My partner and I spent about 24 hours on-and-off debating whether or not to attend the BLM protest on College Green in the midst of a badly-handled pandemic. Given that we are sharing a house, one of us going still exposes the other to risk, so we had to compromise. We eventually decided to attend to the extent that we could without being caught in a throng of people. This meant staying near the statue of Queen Victoria for the duration of the speakers, then leaving before being caught in the march. I’m aware that this may only have felt like a choice for us because we are white. I don’t know what the right answer was here, if there was one at all.
Masks were worn by the majority of people (although not all police, disappointingly) and distancing was observed to some extent (although plenty of people were ignoring it, which rather negates the efforts made by the rest of us). Given where we were, I learned two things:
- You can’t hear anything back there. I could hear that people were speaking, but not what they were saying. I will have to rely on other people’s videos in order to find out what was said. I turned up to be counted, so I clapped when others clapped, and knelt when others knelt.
- Kneeling for any length of time on flagstones is pretty uncomfortable. I assume this was a tribute to the protests of Colin Kaepernick, but given that I couldn’t hear anything, I don’t know for certain. This had a solemn, almost funereal feel to it.
The atmosphere was calm, respectful and peaceful..at this point.
Downfall of a slaver
After we had left, we saw footage of the statue of Edward Colston being toppled and rolled in to the floating harbour next to Pero’s Bridge (named for the slave Pero Jones).
Just last Friday, I was having a semi-drunk but fairly nuanced discussion in the Zoom Arms about the merits of changing the name of Colston Hall. I tend to be gun-shy about the destruction of ugly parts of our history – I worry that it makes denial and revisionism too easy. But nuance followed Colston into the river today. The debate having been resolved by an act of direct democracy, I don’t think I feel the slightest bit bad about it. As pointed out by many twitter users, it’s been a teachable moment. Here is what I have learned:
Edward Colston was an MP, a philanthropist, and sold somewhere in the region of 80,000 human beings for profit. An estimated 20% of them died en route. “Philanthropy” literally means “the love of humankind”, by the way.
Acknowledging the whole man would have lent some weight to the argument for keeping his statue where it was, but I also learned that the original plaque neglected to mention his involvement in the slave trade (which had been banned for almost 90 years in the UK by the time the statue was erected in 1895). This fairly transparent attempt to rehabilitate his reputation by omission reminds me of a joke.
It’s hardly ancient history, either. When the slave trade was abolished, slave owners whose former “property” was now walking around free were compensated for their “loss” to the tune of 20 millions pounds. Paying rich people to do the right thing – plus ca change. The British public bought the freedom of slaves with a loan which Bristolians (amongst others) were still paying back in 2015.
Understandably, there has been a long-running campaign (and some less formal action) to see the historical perspective corrected with a second plaque. Which, less understandably, encountered pushback. Indeed, a Tory councillor seems here to be advocating theft of the second plaque. I have to question why one would attempt to mask a person’s connection to the slave trade. I can’t think of a good reason.
So it’s slightly more understandable that people would decide to cut through the red tape on this issue, whether opportunistically or planned.
Currently, I don’t see this as an erasure of history. Today has been an explosion of history. This act was a message, a blow in the battle for Bristol’s soul, and the latest instalment in a story that is still being written.
Fool Rushing In 