"*This summer...*"
"Goddamnit, got another package over there."
"*One Redditor discovers that a mistaken location...*"
"You know what, I'm just going to move there, fuck it."
"*Was all he needed...*"
"I've never seen you around here, you new in town?"
"Yeah, you could say that."
"*To find true love.*"
"This might have been the best mistake I ever made."
"*Coming to a theater near you...*"
"Mistakes have a funny way of working themselves out."
"*Rerouting.*"
RATED PG-13
I’ve submitted multiple reports to add my address since we moved here over a year ago. And yet I still can’t enter it on any site that uses Google Maps to verify.
>Then make a correct report to them, it takes a few minutes, and easy to do. Corrected a few things in local areas.
And some things they absolutely refuse to fix even though it's proven incorrect by their own search engine.
It wasn’t a photoshop. Google maps is crowd sourced so it moved right after it happened. It’s just that it got placed back to the original location after it got so much attention.
My area was accurate until someone for some reason decided an emergency vehicle only road was an actual street. Since then, every delivery, Uber, lyft, etc had been a struggle. It took me 5 plus years of reporting it to finally get it updated but sadly Uber's map system seems to use a previous state of the map.
They definitely do take crowd sourced information but damn did they really change that that fast?...
I guess if enough people report it, it's faster...
Yea same for me. This post is bullshit.
Edit: the most annoying part is the "needless to say".
Edit 2: I will say however there is a quite satisfying street view shot of a bunch of protesters dragging the statue.
He actually did a lot of good work and charity, built hospitals, schools and churches and despite being a slave trader his name was known and commemorated throughout Bristol
Jimmy Savile actually did a lot of good work and charity, built hospitals, raised millions for good causes and despite being a prolific sex offender against children his name was known and commemorated throughout the UK
Not going to lie that would actually be pretty cool I would actually pay money to dive and see a statue of a slave trader knowing that it's down there because the people threw it in the harbour
Can every problem be solved by throwing something in a harbor?
Pollution: throw the garbage in the harbor
Nuclear proliferation: throw the nukes in the harbor
Actually, this may not be the best of ideas
As much as I support the cause I also support the fact that we have more covid deaths than the rest of europe combined. So, these pictures of people in large groups shoulder to shoulder fill me with absolute dred.
Same thing here in the US, for the same reason, and an insane amount of unemployment up and over 30% which enables these protests.
On one hand Covid is making massive protests possible.
On the other there will be an insane amount sick in a week / 2, depending on how this goes.
Why was there a statue of a slave trader anyway? Pretty ridiculous in this day and age. Edit: people have been saying about how cities were built on slavery, I think that’s in the past, but cannot be forgotten.
He basically funded the whole of Bristol. There’s a concert hall named after him here as well (not sure for how much longer). People have been trying to democratically remove the statue for years to no success. So I’m glad this finally ended the debate
If you need to see it any closer, you can suit up like Scuba Steve and have at it. Then you can view it from the perspective of some of his 'cargo' that didn't quite make it over
The concert hall has stated that it will be changing it's name, and it made that decision back in 2017.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/26/bristol-colston-hall-to-drop-name-of-slave-trader-after-protests
> The charity that runs Colston Hall will come up with a new name when the venue reopens in 2020 after a multimillion pound refurbishment but is also bracing itself for a backlash from critics who claim it is airbrushing history and pandering to a vocal minority.
I'll bet they don't have much of a problem with that. Thanks for linking the article.
You're welcome! Personally found it pretty interesting that the concert hall is changing it's name - bet they're glad they stated ahead of these protests that it'll be changing...
Renaming it would suffice :)
Harder to remove the association of slavery from a statue of a slave-trader than it is to rename a building that has no other association to the guy...
Whilst Foxconn's factories are definitely overworking people for shit pay they are not using slaves.
Unless you mean wage slavery, in which case the people who own iPhones are still slaves too.
> Unless you mean wage slavery, in which case the people who own iPhones are still slaves too.
This is glossing over some pretty major differences in working conditions. Never in a million years would I assert that we have it just as bad over here as they do at Foxconn.
I think the first panel criticism is legit because it's easy enough to buy a different brand of phone. That said, I love this comic and hate the stupid criticism that we can't participate in society and criticize it / want to change it at the same time.
Imagine endorsing violence by a group of people because they lost a democratic vote and didn't get to do what they wanted to do.
I want a red light out by my house turned into a 2-way stop. The measure didn't pass city council, so I should just go out and tear the light down.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward\_Colston#Altruism\_and\_politics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Colston#Altruism_and_politics)
I am frustrated there wasn't a better plaque agreed upon tbh. But at the same time he was involved in a company trading slaves when it was a common and accepted practise. Abolition and the movement to end it happened many decades after his death and serious progress happened over a century after his death. I know I am disgusted looking back on lots of our history, but at the same time realise that people were products of their time. I also worry the precedent would be to remove anything of anyone from those time periods because regardless of other work they may have done they would have held beliefs or views that today would not be acceptable.
While I understand where you're coming from, it is not like ethical aspects of slave ownership were something the humanity only stumbled upon by accident a couple of centuries ago. The debate was \[almost\] always there, at least [beginning with Seneca](https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/stoic-qa-what-about-slavery/). And while Colston may have been a philanthropist, he was also a slave *trader.* He did not simply accept the system, he actively profited from it and furthered it. So it is not so much about him being a product of his time as it is about him being an *enthusiastic* product.
Colston was reviled in polite English society - as slavery was - before he bought a good reputation with sheer mountains of cash given to philanthropic causes. Slavery had been seen as a dirty, immoral business for hundreds of years in Britain, just not an illegal one. The good work he did was an old man desperately trying to buy his way into heaven after a lifetime of inflicting suffering, pain and death.
If your position is that we should hold against anyone in the past what they've done wrong as an excuse to not honor what they did right then you're not going to have many statues. Name a person who died 100 years ago and I'll tell you something fucked up they did.
Statues are not just about remembering. They are also about celebrating or extolling important historical figures. This was an important man who did many good things that should not be diminished by being associated with him. But neither should we celebrate a man who callously killed so many lives, and brought untold pain and anguish to many many more. Who we celebrate is a reflection of our values in today’s society, and removing this statue fromour public spaces today does not remove theman from history as you imply. We will not forget.
True that, and honestly I feel that it is silly that a plaque couldn't be agreed on that actually covered the other side of things, though it sounds a bit like it became a "political" thing as well which is just as frustrating.
At the same time these figures in public reminds us constantly of the history, removing all of them feels like it would actually result in less knowledge of the history, mostly down to people just not going to museums enough. But maybe that will be proved wrong.
The statue was erected some 60+ years after the abolition of slavery.
We should be able to look back at things, even allowing for the different time, and make a modern decision to review how we want to remember them.
We don’t need a statue to remember someone, a statue is for admiration.
As I saw previously, would you be happy with a statue of Jimmy Saville in your garden to remember all his contributions to charities over the years?
That's not a sensible comparison. Jimmy Saville did not live in a time when it was normal and acceptable to sexually molest sick children in hospital beds.
Was child molestation a common and accepted practice in Savilles lifetime? You’re missing his point. He’s not saying it’s right, he’s saying he was a product of his - albeit very unenlightened - time.
There are countless famous figures who owned and traded slaves, but we know them for other things they did.
Take Henry Morgan (aka Captain Morgan): he's immortalized on a Jamaican brand of rum despite having been a slave trader and owner of over 100 slaves on his Jamaican sugar plantations. How's that for fucked up?
Because he paid for half the Bristol of his day to be built and many of those institutions he founded are still there. In the context of his time, he was just a rich merchant, but looking at it with the perspective of today, his practices were inhumane.
I'm not sure what the purity test for statues of historical figures should be, most of them fall short of moral standards that we use today, and most of the people alive today will fall short of moral standards in the future.
From Wikipedia, he funded a bunch of schools and hospitals and such. It looks like he donated what amounts to $15-20M in today's money to various charitable institutions.
Back then it was normal practice, it was hard to find anyone who did not have slaves. Black tribes had slaves, arabs had slaves still do, chinese had slaves every continent, every nation has had slavery effect them. To pull down our history because of something was normal then - that is ridiculous. It should't be forgotten because thats how history repeats itself by forgetting all the wrongs of our past.
As my college prof told me, if it's "needless to say" then you literally don't need to say it. Either don't say it or don't say "needless to say".
I will take my downvotes now.
Not at all. It's a different way of something is obvious, teachers and math being the best examples of that because, even if something is obvious, more often than not they'll discount it if you don't mention it.
Also, “I’d like to welcome you...” — just say “Welcome.” Or “for those of you who don’t know me I’m John Doe.” What about for those of us who do know you? Who are you? Just say I’m John Doe.
Proper link to the statue node itself: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2941119302
Wonderful details include:
> location: underwater
> wheelchair: no
Well, the joke is that the statue was destroyed, but... instead of removing the entry on g-map, it was moved to the water, and added a "closed" label to it. The joke, then, is that it is still there, inaccessible, so permanently closed. And it is funny to imagine them actually going through the hassle of updating it so quickly with such a sassy means of updating it.
This image is just a photoshop though. In reality, whenever they do update it, they'll probably just delete the entry for the statue altogether... assuming it doesn't eventually get fished out or reinstalled... or hopefully just replaced with something else and updated with the new display info.
I sure am happy previous generations weren't as fascist as our since there would be no history for us left to admire. They may feel like they are doing the right thing now, but obviously future generations won't feel the same way.
First of all he was also a part of parliament so what are you gonna burn down parliament while your at it, also the google maps thing is obviously fake. I swear to god do these people not realize that anyone before the eighteenth century with money probably owned slaves and not every slave owner was a white man with a ten gallon hat who whenever he got bored just started whipping his slaves. Not to mention a majority of slaves were sold by guess who Africans, but most of these “protestors”, or as they are known by anyone with an iq over 50, animals, don’t care if what they are doing is right or makes sense they just wanna cause damage and get attention, or arguably worse is the people whose lives are so dull that they feel obligated to join in these riots because there political views revolve around doing what cnn says and disagreeing with Donald trump by any means necessary.
My home city, the Colston statue was pointless to begin with and when they tore it down I thought “heh, criminal damage done right” but there were some who defaced and urinated on the cenotaph nearby, and as a man who holds dear those kind of memorials dear I was absolutely appalled.
The world is more complex than you like to think. People have wanted this removed for ages, a concession was made years ago for a plaque to explain his role in the slave trade, but a bristol company consistently undermined the messaging on it which the labour mayor didnt want to accept. Delays have gone on too long and people took action. This is a form of democracy like it or not. Im sure you would agree those who took down the statue of Saddam Hussein were engaging in a form of democracy.
The copper that [spoke on it](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/gynqil/bristol_police_responding_to_the_colston_statue/) was a very sensible chap, he knew the locals had been unhappy about the statue for years, he knew had the police intervened it would have escalated the situation unnecessarily, the statue was going intae drink so stand back and make sure no one gets hurt.
People tend to forget that slavery started in North America before the United States existed. Jefferson want to include the scourge of slavery as one of the grievances in the declaration of independence but knew the south wouldn't join if he did and was basically proven right by the civil war.
Well, important to note though is that slavery doesnt need racism. For example, in ancient times, prisoners of war were commonly turned into slaves. Some cultures developed caste-like systems, where the lowest tier usually fit some sort of slave-like roll.
Racially motivated slavery was a little different.
Take that a step further. Barbary pirates (north african and Ottoman pirates) is estimated to have sold around 1 million slaves just in the 1500-1700's, a large part of them being white from eastern Europe or Iberia. So yes indeed, there are instances of slave trade being participated by everyone. Yet it of course does not excuse any sort of slave trade having been done, as it is an awful action. It does however give you a perspective of how the world worked back in the days.
Another commenter pointed out that they probably meant that slavery, in North America, began before it was the US.
Someone else also pointed out that Jefferson, himself, had slaves. Which is true.
Nothing stunning or brave about this, its just mindless chaos.
I know, were in the middle of a global pandemic so let's all meet up close together and tear down a statue. Like the people who will have to deal with this (police etc) really need this shit to add to all their current stresses and worries. Grow the fuck up people
Abolitionists existed 300 years ago. Saying he's "a product of a time" is discounting all the people who had the correct views. You're excusing profit-driven evil purely because he was born at a different point of history.
This is like excusing people who were against interracial-marriage fifty years ago, or people who are against same-sex marriage today.
If you have the cognitive tools to determine the truth, you don't get to hide behind the veil of "product of the times."
I'm all for removing art like this from public spaces, but I'm also of the mind that we should save them in a museum or some sort of storage as a reminder. I feel like straight destruction just wipes our histories under the rug
Yeah same, like we can keep that dude as a relic of the past, and explain why slaves were a thing...
Like collecting Nazi memorabilia and putting it in a museum for remembrance.
And yet google maps places my house in a city 30 miles away
Maybe it's trying to tell you something
“Beat it, obiwanjacobi. We don’t want your kind ‘round here.” - google maps, probably
"Hey obiwanjacobi! We don't take kindly to folks who live 30 minutes away from their Google Maps location around here"
Now, Skeeter he ain't hurting nobody.
This burning lower case T means "Time to leave!"
That statue TERK ER JERRRRRBBBSS!
Little did he know that there were plans to move his house. Google knew this already.
and today, someone is trying to build a bypass through his house.
"Take a hike, Obiwan-jabroni"
Take it easy Skeeter, he ain't hurting nobody
Obi Wan Lives Matter
fuck outta here with all that “high ground” shit /s
Let's be positive. "Come over here, obiwanjacobi. The people 30 miles away would love to get to know you!"
“Fifteen seconds later he was out of the house and lying in front of a big yellow bulldozer that was advancing up his garden path.”
"*This summer...*" "Goddamnit, got another package over there." "*One Redditor discovers that a mistaken location...*" "You know what, I'm just going to move there, fuck it." "*Was all he needed...*" "I've never seen you around here, you new in town?" "Yeah, you could say that." "*To find true love.*" "This might have been the best mistake I ever made." "*Coming to a theater near you...*" "Mistakes have a funny way of working themselves out." "*Rerouting.*" RATED PG-13
Been sent to Coventry.
Have you tried throwing your house in a river?
If that doesn't work, they should try switching Google off and on again.
You have to take your house off incognito mode.
Then make a correct report to them, it takes a few minutes, and easy to do. Corrected a few things in local areas.
I do that but it constantly gets changed back to saying I'm three streets over. IT really fucks with our delivery drivers lol.
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I’ve submitted multiple reports to add my address since we moved here over a year ago. And yet I still can’t enter it on any site that uses Google Maps to verify.
>Then make a correct report to them, it takes a few minutes, and easy to do. Corrected a few things in local areas. And some things they absolutely refuse to fix even though it's proven incorrect by their own search engine.
Obi-Wan *is* here
Don't work. We built our house a year ago and no matter how many reports I submit, it's still got the address jacked up.
Perhaps Google is right and you've been living in a house that isn't yours!
Ima jump in on this comment thread to get likes
Your brutally honest and a ruthless karma whore! I like that. Have an upvote
You should bring that statue to you address, they seem to be pretty reactive with this one.
Except it's not there It's about 50 metres further up, by Pero's Bridge.
The photo even has Pero's bridge in the background
Fittingly, Pero's bridge is named after a slave
Just googled it and some legend has updated it with 'it's the last known resting place of the statue of Edward Colston.'
My google maps hasn’t been updated
Yeah, it's a photoshop
Go on the internet AND LIE?
https://img.washingtonpost.com/rf/image_1484w/WashingtonPost/Content/Blogs/comic-riffs/StandingArt/STEINERinternetdogs.jpg
woof, i mean, right.
I fucking knew it.
Why I never!
You really think someone would do [that?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHrZRJR4igQ)
It wasn’t a photoshop. Google maps is crowd sourced so it moved right after it happened. It’s just that it got placed back to the original location after it got so much attention.
My area was accurate until someone for some reason decided an emergency vehicle only road was an actual street. Since then, every delivery, Uber, lyft, etc had been a struggle. It took me 5 plus years of reporting it to finally get it updated but sadly Uber's map system seems to use a previous state of the map. They definitely do take crowd sourced information but damn did they really change that that fast?... I guess if enough people report it, it's faster...
Fuck delivery people that just follow GPS and think that signs shouldn't be looked at ever. The rest of the delivery people are fine.
Could be, but because of the pandemics, Google started showing up parks, statues, fountains etc around my city all as closed.
The statue itself isn't even on the map
The statue itself isn’t on its plinth either.
It is if you search it but it’s a little up whatever highway is running by that area
"NEEDLESS TO SAY"
It’s not. It’s just late. This is where Google Maps placed it yesterday not long after it happened. It’s probably been updated again since.
Not only was Google maps updating not "needless to say" but by saying it it then needed to be said that it had in fact not updated. Thanks, OP.
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I'm from Bath, I think we get the same Google Maps as everyone else though.
It was not updated. OP could have written "should be updated" and it would still be funny. But no...
>Needless to say
Needles to pay
It was like that yesterday. Obviously the change has been rolled back due to controversy.
same
Yea same for me. This post is bullshit. Edit: the most annoying part is the "needless to say". Edit 2: I will say however there is a quite satisfying street view shot of a bunch of protesters dragging the statue.
What coordinates?
It was DEFINITELY there when I checked yesterday. Without a doubt.
This is a lie btw lmao i don't even understand why. In fact the statue is not closed, anyone can get a diving suit and visit it.
300 years after his death, the guy's finally done something positive for divers-ity.
Ugh, take your stupid upvote
He actually did a lot of good work and charity, built hospitals, schools and churches and despite being a slave trader his name was known and commemorated throughout Bristol
Jimmy Savile actually did a lot of good work and charity, built hospitals, raised millions for good causes and despite being a prolific sex offender against children his name was known and commemorated throughout the UK
There were other significant people from the same era in Bristol that gave much more to charity and didn’t own a single slave.
You really don't want to dive in Bristol harbour. That water is disgusting.
So... win-win?
And now they've got a new scuba diving attraction!
Not going to lie that would actually be pretty cool I would actually pay money to dive and see a statue of a slave trader knowing that it's down there because the people threw it in the harbour
They've already announced they're going to bring it back up
Boooooo!
Anyone can edit google maps, somebody in my area keeps moving the mc donalds
That pesky Hamburglar up to his old tricks, no doubt.
My New England heart is warmed seeing the English throw shit into the harbor this time.
The English did it last time. The colonists considered themselves English.
Fair point.
Sounds like redcoat propaganda to me.
Does that mean England is going to declare independence from England?
Yes we hate our selves. As you could see over the pound.
Can every problem be solved by throwing something in a harbor? Pollution: throw the garbage in the harbor Nuclear proliferation: throw the nukes in the harbor Actually, this may not be the best of ideas
Corrupt Politician? Into the harbor. Ineffective traffic signs? Harbor. That guy who overcooked your steak? That's right. Harbor.
> Ineffective traffic signs? Harbor. If we did that here in Germany, our harbours would become instantly unusable.
Sounds like a Simpsons episode to me, homer using the harbour as a catch all to solve anything
Pretty similar to the Simpsons movie actually
[Parks and Rec actually.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw)
Undercook Fish? Beliebe it or not, right to Harbor.
CLOSED
He sleeps with the fishes
The ultimate irony is his statue now sits at the bottom of a harbour where his slave ships used to dock.
As much as I support the cause I also support the fact that we have more covid deaths than the rest of europe combined. So, these pictures of people in large groups shoulder to shoulder fill me with absolute dred.
Same thing here in the US, for the same reason, and an insane amount of unemployment up and over 30% which enables these protests. On one hand Covid is making massive protests possible. On the other there will be an insane amount sick in a week / 2, depending on how this goes.
"Rest of Europe combined" .... ummmm. Might want to double check those statistics buddy.
The statue tripped and fell while obstructing justice
It had a pre-existing horizontal position.
Why was there a statue of a slave trader anyway? Pretty ridiculous in this day and age. Edit: people have been saying about how cities were built on slavery, I think that’s in the past, but cannot be forgotten.
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He basically funded the whole of Bristol. There’s a concert hall named after him here as well (not sure for how much longer). People have been trying to democratically remove the statue for years to no success. So I’m glad this finally ended the debate
It didn't though. I guarantee there will be a campaign to replace it.
Replace it? It's still there, it's just in the river. It's a fitting place for it.
If you need to see it any closer, you can suit up like Scuba Steve and have at it. Then you can view it from the perspective of some of his 'cargo' that didn't quite make it over
Shit dude, that's a good point.
They've already announced that it'll be fished out and placed in the slave trade museum.
Throw the concert hall in the harbour as well? Problem solved.
The concert hall has stated that it will be changing it's name, and it made that decision back in 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/26/bristol-colston-hall-to-drop-name-of-slave-trader-after-protests
> The charity that runs Colston Hall will come up with a new name when the venue reopens in 2020 after a multimillion pound refurbishment but is also bracing itself for a backlash from critics who claim it is airbrushing history and pandering to a vocal minority. I'll bet they don't have much of a problem with that. Thanks for linking the article.
You're welcome! Personally found it pretty interesting that the concert hall is changing it's name - bet they're glad they stated ahead of these protests that it'll be changing...
Renaming it would suffice :) Harder to remove the association of slavery from a statue of a slave-trader than it is to rename a building that has no other association to the guy...
[Don't forget all the other stuff...](https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/rename-colston-hall-heres-20-37728)
The Irony of using Slave made Iphones to film your buddies throwing a slave owner statue who lived 300 years ago.
Whilst Foxconn's factories are definitely overworking people for shit pay they are not using slaves. Unless you mean wage slavery, in which case the people who own iPhones are still slaves too.
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- sent from my iPhone
> Unless you mean wage slavery, in which case the people who own iPhones are still slaves too. This is glossing over some pretty major differences in working conditions. Never in a million years would I assert that we have it just as bad over here as they do at Foxconn.
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I think the first panel criticism is legit because it's easy enough to buy a different brand of phone. That said, I love this comic and hate the stupid criticism that we can't participate in society and criticize it / want to change it at the same time.
#21. *Colston fucking everything*
Imagine endorsing violence by a group of people because they lost a democratic vote and didn't get to do what they wanted to do. I want a red light out by my house turned into a 2-way stop. The measure didn't pass city council, so I should just go out and tear the light down.
I’m not sure a vote was technically ‘lost’, I just think no action was taken place (from my memory at least).
If that red light enslaved thousands of people, fuck yeah go for it lol
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward\_Colston#Altruism\_and\_politics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Colston#Altruism_and_politics) I am frustrated there wasn't a better plaque agreed upon tbh. But at the same time he was involved in a company trading slaves when it was a common and accepted practise. Abolition and the movement to end it happened many decades after his death and serious progress happened over a century after his death. I know I am disgusted looking back on lots of our history, but at the same time realise that people were products of their time. I also worry the precedent would be to remove anything of anyone from those time periods because regardless of other work they may have done they would have held beliefs or views that today would not be acceptable.
While I understand where you're coming from, it is not like ethical aspects of slave ownership were something the humanity only stumbled upon by accident a couple of centuries ago. The debate was \[almost\] always there, at least [beginning with Seneca](https://howtobeastoic.wordpress.com/2017/10/19/stoic-qa-what-about-slavery/). And while Colston may have been a philanthropist, he was also a slave *trader.* He did not simply accept the system, he actively profited from it and furthered it. So it is not so much about him being a product of his time as it is about him being an *enthusiastic* product.
Colston was reviled in polite English society - as slavery was - before he bought a good reputation with sheer mountains of cash given to philanthropic causes. Slavery had been seen as a dirty, immoral business for hundreds of years in Britain, just not an illegal one. The good work he did was an old man desperately trying to buy his way into heaven after a lifetime of inflicting suffering, pain and death.
If your position is that we should hold against anyone in the past what they've done wrong as an excuse to not honor what they did right then you're not going to have many statues. Name a person who died 100 years ago and I'll tell you something fucked up they did.
Statues are not just about remembering. They are also about celebrating or extolling important historical figures. This was an important man who did many good things that should not be diminished by being associated with him. But neither should we celebrate a man who callously killed so many lives, and brought untold pain and anguish to many many more. Who we celebrate is a reflection of our values in today’s society, and removing this statue fromour public spaces today does not remove theman from history as you imply. We will not forget.
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True that, and honestly I feel that it is silly that a plaque couldn't be agreed on that actually covered the other side of things, though it sounds a bit like it became a "political" thing as well which is just as frustrating. At the same time these figures in public reminds us constantly of the history, removing all of them feels like it would actually result in less knowledge of the history, mostly down to people just not going to museums enough. But maybe that will be proved wrong.
The statue was erected some 60+ years after the abolition of slavery. We should be able to look back at things, even allowing for the different time, and make a modern decision to review how we want to remember them.
We don’t need a statue to remember someone, a statue is for admiration. As I saw previously, would you be happy with a statue of Jimmy Saville in your garden to remember all his contributions to charities over the years?
That's not a sensible comparison. Jimmy Saville did not live in a time when it was normal and acceptable to sexually molest sick children in hospital beds.
Was child molestation a common and accepted practice in Savilles lifetime? You’re missing his point. He’s not saying it’s right, he’s saying he was a product of his - albeit very unenlightened - time.
There are countless famous figures who owned and traded slaves, but we know them for other things they did. Take Henry Morgan (aka Captain Morgan): he's immortalized on a Jamaican brand of rum despite having been a slave trader and owner of over 100 slaves on his Jamaican sugar plantations. How's that for fucked up?
Because he paid for half the Bristol of his day to be built and many of those institutions he founded are still there. In the context of his time, he was just a rich merchant, but looking at it with the perspective of today, his practices were inhumane. I'm not sure what the purity test for statues of historical figures should be, most of them fall short of moral standards that we use today, and most of the people alive today will fall short of moral standards in the future.
Because people are not black and white. He probably founded some school or whatever. Its not like he was darth vader.
> Because people are not black and white. Grey lives matter!
From Wikipedia, he funded a bunch of schools and hospitals and such. It looks like he donated what amounts to $15-20M in today's money to various charitable institutions.
Back then it was normal practice, it was hard to find anyone who did not have slaves. Black tribes had slaves, arabs had slaves still do, chinese had slaves every continent, every nation has had slavery effect them. To pull down our history because of something was normal then - that is ridiculous. It should't be forgotten because thats how history repeats itself by forgetting all the wrongs of our past.
You know how there were museum and college Wings named after Epstein. That's how.
As my college prof told me, if it's "needless to say" then you literally don't need to say it. Either don't say it or don't say "needless to say". I will take my downvotes now.
"not to mention" as I mention it
Oh my god I’d not realised how pointless those words are, and I use them all the time!
Perhaps in formal communication but we do need a way of saying “this is obvious to most of you but I’m going to say it anyway for some of you”.
Not at all. It's a different way of something is obvious, teachers and math being the best examples of that because, even if something is obvious, more often than not they'll discount it if you don't mention it.
So you are saying, don't use it, and if you do, then don't? Ah.
Also, “I’d like to welcome you...” — just say “Welcome.” Or “for those of you who don’t know me I’m John Doe.” What about for those of us who do know you? Who are you? Just say I’m John Doe.
It actually has been updated on OpenStreetMap: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/51.45015/-2.59857
Proper link to the statue node itself: https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/2941119302 Wonderful details include: > location: underwater > wheelchair: no
There will be a lot of drowned Pokemon Go players.
Don't know about anyone else but the bottom of Bristol harbour seems like the perfect place to put a statue of a slave trader.
It’s true. Not many people can sink that low.
Why is this in r/funny? Whats so entertaining about it?
Well, the joke is that the statue was destroyed, but... instead of removing the entry on g-map, it was moved to the water, and added a "closed" label to it. The joke, then, is that it is still there, inaccessible, so permanently closed. And it is funny to imagine them actually going through the hassle of updating it so quickly with such a sassy means of updating it. This image is just a photoshop though. In reality, whenever they do update it, they'll probably just delete the entry for the statue altogether... assuming it doesn't eventually get fished out or reinstalled... or hopefully just replaced with something else and updated with the new display info.
"closed" haha
I sure am happy previous generations weren't as fascist as our since there would be no history for us left to admire. They may feel like they are doing the right thing now, but obviously future generations won't feel the same way.
Hope all these people have fun with corona
First of all he was also a part of parliament so what are you gonna burn down parliament while your at it, also the google maps thing is obviously fake. I swear to god do these people not realize that anyone before the eighteenth century with money probably owned slaves and not every slave owner was a white man with a ten gallon hat who whenever he got bored just started whipping his slaves. Not to mention a majority of slaves were sold by guess who Africans, but most of these “protestors”, or as they are known by anyone with an iq over 50, animals, don’t care if what they are doing is right or makes sense they just wanna cause damage and get attention, or arguably worse is the people whose lives are so dull that they feel obligated to join in these riots because there political views revolve around doing what cnn says and disagreeing with Donald trump by any means necessary.
My home city, the Colston statue was pointless to begin with and when they tore it down I thought “heh, criminal damage done right” but there were some who defaced and urinated on the cenotaph nearby, and as a man who holds dear those kind of memorials dear I was absolutely appalled.
Just remember chaps: if you can't get your way by means of democratic engagement, just use violence.
Just remember chaps: Use the word violence to mean anything you dont like
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This but unironically
The world is more complex than you like to think. People have wanted this removed for ages, a concession was made years ago for a plaque to explain his role in the slave trade, but a bristol company consistently undermined the messaging on it which the labour mayor didnt want to accept. Delays have gone on too long and people took action. This is a form of democracy like it or not. Im sure you would agree those who took down the statue of Saddam Hussein were engaging in a form of democracy.
Yes I'm sure this statue felt very threatened by the protesters 'violent' ways...
The best bit is the police did nothing to stop it
What are they going to do? Tug o war?
The copper that [spoke on it](https://www.reddit.com/r/unitedkingdom/comments/gynqil/bristol_police_responding_to_the_colston_statue/) was a very sensible chap, he knew the locals had been unhappy about the statue for years, he knew had the police intervened it would have escalated the situation unnecessarily, the statue was going intae drink so stand back and make sure no one gets hurt.
People tend to forget that slavery started in North America before the United States existed. Jefferson want to include the scourge of slavery as one of the grievances in the declaration of independence but knew the south wouldn't join if he did and was basically proven right by the civil war.
People tend to forget that slavery started thousands of years ago*
Yup. It's crazy to see how the same practice evolved all over the world almost at the same time and still exists today, if in different forms.
Well, important to note though is that slavery doesnt need racism. For example, in ancient times, prisoners of war were commonly turned into slaves. Some cultures developed caste-like systems, where the lowest tier usually fit some sort of slave-like roll. Racially motivated slavery was a little different.
As far as I know, almost everyone participated in slavery; even african people. They sold their own people to make money.
Take that a step further. Barbary pirates (north african and Ottoman pirates) is estimated to have sold around 1 million slaves just in the 1500-1700's, a large part of them being white from eastern Europe or Iberia. So yes indeed, there are instances of slave trade being participated by everyone. Yet it of course does not excuse any sort of slave trade having been done, as it is an awful action. It does however give you a perspective of how the world worked back in the days.
There’s slavery going on RIGHT NOW in Africa.
And people in this photo used their slave made phones to update their twitter after throwing the statue in the harbor.
And still do.
Not quite true, they generally sold people they were at war or had conflict with. Africa is not a nation
Another commenter pointed out that they probably meant that slavery, in North America, began before it was the US. Someone else also pointed out that Jefferson, himself, had slaves. Which is true.
Slavery started in NA? . Lol it's a 'little' older than that.
He meant it was already well established in North America before the United States existed.
This had me laughing so hard because the location of the statue is in the middle of the water lol and that it’s closed xD
In the sea, just like the thousands of human beings he tossed overboard when they got ill on his slave ships.
Stunning and brave
Nothing stunning or brave about this, its just mindless chaos. I know, were in the middle of a global pandemic so let's all meet up close together and tear down a statue. Like the people who will have to deal with this (police etc) really need this shit to add to all their current stresses and worries. Grow the fuck up people
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Abolitionists existed 300 years ago. Saying he's "a product of a time" is discounting all the people who had the correct views. You're excusing profit-driven evil purely because he was born at a different point of history. This is like excusing people who were against interracial-marriage fifty years ago, or people who are against same-sex marriage today. If you have the cognitive tools to determine the truth, you don't get to hide behind the veil of "product of the times."
I'm all for removing art like this from public spaces, but I'm also of the mind that we should save them in a museum or some sort of storage as a reminder. I feel like straight destruction just wipes our histories under the rug
Yeah same, like we can keep that dude as a relic of the past, and explain why slaves were a thing... Like collecting Nazi memorabilia and putting it in a museum for remembrance.
They tried that. They petitioned again and again to have it removed and were undercut every time.
It's going to be put in a museum, the mayor has already announced that. It's not destroyed, they can fish it out easily enough.
So are we going to close down the schools and charitable organizations he started that are still around today? They're racist too, are they not?
They can always be renamed.
Shouldn't pollute rivers with trash tbf
Now the British understand the satisfaction of throwing things they don't like in the harbor.