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

ladymuck- what a ridiculous and indeed offensive comment you make in asking why slaves didn't return to African when freed because they kept their culture alive. It's clearly a waste of time even attempting to outline why that is so very wrong.

tickingbird - Netflix hasn't banned GWTW, its stopped listing it currently because the way in which the black characters are portrayed perpetuates negative stereotypes of black people. I've no doubt that film will be reinstated, possibly with some references to the stereotypes and the fact that the black actor who won an Oscar, the first Oscar any black actor won, wasn't allowed to sit with the rest of the cast at the ceremony. She sat separately because she was black. I read she said she'd rather play a maid in a film and be paid decently, and work as a maid for little reward.

Blatantly racist posts throughout this thread. Wonder what would happen if it was made public? Can you imagine the headlines?

,???

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.?

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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