George Floyd Protests in Hyde Park

Anniebach

The Scout promise never including ‘serving the Queen’
growstuff you were a child in 1964 ? Gosh I am aged , I met
some of the stars and people involved in the making of Zulu,
and was invited to the premier in Cardiff. My office was
opposite to the 24th regiment’s museum at the time.

The Brownie Promise here does include "to serve the Queen" and my community

They dropped the reference to God in this country.

However the Promise varies from country to country, some still include God.

Australia has a lot to answer for as slave trade goes.

Grannyshome, that's too easy a solution. This way it's programmed to rumble on.

paddyanne I agree, we need to teach future generations.
If Colston's statue is put into a museum with all the historical facts available that would be the best thing to do. Should we change the names of streets and buildings or remember how these buildings were funded?

Our towns and cities flourished as a result of slavery - but we must not forget, either that this was a time when small British children were exploited too. They were sent down the mines, worked in the cotton mills in extremely dangerous conditions.

Some of them may have been our ancestors.

Well said Grannyshome

Grannyshome of course those things are worth fighting for, but they are all illegal, so not actually accepted by society. These demonstrations are against the discrimination still found in what is supposedly a free and democratic country, the connections between that discrimination and the historical events which caused suffering for black people and the memorials to those events which still stand.

I'm a later comer to this debate so please forgive me if I'm repeating something that's already been said.

My understanding is that the death of George Floyd is a racial issue which has now turned into an enslavement issue. Throughout history there have been racial inequality and slaves of all races. There STILL are today.
Pearldrop50 said;
"Surely our best course of action is to look at what we know, learn from mistakes and make the present a better place."
I couldn't agree more. Surely the time, energy and money used in protesting history and reassessing public monuments would be better spent on fighting 21st century slavery, European sex-slave traffickers, genocide of the Rohingya and the Indian caste system to name just a few of the common place inequalities in the modern world .
But hey ho, perhaps such "crusades" aren't "sexy" or won't sell newspapers.

Yes, I was a child in 1964. I don't understand your comment.

I remember watching the film and thinking it was ghastly.

Interesting trisher thank you, I thought it had been disbanded ( no reason why, just hadn’t heard of it for so many years.)

How about disbanding that odious group of " White Supremacists ?" Any offers of protesting against this bunch of idiots ?

The Scout promise never including ‘serving the Queen’
growstuff you were a child in 1964 ? Gosh I am aged , I met
some of the stars and people involved in the making of Zulu,
and was invited to the premier in Cardiff. My office was
opposite to the 24th regiment’s museum at the time.

History changed to suit whoever was in power ,IS in power.Like the weapons of mass destruction in Blairs time .

To LEARN from past mistakes you need to know what those mistakes were .

There appear to be generations who had no idea that the men on the plinths did evil things ,surely it was our job to teach them?
Slavery and all it entailed shouldn't beswept under the carpet any more than Hitlers Nazi regime should .
We should learn from it though,sadly the world doesn't seem to have learned much and horrors happen every day
It was said on Th eJeremy Vine show this morning that when the full story about Jimmy Saville came to light Glasgow immediately removed a statue of him,its such a shame they didn't take all the other evil men on plinths down at the same time

lemongrove Woodcraft was about far more than that. And before WW2 they warned about the Nazis, because they had links with International Socialism. They asked the British government to take in the children of socialist leaders from Germany because they knew the parents would be targeted. Guess what? the government refused. So individual Woodcraft families just took the children into their homes. Most of their parents were killed.
It survives as a cooperative movement where children are taught the value of cooperation and encouraged to speak out.

Peardrop That's the very nature of history. It never should have been about dates and "greats", which is how history used to be taught. That's why I find it fascinating. The way interpretations change is in itself fascinating.

Best place for him Callistemon. Maybe the people of Bristol could be asked what they'd like to replace him. Maybe a memorial to slaves.

History recorded by various people with differing views and interpretations. History then re-written by others with diverse views. Re-written again and again as demonstrated on this thread with a bias according to personal politics. None of us can know the absolute truth.
Surely our best course of action is to look at what we know, learn from mistakes and make the present a better place.
We live in the present, our children and grandchildren live in the present, it must be improved so that the future can only write good about us.
Let's not get angry with each other, let's agree to disagree and move forward together, all colours and creeds to stamp out prejudice, hatred and injustice.
Gransnet could go down in history as the start of the movement where all the oldies banded together to promote equality, love and justice.

Guilty as charged Iam64. The discovery of child abuse confirmed my existing negative feelings about the Scouts.

I was a Brownie, who then joined the Girl Guides at my parents' insistence. I lasted about a month in the Girl Guides before I rebelled and refused to go. I refused to take the promise. Even as an 11 year old, I realised I didn't believe in it.

I understand the wording has changed now, but at the time it was about loving God and serving the Queen, neither of which I had any intention of doing. With hindsight, it was something better suited to the nineteenth century.

I knew a bit about the Boer War and Baden Powell's involvement and that spooked me too. I'm not too sure how I was aware of colonialism as a child (maybe from watching "Zulu"), but I remember thinking how terrible it was.

I think all children on Merseyside probably learnt about the slave trade at primary school.

Ok but the family ordered their own autopsy as they weren’t satisfied with the original one.

I think chauvin is charged with second degree murder, which has been changed from manslaughter.

Don’t forget there were two conflicting autopsy reports with the first one stating that there was no evidence of asphyxiation,

Well you've got that wrong, JenniferEccles,

* The county ruled the cause to be “cardiopulmonary arrest complicating law enforcement subdual, restraint, and neck compression.”*

Yes, heart disease and drugs were also mentioned. Asphyxia wasn't mentioned at all.

But in reality both autopsies more or less said the same thing

fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-two-autopsies-of-george-floyd-arent-as-different-as-they-seem/

It's not fair to say he was murdered, because the perpetrators haven't been found guilty, it's fair enough to say.

I wish people wouldn’t keep saying Floyd was murdered.
That’s up to the courts to decide isn’t it ?
For a murder conviction to stand, INTENT has to be proved and as nobody knows what was going through the officer’s mind, it would surely have to start with a manslaughter charge.

Don’t forget there were two conflicting autopsy reports with the first one stating that there was no evidence of asphyxiation, just mentioning a heart condition and the fact that he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol.

Callistemon watery grave..haha.

It was a pacifist organisation for children and popular ( with some) after WW1. It was set up to provide a gentler sort of pastime than the Scouts.Is it still going?

Colston has been retrieved from his watery grave.

He is to be put in a museum.