I am not trying to be controversial, but...........

to be honest, I didn't know anything about Colston and what he did, I do now , having thought that I ought to find out more, and think that it is dreadful that a statue of him was put up, and so recently too. The bad he did seems to have been forgotten and only the good he did remembered, but I read he was only philanthropic to those who shared his religious and political beliefs, and only started being charitable towards the end of his life as he had no heirs. No one in his lifetime or shortly afterwards put up a statue to him, that just shows how important it is to remember history, I read he didn't even live in Bristol most of his adult life
He may have been a public benefactor to some people in Bristol who agreed with his beliefs but he was a malefactor to so many Africans and so I read here, to the sailors who were on the ships.
There should be no veneration to someone whose life was devoted to accruing a fortune at the expense of so much suffering
Removing a statue is not such a rare thing. How many of those defending keeping the statue where it was because he did a lot for charity criticised the removal of Jimmy savile's statue www.thenational.scot/news/16033718.glasgows-wooden-jimmy-savile-statue-has-been-destroyed/
If you could look into the future and saw that in nearly 200 years time someone decided that well he did a lot to charity look how much he raised for hospitals, so let's put up a statue commemorating him and name a hospital ward after him, what would you think of the people who did that and would you support those who campaigned to have it taken down because of all the harm he did and when not listened to pulled it down?
It is not removing Jimmmy savile from history, it is not glorifying someone who did so much harm to so many people . Same with Colston

Not wriggling just posting a fact about a newspaper founder, as you are aware newspaper owners are not the most scrupulous humans whatever their political persuasion.

See oodles like me knew nothing about him and the action by Black lives Matter has brought this Tory MP into stark relief.

Spoken like a true blue colonial sparklingwhotsit

Flog the b*****s! Give them a taste of life in the army. Show them who’s in charge. Keep the underclasses in their place. Bring back gollywogs.

Did anyone see the interview with Shaun Wallace from the Chase?

He talked about the times he’s been manhandled by the police. Once he was escorted off a train for no good reason and several times stopped and searched outside the Old Bailey and other courts.

He describes how he was leaving the OB one day and two officers asked him what he was doing there (black so obviously there on a charge) and searched his bag....which contained his wig and gown!

And a black bishop was taking about the times (plural) he was flagged down in his car (big car, black man therefore drug dealer) and searched.

Says it all.

I have just read of what I think is the first change of name on a building. The University of Liverpool have agreed to rename a building as a result of William Gladstone’s links to slavery. It appears that students have been lobbying for this previously.

There is something I have been curious about for a long time. After the slaves were set free, why did they stay in America? Surely there was nothing to prevent them returning to Africa. They had kept their culture alive, so obviously still felt that connection to their homeland.

Dinahmo wrote
In some way or other the majority of us will have benefited from the proceeds of slavery.

I wonder how many this is really true of ? My family history research tells me that only one of my thirty-two ancestors alive in 1833 ( the year of abolition) could write. The rest were agricultural labourers with the poverty and deprivation that went with it.

You have to be joking, Ladymuck? Some reasons are that slaves were separated from others of the same tribe or who spoke the same African language, in order to prevent them from being able to communicate with each other and possibly foment unrest and then to force them into speaking the English language.

Another is that they had no money. How would they be able to afford to return to their areas of origin, if they even knew which area that was, given that their own history was erased?

There was a movement to move freed slaves to Africa, hence Freetown in Sierra Leone and Liberia but it wasn’t much of a success.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back-to-Africa_movement

Lexisgranny - we have pub in one of the villages near Conwy named after Gladstone and another in Caernarfon called The Black Boy so they’ll be targets no doubt.

If Gone with the Wind has gone because it depicts slavery has 12 Years a Slave gone too? Roots? Are some considered more worthy than others?

Slavery is a fact so why should films from a bygone age, which show slavery, and the civil war which subsequently freed them, be banned? It’s getting rudiculous.

It seems to me Granny13 that you threw together three groups you have taken a dislike to on the basis of rumour and declared them to be working like the Ministry of Truth. Perhaps we can agree that they are not and could not be doing that.

My reason for saying they cannot be compared is because they are not a government and do not have a governments powers. My reason for saying they are not because the Ministry of Truth was formed to put out lies to change our view of history. Even if there is truth in the BLM protests we’re probably infiltrated by far left activists and Antifa, what has that to do with the Orwell quote?

I think the issue is that you compared apples and pears and lost the point you were trying to make. If there is a cogent reason why they should be compared I am happy to discuss it otherwise I have got my head round this now and will let it be.

If Gone with the Wind has gone because it depicts slavery has 12 Years a Slave gone too? Roots? Are some considered more worthy than others?

I imagine one that is much closer to the truth is considered a more worthy film than one which portrays slaves content with their lot and happy to be slaves, ^tickingbird*.

Do you think you would be content to be a slave even with a good master. Would you be happy to be seen as the chattel of someone else, listed in their book-keeping along with the other things they owned such as cows. Would you be content to be whipped or raped whenever it took you owners fancy? The very portrayal of slavery in Gone with the wind, perpetuates the idea that it was okay. Personally, I don't think slavery ever was, but to each his own opinion I suppose.

Pantglas, we too have a local pub called The Black Boy. I've always understood the name refers to King Charles II who was saturnine in complexion and therefore known colloquially as The Black Boy.

Pantglas2 - The Warden of Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, Flintshire, has said that the institution “would not stand in the way if it is the democratic will that Gladstone’s statue be removed.” It is currently on the recent list of 60 targeted by “Topple the racists”. Ten miles away in Wrexham, the Wetherstone chain has agreed to consider changing the name of its pub The Elihu Yale. Yale who gave his name to the famous American College is buried in Wrexham.

Was being press ganged a form of slavery?
Those that were pressed didn’t have much choice did they.

How are they going to get Nelson down.?

Gumteenth Slavery is wrong - it continues to this day you know, especially in Africa. Banning GWTW is, quite frankly, virtue signalling by Netflix. Utter nonsense.

Drake, Nelson and Wellington are on the hit list now. It’ll be Queen Victoria next.

Queen Victoria's statue in Leeds has already been attacked. Next they will be coming for royalists and patriots.

My DM told me shortly before she died that my GGF, her GF had owned seven slaves. Not any particular slaves. He saved money with a bank which invested in slaves. No idea which bank, but I expect they all did it. He invested his savings and got a return from the income made from seven slaves. Goodness knows how many slaves the banks ‘owned’. They were just a commodity. This would have been in the mid 1800s.

They will probably be coming for you too then NfkDumpling. One they have checked birth and death records etc. and made the connection of course.

ladymuck wonders why freed slaves didn't catch the first boat back home ?????????

I agree, Griselda, the lot of "Ag Labs" (Agricultural Labourers) in England in the 18th and early 19th century was little better than slavery, long hours of hard labour in the fields, living in tied cottages, often badly maintained, with no security if they fell ill, and only the poor house to fall back on when they were old and infirm.

My daughter had to go to her 20 week scan on her own today, and was upset about it, but understood. She understood that lives matter....and it’s the same line of thought in the hospital. Dominic Cummings actions showed that no lives matter. George Floyd had no concern for any life, when he was an armed robber and drug dealer. It was good however...to read he became a Christian in prison about 10 years ago, and has worked in ministry since. No lives matter to all these protesters, who have blatantly disregarded all the lockdown rules, and many of them are supposedly more at risk. So at the moment, all I can see is...NLM, no lives matter. I completely understand the cause, but it could have waited until we are over this virus. I’m not convinced they’re all for the cause, they’re in it for the hype, and fear it could start something even bigger if people like the National front get involved.

Incidentally, some of my ancestors were "migrants" leaving the countryside to try to find a better life in the slums of industrial Birmingham.