Slave Trader Edward Colston's statue torn down in Bristol

Gregor Samsa

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Nice of Banksy to offer to cover this out of his own pocket, or is he suggesting the taxpayer fund a bronze monument to vandals?

It's just a sketch of an idea at the moment, I don't think the details have been worked out yet.

Would you be on board with it if he was paying? I take it you wouldn't be if taxpayer's money was - although there's already budget for public art, so it wouldn't necessarily impact other expenditure.

robinph

Gradius wrote: »

Is that your only point of attack, or can you explain the hypocrisy of anything else I've clearly laid out? I presume you can't.

However, to nuke your piddling point, would said person be more interested in using the power of his position, gained via the very country he is so rapid to criticise, to quell the ACTUAL slavery of other countries?

Why not? Why is he more interested in criticising centuries past problems when he could use his position to do something actively good right now?

Or do these people, demonstrably by the focus of their "concerns", actually not give a rats arse?

As said above, the answer is self evident.

He's the mayor of London, not the PM or foreign secretary. Whilst he probably has an opinion on other world wide issues and will occasionally make statements about them, he's not in a position to be setting up international commissions into those things.

He is in a position to do things within London though, so that's what he's setting up.

lawrencesummers

Gradius wrote: »

"People don't eat rocks, otherwise you could show me"

"yes they do"

Well that's me convinced

I’m fairly confident that I can say without fear of contradiction that less people consume rocks than care about slavery.

na1

robinph wrote: »

He was born in London, or is that not British enough because of the colour of his skin?

ancapailldorcha

na1 wrote: »

That old racist trope. How about if a white horse and a non-white horse are in a stable then they're both horses?

Gradius

robinph wrote: »

He's the mayor of London, not the PM or foreign secretary. Whilst he probably has an opinion on other world wide issues and will occasionally make statements about them, he's not in a position to be setting up international commissions into those things.

He is in a position to do things within London though, so that's what he's setting up.

Sure the poor blokes hands are tied.

Gradius

lawrencesummers wrote: »

I’m fairly confident that I can say without fear of contradiction that less people consume rocks than care about slavery.

Yes, very good.

robinph

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

It's just a sketch of an idea at the moment, I don't think the details have been worked out yet.

Would you be on board with it if he was paying? I take it you wouldn't be if taxpayer's money was - although there's already budget for public art, so it wouldn't necessiarly impact other expediture.

Nah, would be a stupid thing to have in that location whoever was paying for it.

Best place for the statue is in the M Shed museum, and now that it's got a tin of paint dropped over it there is a far more powerful story to be told as it will grab peoples attention far more than an otherwise boring bronze statue with a plaque on it ever would.

Some other more appropriate statue can be installed on the plinth now, or I actually prefer the idea of it being left empty and a series of different things put on it like with the 4th plinth in Trafalgar Square. Some other installation about the history can also be stuck up in the area now explaining the history of Colston and the slave trade to Bristol.

Banksy has more than enough things around Bristol, he doesn't need anymore. He's probably the only person who has more artworks by him around the city than Colston has building, streets and organisation named after him.

Christy42

na1 wrote: »

You see a fish is a species. Saying you are German refers to your birth place. German is not a species. So Hassan is German and the hamster is not a fish but may or may not be German depending on the location of the aquarium.

Is that all clear?

Clarence Boddiker

Bannasidhe wrote: »

Who is asking anyone here, or generally, to feel guilty?

Quite a lot of people actually, or perhaps you've been living under a rock the past few weeks.

na1

ancapailldorcha wrote: »

That old racist trope. How about if a white horse and a non-white horse are in a stable then they're both horses?

Do you know the definition of racism?

na1

Christy42 wrote: »

Saying you are German refers to your birth place.?

Since when?

Gregor Samsa

na1 wrote: »

Since when?

The details of German citizenship eligibility are all here:

https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/einreiseundaufenthalt/staatsangehoerigkeitsrecht-node

Gradius

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

The details of German citizenship eligibility are all here:

https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/einreiseundaufenthalt/staatsangehoerigkeitsrecht-node

An elephant was born in Dublin zoo not so long ago. I wonder will the information display "native Irish elephant"?

If an Indian elephant is born in Africa...?! They are both the same type of animal, but obviously different, the main difference being the size of ears.

Why is a human different when there are very clear differences between them?

Just tongue in cheek stuff

Gregor Samsa

Gradius wrote: »

An elephant was born in Dublin zoo not so long ago. I wonder will the information display "native Irish elephant"?

If an Indian elephant is born in Africa...?! They are both the same type of animal, but obviously different, the main difference being the size of ears.

Why is a human different when there are very clear differences between them?

Just tongue in cheek stuff

I'm not aware of any country where citizenship applies to animals. I know what you're saying is tongue in cheek stuff, but it just isn't relevant to any kind of actual discussion on the matter. It's like saying "so can a parrot marry a pony now?" when talking about marriage equality legislation.

Gradius

Gradius wrote: »

An elephant was born in Dublin zoo not so long ago. I wonder will the information display "native Irish elephant"?

If an Indian elephant is born in Africa...?! They are both the same type of animal, but obviously different, the main difference being the size of ears.

Why is a human different when there are very clear differences between them?

Just tongue in cheek stuff

An elephant doesn't have a nationality. Saying it's native to a location is species related. Humans are native to planet earth. An Indian Elephant is a subspecies btw, homo sapiens are also a subspecies.

Gradius

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

I'm not aware of any country where citizenship applies to animals. I know what you're saying is tongue in cheek stuff, but it just isn't relevant to any kind of actual discussion on the matter. It's like saying "so can a parrot marry a pony now?" when talking about marriage equality legislation.

To be more serious, things have an awful habit of going in circles.

So what was relevant before is not relevant now,. Very quickly it can become relevant again.

The enduring relevancy of paper is not so great when measured against the people who write on it, after all. As easily written as scribbled out.

ancapailldorcha

na1 wrote: »

Do you know the definition of racism?

Do you?

Gradius

Deleted User wrote: »

An elephant doesn't have a nationality. Saying it's native to a location is species related. Humans are native to planet earth. An Indian Elephant is a subspecies btw, homo sapiens are also a subspecies.

You're getting awfully mixed up there.

Subspecies are predominantly categorised according to morphological considerations.

Indian elephants are a subspecies of elephant, distinct to African elephants.

Although the common idea is to name "homo sapiens" as a subspecies, it's not exactly relevant, is it? Not when you are comparing to other subspecies that no longer exist.

Otherwise we wouldn't classify other animals based on morphology. So its one rule for every other living thing on earth, and a different rule for humans.

It's complicated of course, but if someone tells you they can't distinguish one geographical group of humans from another, they're talking shoite. Aborigines do not look like like Inuit do not look like Caucasians do not look like Asian.

It's a jokey thing talking about elephants, it's not serious.

suicide_circus

.

Thelonious Monk

Hilarious how in this thread Irish people weren't Irish during British occupation if they were doing bad things, the Brits made them do it.

Gregor Samsa

Gradius wrote: »

It's complicated of course, but if someone tells you they can't distinguish one geographical group of humans from another, they're talking shoite. Aborigines do not look like like Inuit do not look like Caucasians do not look like Asian.

You're jumping from nationality (German) to something else - I'm not exactly sure what, because "Inuit", "Caucasians" and "Asians" don't belong to the same taxonomic levels. It's not even race if they're the examples you're using.

Can you distinguish between an American and Australian by look? They're clearly two different geographic groups of humans. Can you identify an Argentinian by look? What is a Canadian? What colour is a South African? How is the diversity represented in any of these nationalities different to German? Or Irish?

Clarence Boddiker

Thelonious Monk wrote: »

Hilarious how in this thread Irish people weren't Irish during British occupation if they were doing bad things, the Brits made them do it.

Did whitey make the Africans slaughter millions of other Africans? Those Africans who sold millions of other Africans into the slave trade, did whitey make them do it?

LillySV

https://www.rte.ie/news/connacht/2020/0609/1146337-monuments-galway/

As a previous poster highlighted... up to now it was just isis who wanted to erase history .... incredible that people don’t see the importance of history

Yellow_Fern

I see a New York Times opt ed by Chris Saunders argues that if your loves ones are not donating to black lives matters charities then cut ties, at least tempiraily.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/opinion/whites-anti-blackness-protests.html

Texts: To your relatives and loved ones telling them you will not be visiting them or answering phone calls until they take significant action in supporting black lives either through protest or financial contributions.

The yanks are really gone race mad arent they.

Gregor Samsa

LillySV wrote: »

https://www.rte.ie/news/connacht/2020/0609/1146337-monuments-galway/

As a previous poster highlighted... up to now it was just isis who wanted to erase history .... incredible that people don’t see the importance of history

History doesn't get erased, it's constantly getting created.

Nelson's Pillar was blown up long before ISIS. It's nothing new to remove symbols seen as those of oppression or injustice. It's been done throughout history and the globe. The communist revolutions in eastern Europe did it to the Imperial monuments before them , the democratic revolutionaries in eastern Europe did it to the Communist symbols that replace the imperialist ones. And the motivations for it aren’t the same as those of ISIS.

Gradius

Gregor Samsa wrote: »

You're jumping from nationality (German) to something else - I'm not exactly sure what, because "Inuit", "Caucasians" and "Asians" don't belong to the same taxonomic levels. It's not even race if they're the examples you're using.

Can you distinguish between an American and Australian by look? They're clearly two different geographic groups of humans. Can you identify an Argentinian by look? What is a Canadian? What colour is a South African? How is the diversity represented in any of these nationalities different to German? Or Irish?

Someone stated, essentially, that "german" = "German citizenship"

I said, more or less, that people are not pieces of paper and that said pieces of paper are not the same as indigenous.

Then you list of a bunch of countries that are no longer represented by their indigenous people's, and then ask me to distinguish.

You've answered your own question. Diversity = loss of indigenous representation. But it doesn't equal the loss of my vision to distinguish one group of people from another.

Gregor Samsa

Gradius wrote: »

Then you list of a bunch of countries that are no longer represented by their indigenous people's, and then ask me to distinguish.
.

There's very, very few countries that were ever represented by their "indigenous people". Iceland, maybe at one time, with a tiny isolated population. You'll be hard pressed to find a country on earth with no ethnic variation, even before modern times.

What makes an indigenous Irish person? Pre-Celt, Celt, Viking, Norman - to name but a few - all mixed in. And each of those groups had their own origins, their own mixes.

Chasing a dream of ethnic purity anywhere on earth is a fool's errand. Because the concept is imaginary.

Christy42

Great you can tell the difference between people with various genetics that cause different skin colours.

However the post was about German which is not the same. Can you tell the difference between a German and a Frenchman? If not can someone be Jewish and French? Can someone be of Asian decent and French? Who is allowed to be German here?

This gets even better when it comes to saying who is American or Brazilian or other countries where most people don't have centuries of family from the region. How many generations does someone need to trace back to be German?

Gradius

Yellow_Fern wrote: »

I see a New York Times opt ed by Chris Saunders argues that if your loves ones are not donating to black lives matters charities then cut ties, at least tempiraily.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/opinion/whites-anti-blackness-protests.html

The yanks are really gone race mad arent they.

At some of those protests there are lines of African people queuing up to have their feet washed by Europeans on their knees, all in the name of "forgiveness".

The United States is all but finished in my opinion. It's gone beyond the beyond, and there are clear lessons for other countries in what not to do, going from slavery all the way up to inviting untold millions of outsiders to come on in.

It would be almost funny if it weren't for other countries racing to replicate it's downfall. Crazy times.