ol**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 23 hours ago, Curvykate said: You’re missing the point. By saying Black Lives Matter, no-one is saying that All lives don’t matter. They’re saying that Black Lives carry less importance and value in terms of police *** (as an example) and until they have equal value - All Lives Matter is an empty statement. I have to disagree with you. To me the current crop of protest is missing the point. In particular when those protests become violent.
ey**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 22 minutes ago, oldfellow said: I have to disagree with you. To me the current crop of protest is missing the point. In particular when those protests become violent. There's actually been relatively little ***. Plus, do you know why people resort to *** ? Because it's convenient to ignore non ***. And there's been so much throughout history, from revolutions to the suffragettes, the storming of the Bastille, Berlin Wall, the original civil rights protest, Stonewall. The riots were the voice of the unheard. they're necessary because people don't listen otherwise.
Wo**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 I went to BLM protest march on Saturday. There was no ***. There were people there that had actually been on the opposing side at the previous march. Every speaker there acknowledged that this movement is about injustice, no matter who it's directed at. Black, Asian, Muslim, homosexual..... BLM is giving everyone a voice. Us, the masses, the general public are saying enough now, this has to be talked about, acknowledged, and changed.
ol**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 17 minutes ago, eyemblacksheep said: There's actually been relatively little ***. Plus, do you know why people resort to *** ? Because it's convenient to ignore non ***. And there's been so much throughout history, from revolutions to the suffragettes, the storming of the Bastille, Berlin Wall, the original civil rights protest, Stonewall. The riots were the voice of the unheard. they're necessary because people don't listen otherwise. To the original thrust of this post. Violent protest actually inhibits freedom of speech. Any violent protest actually also devalues the message. People see the *** and miss the message.
Deleted Member Posted July 13, 2020 Author Posted July 13, 2020 40 minutes ago, oldfellow said: . In particular when those protests become violent. We must never lose sight of the fact that the *** we see is only what the media chooses. Nothing more, so unless we are actually present at said March/demonstration we can't really judge.
ey**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 10 minutes ago, oldfellow said: To the original thrust of this post. Violent protest actually inhibits freedom of speech. Any violent protest actually also devalues the message. People see the *** and miss the message. BLM have been protesting peacefully for over 5 years. Yet have managed more change and progress in the past 2 months since some of the protesting was not peaceful. It gets stuff done.
ey**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 like, the "taking the knee" was a non violent, peaceful protest. So the NFL banned it. That's sure a *** of freedom of speech - yet white folk didn't care - because it wasn't *their* freedom of speech.
ey**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 White protesters are walking the streets with assault rifles threatening people who tell them to wear a mask - yet black protesters are shot because the police 'thought' they had a gun.
Deleted Member Posted July 13, 2020 Author Posted July 13, 2020 22 minutes ago, oldfellow said: To the original thrust of this post. Violent protest actually inhibits freedom of speech. Any violent protest actually also devalues the message. People see the *** and miss the message. I think you’re choosing to miss the message. I’ve seen the same things you have on the news. I’m not spouting All Lives Matter. You are. You are, and when corrected then start on the supposed ***. Ignoring all of the peaceful protests.
ol**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 2 hours ago, Curvykate said: I think you’re choosing to miss the message. I’ve seen the same things you have on the news. I’m not spouting All Lives Matter. You are. You are, and when corrected then start on the supposed ***. Ignoring all of the peaceful protests. Not at all, I felt that the art installation last year in front of the statue of Colston in Bristol was far more powerful than the dumping of the statue into the docks.
ey**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 14 minutes ago, oldfellow said: Not at all, I felt that the art installation last year in front of the statue of Colston in Bristol was far more powerful than the dumping of the statue into the docks. Yet didn't really hit the news. Now everyone knows who he is and what he did and how he tried to whitewash his history. And it cause people to ask about the history in their own towns. Plus, pulling it down ended 30 years of peaceful protests to get it down that were continually ignored.
Wo**** Posted July 13, 2020 Posted July 13, 2020 5 minutes ago, eyemblacksheep said: Yet didn't really hit the news. Now everyone knows who he is and what he did and how he tried to whitewash his history. And it cause people to ask about the history in their own towns. Plus, pulling it down ended 30 years of peaceful protests to get it down that were continually ignored. If you're gonna mark history then it has to be the full history. All the facts. Otherwise it strays into 1984 territory.
Deleted Member Posted July 13, 2020 Author Posted July 13, 2020 2 hours ago, oldfellow said: Not at all, I felt that the art installation last year in front of the statue of Colston in Bristol was far more powerful than the dumping of the statue into the docks. Never heard of it. And you didn’t really answer my post nor Eyem’s points.
ol**** Posted July 14, 2020 Posted July 14, 2020 17 hours ago, Curvykate said: Never heard of it. And you didn’t really answer my post nor Eyem’s points. ...no but other already have. Firstly the thread is about Freedom of Speech so I fully agree people must be free to speak about the Black Lives Matter issue and express their opinion (or any other issue come to that). The problem is always going to be that not everybody will agree. The moment you start to tell somebody they hold the wrong opinion you damage the concept of freedom of speech. As for the statue question, well people in the 19th century erected a statue in memory of somebody who lived in the 18th century. We live in the 21st century and trying to resolve the moral standards of our ancestors using our 21st century moral compass is a very silly thing to do in my opinion. "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (Santayana) Hence the reference Bounty has made to 1984. The main character in the book has a job to constantly re-write or expunge history. He works in the Ministry of Truth. “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been re***ted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” Orwell provided this dystopian view back in 1949. We've wandered incredibly close to it in recent years. Most of us seem to have adopted to tools of control and oppression quite willingly in recent year, even paying out good *** to own them. But then that's just my view as you'll understand .
ey**** Posted July 14, 2020 Posted July 14, 2020 51 minutes ago, oldfellow said: , well people in the 19th century erected a statue in memory of somebody who lived in the 18th century. We live in the 21st century and trying to resolve the moral standards of our ancestors using our 21st century moral compass is a very silly thing to do in my opinion. I think if we use Colston as an example. He was a slave trader. When we say 21st century moral compass - it's a bit skewed. People in the 18th century knew it was bad and many people opposed it and fought against it. The Conservative and Whig governments frequently squabbled over it - the Whigs wanting to abolish and the Conservatives wishing to maintain it and passing more laws to make it difficult for the Whigs to abolish it (hence the really high payouts when slavery was abolished we only recently finished paying off) Of course Colston got very wealthy from the slave trade - and - well, he's not the first person to have more *** than he can spend and use a percentage of it to charity. It's something we see now a days when someone worth millions will make a seemingly sizeable donation that is good - but is tiny in line with their wealth. And on one hand it's great because a cause gets a well needed boost - but it's the kind of good will that helps make people sleep whilst also ***ting someone as charitable. So when it comes to the 19th century someone isn't viewed for how they made their *** (it can be even dismissed as "well it was a different era") and instead on how they chose to spend a small percentage of that wealth. Now. You speak of rewriting history but that is EXACTLY what was done. There was no mention on the statue or in a lot of local history about his role in the slave trade. It was erased and he was just presented as being a "generous businessman" so of course had a statue, streets named after him, schools, so on - and for the wrong reasons. So - now - the statue got fished out the river. It suffered no real damage. It's going into a museum where the good AND bad about him will be highlighted. If anything - history is being preserved, rather than whitewashed. The books were ALREADY rewritten. They're now being restored.
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