Carte Blanche to vandals

[Desert Region]

So what next, will it be acceptable to go out and trash all Japanese and German cars because of the atrocities that happened during WW2.

Do the same to VW Beetle car’s because Hitler called them “the peoples car”

Set fire to all Hugo Boss shops and clothing because they supplied uniforms to the Nazi army and SS.

I personally certainly wouldn't advocate such actions, but that does appear to be a logical train of thought based off what's happened in this case.

[Desert Region]

If you object to something or something offends you, taking to the streets in acts of violence isn’t the answer.

Unless the answer is anarchy.

Seemingly, that's ok now. And apparently that's a cause for celebration.

[said]

Colston was in charge of a child trafficking organisation (the Royal African Company) that branded children as young as nine and which was responsible for 44 thousand deaths.

Of course society isn't going to put up with having statues of child trafficking monsters littering our beautiful towns and cities, and I'm glad the jury had the sense to see this.

Allowing the jury to interpret the law according to their peers individual circumstances demonstrates the beauty of the English jury system rather than being compelled to follow the letter of the law.

As opposed to reading dramatic Newspaper articles on the man - it would benefit the Judge and the Jury and those brain dead student criminals to read:
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/History/...ons/bha096.pdf
This is an academic paper that gives doubt as to whether Colston was actually involved with slaves at all.

It would also be of great benefit to those who are so easily 'offended' over the slave trade, to get some perspective on the issue. Slavery had been going on for centuries - it still goes on, albeit far more subtly. White slaves were among the first, and they were subjected to far more brutality.
"White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking) refers to the chattel slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans (such as West Asians and North Africans), or by other Europeans (for example naval galley slaves or the Vikings' thralls). Slaves of European origin were present in ancient Rome and the Ottoman Empire.Many different types of white people were enslaved. On the European continent under feudalism, there were various forms of status applying to people (such as serf, bordar, villein, vagabond and slave) who were indentured or forced to labor without pay."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_slavery

It was the Portuguese explorers who arrived in Africa in the 14th century seeking new food resources and treasures. Africa had much to offer in Gold, Diamonds and Ivory. Soon after - the Dutch arrived to take advantage of the discovered 'treasures'.

"
Abstract

Some 170 references to drought and disease along the south-western coast of Central Africa between 1550 and 1830 suggest that climatic and epidemiological factors motivated the farmers and herders of West-Central Africa in historically significant ways. Nearly all references come from documentary sources and so bear primarily on conditions in the drier and less fertile areas near Luanda and to the south, where African reactions would have been strongest. While minor shortages of rain occurred too frequently to receive much explicit attention in the documents, longer droughts spread more widely every decade or so and attracted notice. Major periods of dryness, extending for seven years or more and touching all parts of the region, occurred perhaps once each century and produced comments throughout the documentation. Localized minor droughts hardly disrupted the lives of Africans, who had presumably devised agricultural and pastoral strategies to take account of such ordinary climatic variation. Two- or three-year rainfall shortages produced banditry and warfare that often attracted Portuguese military retaliation. Major droughts disrupted polities and societies and hence coincided with major turning points in West-Central African history in the late sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. In the earlier case, agricultural failures produced the famed 'Jaga' or Imbangala warriors, who elevated pillage to a way of life and who joined the Portuguese in establishing the Angolan slave trade. The later, protracted drought from 1784 to 1793 coincided with the historic peak of slave exports from West-Central Africa. The discussion suggest other ways in which further research may link drought, famine and epidemics to events familiar in the conventional political history of the region. The precision and depth of the documentary record for the Angolan coast may also indicate ways in which people living in the other semi-arid zones of Africa reacted to climatic variation and to disease. "https://www.jstor.org/stable/181270


It was by virtue of the African leaders that people were sold into slavery. The slave trade SAVED many Africans - for at that time, famine, wars, banditry and disease was rife among the people. When slaves were brought to the UK, they had a better standard of living than our own people on the streets. There are STILL slave traders in Africa today.

The cost of keeping the slaves in the UK became too high and that is when the anti-slavery movement began. It was all to do with economics. i.e. Employ a slave to be a blacksmith. The slave was receiving no pay, so could not be taxed and he had to be fed. The slave has taken a Blacksmith's job. The Blacksmith is not earning taxable pay but he also has to be fed. So for one man's job - two people have to be kept.

Why single out Black people? We all have a similar history. If Europe treated Black people so badly - why do they keep coming over here in their thousands willingly - if it is so bad?

One of the ancestors of a member on this site was a Horse thief for which the punishment is hanging. He managed to escape. If we are to go on griping about the ancient past - does that mean that the present day descendant of that horse thief is due to be hung?

[sandGroundZero]

We all know that the Justice system in this Country is a very sick joke but it hit new depths of stupidity yesterday when the Bristol mob who pulled down a statue and dumped it into the docks were found not guilty of Criminal Damage by the twelve lunatics allowed on jury service.
…

…amounts to an attack on our Courts and the jury

Rhian Graham, 30, Milo Ponsford, 26, and Sage Willoughby, 22, are accused with “others unknown” of helping to tie ropes around the statue’s neck and using them to pull it from its plinth in Bristol during a Black Lives Matter protest on 7 June 2020. …alongside Jake Skuse, 33, who is accused of helping roll it to Bristol harbour, where it was thrown into the River Avon.
…
Tom Wainwright, representing Ponsford, suggested that the historical significance, and hence the value, of the statue had been increased by its toppling – that rather than destroying history, those on trial had “created history”, while at the same time correcting the record on Colston’s crimes.

— Jury in Colston statue trial urged to ‘be on the right side of history’

______________________________________________________________________________



Statue in storage after retrieval

The four accused individuals were cleared of criminal damage in toppling the statue in 2020.

…Anything a group of people don't like can be destroyed by them with impunity as anyone can claim it was the result of an illegal act that the statue / monument/ building/ bench was placed there to commemorate anything they wish to dream up. …

…reductio ad absurdum..?

Edward Colson is NOT erased.
Overreaction to the outcome of the trial is a greater threat to our values than the disorderly protesters' actions. Our history has seen much worse.

[Desert Region]

Anything a group of people don't like can be destroyed by them with impunity as anyone can claim it was the result of an illegal act that the statue / monument/ building/ bench was placed there to commemorate anything they wish to dream up.

Yes, that does seem to be a fair comment.

But what would be a fancy way to gaslight you and tell you to calm down?!

[Desert Region]

Edward Colson is NOT erased.
Overreaction to the outcome of the trial is a greater threat to our values than the disorderly protesters' actions. Our history has seen much worse.

Did Little Londoner say that Edward Colson was erased?

[sandGroundZero]

As opposed to reading dramatic Newspaper articles on the man - it would benefit the Judge and the Jury and those brain dead student criminals to read:

EDWARD COLSTON AND BRISTOL

This is an academic paper that gives doubt as to whether Colston was actually involved with slaves at all.
…

An extract from Edward Colston and Bristol
"…A chartered joint-stock company, with headquarters in London, the Royal African Company was the leading purveyor of slaves in English vessels from the west coast of Africa to the Americas in the latter half of the seventeenth century; indeed from 1672 until 1698 it had a monopoly of that trade. ⁹ It operated in the period when the English were beginning to ship slaves from Africa to provide the labour force for their plantations in North America and the Caribbean. Edward's brother Thomas undertook business for the Royal African Company, providing beads for buying slaves. Edward himself became a member of the company on 26 March 1680. Over the next dozen years, in addition to his other business activities, he served on the Court of Assistants of the Royal African Company (1681-3, 1686-8, 1691), attending meetings in London and sitting on various committees. He was deputy governor of the Royal African Company in 1689-90. Many of the meetings he attended discussed the goods needed to purchase slaves in Africa, the wages paid to ship captains, the dispatch of the Company's ships, the quality of sugar sent back to London by West Indian factors, and commercial conditions in west Africa and the Caribbean. ¹⁰

"To what extent Colston received money from the sale of slaves in the New World is unknown. He was undoubtedly remunerated for his work on the committees of the Royal African Company, but whether this money was the basis of his fortune remains conjectural. …"

Notes:
9. The company's activities are traced in K. G. Davies, The Royal African Company (London, 1957) and David Galenson, Traders, Planters and Slaves: Market
Behavior in Early English America (Cambridge, 1986).

10.[*]Wilkins, Edward Colston, pp. 20-1, 23-4, 26, 28, 33, 35-7, 41; Davies, Royal African Company, p. 379; Public Record Office, T70/79 and T70/82.

[Desert Region]

The slave trade SAVED many Africans.

You must be disappointed that Africa isn't grateful?

[The PNP]

Targeted cancel culture, no-platforming, defunding, etc, developed into taking physical group action against getting rid of an offending something.

Puts me in mind of the uprooting (by motorists?) of those first-generation flexible bollards along Hoghton St and the mysterious disappearance of a set of no-entry roundels at end of Queens Rd. Neither of which actions achieved their apparent objective. As the bollards were soon replaced with something much more substantial - the no-entry's too were quickly replaced

[The PNP]

You must be disappointed that Africa isn't grateful?

I've often puzzled as to why more American 'blacks', now that they are 'free' and better off financially, don't go back to their roots? Their money, education, western knowledge and ways, could make a valuable contribution to improve lives in struggling West African republics.

[Stuartli]

Puts me in mind of the uprooting (by motorists?) of those first-generation flexible bollards along Hoghton St and the mysterious disappearance of a set of no-entry roundels at end of Queens Rd. Neither of which actions achieved their apparent objective. As the bollards were soon replaced with something much more substantial - the no-entry's too were quickly replaced

Attacking motorists again and without any evidence to substantiate your delusional theory?

[The PNP]

Attacking motorists again and without any evidence to substantiate your delusional theory?

And your theory on who had a motive to take down a brand new set of no-entry's?
Non-driving pedestrians perhaps?

[Hamble]

I've often puzzled as to why more American 'blacks', now that they are 'free' and better off financially, don't go back to their roots? Their money, education, western knowledge and ways, could make a valuable contribution to improve lives in struggling West African republics.

Outrageous!

[said]

[QUOTE=sandGroundZero;6799847]An extract from Edward Colston and Bristol


Colston was a philanthropist, he believed that wealthy people had a duty to support the less fortunate. He founded multiple Alms houses, he donated a lot of money to the Queen Elizabeth hospital school, he founded the Colston boarding school for 100 boys and he funded many other schools and churches including £1000 to the Catholic Church, he gave money to many poor people so that they could afford clothing.

When he died, he refused all the pomp applied to wealthy people's funerals - instead he requested the attendance of all those from his Alms houses, the people who had attended his hospital and they boys from his schools.

"Two days after the obsequies were paid to Bristol's departed Benefactor, Sunday, October 29th, there is a crowded congregation in All Saints' Church. The chief mourners, — the Master and members of the Merchants' Hall, — the aged inmates of his Almshouses, — the juvenile objects of his care, are assembled with the most respected and accredited of the citizens. Trophies of gloom are hung around. — The affecting sounds of the solemn requiem, swelled, deepened, rolled through the arch of the building, and sank in mournful undulations, — rose and reverberated until the whole house was filled with the solemnizing harmony. The beautiful service of the Liturgy over, the Funeral Sermon was preached by the Vicar, James Harcourt, D. D. " He hath dispersed abroad and given to the poor, and his righteousness remaineth for ever ; his horn shall be exalted with honour." The Eev. Doctor, after recapitulating Colston's various charitable endowments and his many Christian graces, of which the most noticeable passages occupy our preceding pages, says in conclusion, —
" Health, length of days, riches, and honour, are blessings promised in the word of God, to those who are religious and forget not the law of the Lord. And how largely he shared every one of these, is not necessary to be insisted upon, when it is known to so many how vigorous his strength, — how clear his understanding, — how quick his apprehension — and how sound his judgment continued long beyond the age of man, even to reach to the end almost of his eighty-fifth year without decay in his understanding, — without labour or sorrow. — How plentifully his riches flowed in upon him, when his cup at last overflows ; and what the honours have been, which always have been paid to him by every good man, the testimonies of those who hear me, — excuse my enlarging upon any further, than, that he is gathered to his fathers, full of good works, full of honours, and full of days." Colston.

Yes, the Company had a Royal Charter - but it does not say that Colston personally benefitted from the Slave Trade. Slaves were transported from 1680 to 1689 when the Royal African company had the monopoly. 5000 slaves were transported every year - (there are far more immigrants that come here by choice every year) Food was supplied to the slaves and their welfare was taken care of since dead slaves do not increase profits.

Slavery has been going on since before the Romans came to the UK.


"Colston was born on 2 November 1636 in Temple Street, Bristol, and baptised in the Temple Church, Bristol.^[1] His parents were William Colston (1608–1681), a prosperous Royalist merchant who was High Sheriff of Bristol in 1643, and his wife Sarah Batten (d. 1701), daughter of Edward Batten; he was the eldest of at least 11 and possibly as many as 15 children. The Colston family had lived in the city since the late 13th century.^[2] Colston was brought up in Bristol until the time of the English Civil War, when he probably lived for a while on his father's estate in Winterbourne, just north of the city. The family then moved to London.^[3] The English Civil War shaped Colston's lifelong support for order and stability in the form of monarchy and High Anglicanism" Wikipedia

The vandals who threw his statue into the water were very ill informed as were the Judge and Jury. To my mind there should be more people like Colston investing in our schools because there are a lot of sad people lacking education. It does not matter of who or what the monument was - the crime was wilful destruction of national property and each of these brain dead creatures should have been made to pay for the damage.

[said]

I've often puzzled as to why more American 'blacks', now that they are 'free' and better off financially, don't go back to their roots? Their money, education, western knowledge and ways, could make a valuable contribution to improve lives in struggling West African republics.

You have a point there. While there are many instances of Western people helping the Black people in their own country, has there ever been any reports of Black people helping their own people?