they have no business having statues. However, it's an interesting one. Much of the UK's colonial leadership built their empire on pillaging, butchering and discriminating against their colonies. Would the UK remove all their statues if there are any about ? Genuinely curious. Because I agree that when it's an obviously terrible person, it makes sense but what about those cases where the individual was exceptionally good in many ways but also damaging in others.
 
e.cantona said:
They make some good points they do

but it's quite funny watching conservative intellectuals not sure what thats got to do with anything, but, they are? Maybe Loury, but the other guy, really?

make sweeping generalizations and red herrings. They did?

Weird that guys like these sound like Candance Owens. Guess you didn't listen to them..
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"The cops don't just pull you out of your car man"
We literally have countless video evidence of cops murder non-threatening citizens for no crime. That's a sweeping generalization.

I watched from the point your link started to the end.
 
I’m just wondering what the modern day reaction would be from contrarian types to the McPhearson report which found the Met Police institutionally racist (and reaction if there was a similar finding of the police in the states)

Ive read the defence of police tactics with an open mind, I truly have tried and read op eds of things interpreted as police tactics but defended by others and honestly some of the mental gymnastics performed to defend some of the stuff these guys do is some Milgram experiment level obedience to authority. And I think its been a barrier to reform because we cant agree on what counts as police brutality, excess force.
 
I read that Trump undid a anti discriminatory health care move Obama made? That's why who your leader is does matter.
 
amolbhatia50k said:
If there's a person who brought society mostly harm then they have no business having statues. However, it's an interesting one. Much of the UK's colonial leadership built their empire on pillaging, butchering and discriminating against their colonies. Would the UK remove all their statues if there are any about ? Genuinely curious. Because I agree that when it's an obviously terrible person, it makes sense but what about those cases where the individual was exceptionally good in many ways but also damaging in others.
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Would you advocate for the removal of the vast majority of Roman and Greek antiquity monuments, statues, arches, forums and temples, all which fall directly in the content of your very definition? Or do we make concessions based on modernity? Only modern statues, etc, of this definition ought to be removed. If only modern, why?
 
Hoof The Ball said:
Would you advocate for the removal of the vast majority of Roman and Greek antiquity monuments, statues, arches, forums and temples, all which fall directly in the content of your very definition? Or do we make concessions based on modernity? Only modern statues, etc, of this definition ought to be removed. If only modern, why?
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Something being a priceless historical artifact should surely be the main criterion? By which I mean that the piece itself (not what it commemorates) is of historic significance.

There will always be grey areas, but I guess those a-dime-a-dozen copper statues of politicians are utterly expendable, as a matter of principle. What happens now is essentially about struggles over political culture, not these monuments as monuments. The statues are just symbols of that, which is why they provoke such strong reactions on all sides.
 
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If we had as many statues around as the Romans and Greeks made, I guarantee you we would bin most of them. The only reason they are valuable today is that they represent a past which we don't know a lot about, and they are one of the ways we can know more. Unless we have some sort of apocalypse which ruins record keeping completely, the more modern statues (from the 20th century and newer) won't mean shit for the future understanding of history.

You can keep a few around, but a statue isn't inherently valuable just because someone makes it.
 
Statue Defenders trending on twitter. It's like a title for a 1980's kids cartoon.
 
Not a big fan of statues. They are specifically kept in place over the generations to commemorate some part of the past, which can obviously be problematic for many in the present. That said, destroying them may not always be the proper thing to do. Best to move them into a museum (or similar location) where they can be properly contextualized into a historical debate about whoever the statue is about. The Genghis Kahn statute in the other thread would obviously be a bit too big to move.
 
Camilo said:
Who has been trying? If enough people actually wanted rid it would've gone. The people didn't want it gone.

The "us and them" thing really is pathetic.
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Wasn't it true that most people didnt want the Colston statue in the first place, it didn't get support to be erected and so it was privately funded?
 
Raoul said:
Not a big fan of statues. They are specifically kept in place over the generations to commemorate some part of the past, which can obviously be problematic for many in the present. That said, destroying them may not always be the proper thing to do. Best to move them into a museum (or similar location) where they can be properly contextualized into a historical debate about whoever the statue is about. The Genghis Kahn statute in the other thread would obviously be a bit too big to move.
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Not necessarily. They could build a big-ass museum that would most likely be named after Genghis Kahn.
 
Camilo said:
Who has been trying? If enough people actually wanted rid it would've gone. The people didn't want it gone.

The "us and them" thing really is pathetic.
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I read somewhere that it was protected by English Heritage, so it wasn’t as simple as just getting rid.
 
Raoul said:
Not a big fan of statues. They are specifically kept in place over the generations to commemorate some part of the past, which can obviously be problematic for many in the present. That said, destroying them may not always be the proper thing to do. Best to move them into a museum (or similar location) where they can be properly contextualized into a historical debate about whoever the statue is about. The Genghis Kahn statute in the other thread would obviously be a bit too big to move.
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I definitely agree with this in principle, but if we're going to place all problematic statues in museums, there won't be room for anything else. I suspect we'll run into the same problem as libraries do with books. Nobody destroys as many books as libraries do, simply because people donate so many that they can't keep and maintain them all. We'd probably have to decide on a few to represent the issue.
 
Hoof The Ball said:
Would you advocate for the removal of the vast majority of Roman and Greek antiquity monuments, statues, arches, forums and temples, all which fall directly in the content of your very definition? Or do we make concessions based on modernity? Only modern statues, etc, of this definition ought to be removed. If only modern, why?
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Did the Roman and Greek figures only bring only harm? Regardless, I'm wary of removal if it's based on cherry picking of traits. There can be highly influential/great achievers throughout history who may fail on some levels on the moral compass.
 
Cassidy said:
Wasn't it true that most people didnt want the Colston statue in the first place, it didn't get support to be erected and so it was privately funded?
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I don't know... I don't even really care. They're fecking statues, nobody cares.

There's very little forward thinking going on, and a lot of looking backwards. Protesting like this is the UK is only furthering the divide. You can't protest against this, it just needs to be educated out, (which it clearly is judging by recent developments) . The Americans are protesting something physical, we're angry about people in the past not living to our modern standards, which is.....a bit insane?!

Nothing against getting out there and being heard, but vandalism and violence against nobody in particular is stupid. It's becoming a movement of sorts, but there's no focal point here other than "racism is bad", which of course it is. We just need to keep doing our individual parts, keep educating in our day to day and in school.
 
nimic said:
I definitely agree with this in principle, but if we're going to place all problematic statues in museums, there won't be room for anything else. I suspect we'll run into the same problem as libraries do with books. Nobody destroys as many books as libraries do, simply because people donate so many that they can't keep and maintain them all. We'd probably have to decide on a few to represent the issue.
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I totally get why people are bothered with statues but I also don't think that removing them change much. The genuine activist should organize educating campaigns where they expose these historical figures, for example they could have the "Churchill was a vile racist day", "Napoleon stunk and was therefore sent to an island far away day" or "Leopold II was one of the worst human being ever day".

But on a serious note most ancient figures were racist, xenophobic and/or misogynistic. The only thing that we should defintely do is make sure that everyone knows and understand that their moral values aren't accepted today. The rest is for show there is always a good argument to keep or remove a statue or a street name.
 
MackRobinson said:
These monuments of slavers were shown outside to commemorate them, while inanimate objects for purely historical purposes are usually found in museums. Regardless, if his contribution to history was large enough, he would already be in a history book or a museum. It has nothing to do with power. It's about respect, baseline level at that.
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If it was about respect then it would be white people removing or changing monuments because they recognise that they are an afront to black people and so are also an afront to them. It wouldn't be angry mobs scribbling "was a racist" on Winston Churchill or vandalising street signs that are part of people's homes/community, and that in some cases actually have no link to slavery at all, or people standing around literally guarding a statue for some reason. My mind boggles as to how anyone thinks these kinds of actions will bring about anything positive. It'll bring about Boris and the authorities rallying people against it.
 
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Camilo said:
I don't know... I don't even really care. They're fecking statues, nobody cares.

There's very little forward thinking going on, and a lot of looking backwards. Protesting like this is the UK is only furthering the divide. You can't protest against this, it just needs to be educated out, (which it clearly is judging by recent developments) . The Americans are protesting something physical, we're angry about people in the past not living to our modern standards, which is.....a bit insane?!

Nothing against getting out there and being heard, but vandalism and violence against nobody in particular is stupid. It's becoming a movement of sorts, but there's no focal point here other than "racism is bad", which of course it is. We just need to keep doing our individual parts, keep educating in our day to day and in school.
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So you don't know yet you are stating things which are not true. And clearly people care even if you don't. Probably best you don't speak for others especially on topics you know little about.

What can't you protest about and how are people going to know they need education when there is no one raising awareness through protest?

Name a successful protest which brought about change that didn't include some vandalism/violence?

How are we going to educate in school without the protests raising awareness and applying political pressure regarding the lack of racial history in the curriculum?
 
Knew it wouldn't be long before the gammon came out to play.
 
Withnail said:
Defending Churchill's statue while throwing at Nazi salutes... Jesus wept :lol:

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I'm not sure they are nazi salutes watching videos from other angles. Not that it would be surprising mind... They seem to be your standard moronic England fans looking for a fight.
 
Cassidy said:
Wasn't it true that most people didnt want the Colston statue in the first place, it didn't get support to be erected and so it was privately funded?
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The advocate got 85% of the funding from the public but only after several appeals so had to pay the remainder himself. Safe to say it wasn’t an issue deemed to be of significant importance by Bristolians at the time.
 
Sied said:
I'm not sure they are nazi salutes watching videos from other angles. Not that it would be surprising mind... They seem to be your standard moronic England fans looking for a fight.
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Yeah they pretty much immediately started having a go at the police.

Do you have a link to the other angle put of interest?
 
Cassidy said:
So you don't know yet you are stating things which are not true. And clearly people care even if you don't. Probably best you don't speak for others especially on topics you know little about.

What can't you protest about and how are people going to know they need education when there is no one raising awareness through protest?

Name a successful protest which brought about change that didn't include some vandalism/violence?

How are we going to educate in school without the protests raising awareness and applying political pressure regarding the lack of racial history in the curriculum?
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Come on, nobody here is the last word in facts. We're all just having a discussion. Park the "you make statements" bullshit.

There is plenty of education and awareness - things that were OK just 15 - 20 years ago when I left school are now absolutely not OK. The progress is fast. The changes are happening. We're all changing every day. (Mostly) younger people haven't had a moment to see the changes happening, because they haven't lived long enough to see it. I doubtless wasn't aware at the time of the changes that took place from the mid 80s until the early 2000s when I was growing up. The things my kids and nephews talk about nowadays are nothing like what I talked about. It's a different world.

There is no pressure to apply. People know. We're taught it, we see it, it's night and day to how it was when I was in school.

Being angry about the world doesn't mean you start vandalising some old statues though. It's pathetic.
 
Most of these people are drunk. The man being interviewed by the sky reporter does not seem to know why he is there again.
 
Honest question from someone not from the UK. What exactly are they doing here? I understood the police are trying to protect the statue that they also want to protect, so they attack the police to protect the statue themselves or what?

 
Withnail said:
Defending Churchill's statue while throwing at Nazi salutes... Jesus wept :lol:

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Love it! I bet none of them even get the irony. Yet the media and government will try and have us all believe it's the left that are disrespecting our history.
 
Camilo said:
Come on, nobody here is the last word in facts. We're all just having a discussion. Park the "you make statements" bullshit.

There is plenty of education and awareness - things that were OK just 15 - 20 years ago when I left school are now absolutely not OK. The progress is fast. The changes are happening. We're all changing every day. (Mostly) younger people haven't had a moment to see the changes happening, because they haven't lived long enough to see it. I doubtless wasn't aware at the time of the changes that took place from the mid 80s until the early 2000s when I was growing up. The things my kids and nephews talk about nowadays are nothing like what I talked about. It's a different world.

There is no pressure to apply. People know. We're taught it, we see it, it's night and day to how it was when I was in school.

Being angry about the world doesn't mean you start vandalising some old statues though. It's pathetic.
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Its not a fight I just find it odd you can say no one cares about a topic you don't even know about and yet people obviously care because its a global discussion....

Speed of progress is a matter of perspective yes its not the same as 20 years ago but that doesn't mean there are not plenty of things which still need tackling

Also there is plenty of pressure to apply and we are not taught it at all in school. I think it is best if you educate yourself on the topic.

Was it also pathetic when the Berlin wall was vandalised?
 
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