#BlackLivesMatter

[FLips]

1 hour ago, IANdrewDiceClay said:

 

It's a pointless side note but it really annoys me how he never once looks into the actual lens of the camera. He's just screaming at a picture of himself.

[ReturnOfTheMack]

9 hours ago, CAREBEAR LUVVA said:

Scrolling through, half asleep, thought this was Batman for a second or three.

[BomberPat]

9 hours ago, PunkStep said:

We absolutely should, rather than brainwashing them into believing what a fantastic, well-behaved super nation we have always been and giving the sense of superiority over everyone else.

Let's see what I remember from history lessons at school regarding our nation: the Napoleonic wars where we defeated the Frenchman trying to take over Europe, the industrial revolution where we were trailblazers, two world wars where we helped save everyone. Yup, that's pretty much it.

We did a module on Irish History for GCSE History, and I don't remember any of it, but I don't think there was a single thing about the role of the British. Which is like discussing the history of malaria without including the mosquito. There was American History, too, but can't remember any of it except it being an excuse to watch Dances With Wolves for one lesson.

We also did "Medicine Through Time" for what seemed like for-fucking-ever. Though the bulk of my GCSE History lessons seemed to be just doing past exam papers, rather than actually learning anything. That said, if the school I went to had been in England, it would have been in the bottom three of the league table for results/performance, so might not be representative.

 

The one good thing about studying history at a shit school in Jersey, which coincided with the one time since living here that I had a competent History teacher, is that the way World War 2 is taught here is far more nuanced than the UK, due to the local focus. The Channel Islands were occupied during the War, which means that in some quarters The Occupation carries the same sort of Origin Story myth-making as The Spirit Of The Blitz does for flag nonces in England, but for the most part means a slightly more honest reckoning with the reality of war, and of Churchill's legacy. It's not uncommon for our local paper to run editorials on Churchill's flaws around Liberation Day/D-Day, and the Jersey Museum's exhibition on Occupation contains a fair amount of discussion on collaboration. 

There's a museum up the road from me, in what was a partially completed underground hospital built by the Nazis, and this is the Churchill "monument" they chose to place right at the entrance;

 

I just don't recall ever seeing that kind of honest reckoning with the legacy of Churchill anywhere in England - in Glasgow, and in Wales, yes, but not in England. 

[mim731]

29 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

We did a module on Irish History for GCSE History, and I don't remember any of it, but I don't think there was a single thing about the role of the British. Which is like discussing the history of malaria without including the mosquito. There was American History, too, but can't remember any of it except it being an excuse to watch Dances With Wolves for one lesson.

We did Ireland and India at both GCSE and A Level, and in earlier years we definitely covered the slave trade (although that may have been due in part to the ability for the teacher to spend multiple lessons showing us the TV show Roots while they caught up on marking).

Those lessons were generally very thorough on the role of the British Empire, no sugar-coating at all. That said, we had some very good, very left-wing history teachers from a variety of different backgrounds, so we got quite a good footing on controversial subjects as far as history was concerned. I appreciate this isn't necessarily the norm though.

[Tommy!]

14 hours ago, wordsfromlee said:

As I said before, statues are for celebrating people. You don't celebrate cunts like that. It should have been torn down and at least replaced with a memorial to the people he kidnapped and enslaved or something decades ago.

Should the statue of Jimmy Saville that was in Glasgow have not been destroyed either?

Again, I am not against it being taken down, quite the opposite I support it being taken down as I've said countless times. You seem to be arguing the same point as me there over and over on that. I'm more concerned that broader British society now and for future generations may not take the fact we celebrated a man for slave trading and that we have such racial inequality engrained in our systems born from our recent history, and as such do don't reflect on it. The very fact that no government body took it down says to me that there's still an issue within our system, and that issue hasn't been removed with the statue and it's not an issue British gorverments or education tackles or wants to tackle at all IMO. 

And in my opinion there's a slight difference between a statue of a philanthropist who is later found to be a sex offender and an embodiment of the institutional racism in hundreds of years of British culture a large part of the public don't know exists or deliberately overlook. 

If the statue of a sex offender was put up to celebrate him as a sex offender and all the wonderful sexual assaults he committed to benifit his community I'd say the same, take it down but don't allow us to forget and escape the unpleasant truth that not too long ago the British norm was to praise those actions. That's not the case with Savile to my knowledge, so it's not a fair comparison you're making to my point, which is we as a powerful majority white nation should not be allowed any excuse to fail to acknowledge and reflect on it's past now and in future generations and how that history still effects our day to day life and the life of minority race and ethnicity groups in this country in ways people accept as norms or don't even notice in daily life because they are saddly so normal to see. I think that's much easier when you can point to a majority white nation celebrating and revering a slave trader so prominently and use that as part of the evidence highlighting how much we as a society, not that long ago, once not only took it as normal but celebrated such suffering.

[BomberPat]

and, again, the statue being removed has created more acknowledgement and reflection (at least outside of Bristol) of what it represented than it standing there for 150 years ever did.

We wouldn't be having this discussion about reckoning with our past if the statue was just left there unbothered. We probably wouldn't be having it if it had been quietly taken down by workmen overnight. We're having the discussion about what it represented, and who he was, because it's been removed. 

Statues aren't educational. They're celebratory. They're not historical. They're hagiography. 

Edited June 8, 2020 by BomberPat

[SuperBacon]

10 hours ago, PunkStep said:

We absolutely should, rather than brainwashing them into believing what a fantastic, well-behaved super nation we have always been and giving the sense of superiority over everyone else.

Let's see what I remember from history lessons at school regarding our nation: the Napoleonic wars where we defeated the Frenchman trying to take over Europe, the industrial revolution where we were trailblazers, two world wars where we helped save everyone. Yup, that's pretty much it.

This is why home schooling has included Real British History.

Can't wait for the next parents evening.

[Tommy!]

7 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

and, again, the statue being removed has created more acknowledgement and reflection (at least outside of Bristol) of what it represented than it standing there for 150 years ever did.

We wouldn't be having this discussion about reckoning with our past if the statue was just left there unbothered. We probably wouldn't be having it if it had been quietly taken down by workmen overnight. We're having the discussion about what it represented, and who he was, because it's been removed. 

Statues aren't educational. They're celebratory. They're not historical. They're hagiography. 

And again I'm 100% behind the ripping it down, I'll keep saying that until people read it because it's a point you and others keep arguing and I'm not sure why. It's the throwing it in the river to try and destroy I'd rather not happen.

And I disagree, a statue can be educational. It's a source of historical significance to draw on social norms, traits and trends. That's been the case back to antiquity, surely you can appreciate that.

Edited June 8, 2020 by Tommy!

[Chest Rockwell]

8 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

If the statue of a sex offender was put up to celebrate him as a sex offender and all the wonderful sexual assaults he committed to benifit his community I'd say the same

Upvoted simply for this wonderful analogy 😊

[Jonny Vegas]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

We did a module on Irish History for GCSE History, and I don't remember any of it, but I don't think there was a single thing about the role of the British. 

I grew up in England and was lucky to have what I thought was a brilliant history teacher. 

He told us early on that accounts of history are written by the people in control and that in our textbooks what we were reading was a version approved and directed by the british. 

We had the same module on Ireland and its history, the british were mentioned however only as great friends and liberators of the Irish.🙄

The teacher gave us a "what really happened" counter account to everything that was in our text books and it was brilliant.

[SuperBacon]

18 minutes ago, Ralphy said:

The only thing i can remember learning in history in school was that JFK got his brains blown out, literally, and being shown the video. The rest of history, and school, was like this for me sadly 

 

I had two History teachers in my time at secondary school. My form tutor, Mr Chapman, a staunch left wing Yorkshireman who inspired us all, and basically made us all fall in love with history. We zipped through our set coursework and then he let us study the JFK assassination as a "treat". He was a fucking hero.

Then he left and we had Mr Theobald, who despite having the fittest daughter in the entire school (and world), lost the class within minutes of his first lesson with us by using the phrase "Mega death" and being greeted by all these nerdy little 15 year olds doing air guitar for an hour, and for evermore. 

[westlondonmist]

22 hours ago, Teedy Kay said:

You're right, around the world Policing has some awful practices.

Thankfully in the UK we have it pretty much spot on however.

[Frankie Crisp]

I was going to dig out the reading thread but this one seems more pertinent. 

This is currently free to download:

Download link

I’m a couple of chapters in and already really engaged with it.

Edited June 9, 2020 by Frankie Crisp
Massive images, soz

[Merzbow]

There's a link to a massive lot of black revolutionary texts here, the files also include links to where you can buy them from black owned book stores.

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/18y0_2wm85L113fVWYdgljq9uuIlmlbl3

Edited June 9, 2020 by Merzbow

[SuperBacon]

33 minutes ago, Frankie Crisp said:

I was going to dig out the reading thread but this one seems more pertinent. 

This is currently free to download:

Download link

I’m a couple of chapters in and already really engaged with it.

Cheers bud. Haymarket Books are great. I got bought a copy of The Long Deep Grudge for Christmas, which is about class warfare in the States, and it's wicked.

I might have to stop re-reading Bret Hart's book again, and give this a bash now.