lol statue goes BLBLBLBL

June 7, 2020 10:00 AM

Pero's Bridge is a pedestrian footbridge that spans Bristol's floating harbour, and was named in honour of Pero Jones, who came was forced to live in Bristol as the slave of John Pinney. On June 7, 2020 at 4:03pm BST, a statue of Edward Colston, a Bristolian slave trader commemorated by many of the city's institutions was dropped into the harbour off Bordeaux Quay at the foot of Pero's Bridge, 80 minutes after having been toppled from a podium outside The Hippodrome theatre.
posted by ambrosen (92 comments total)

BLMBLMBLMBLM
posted by Silvery Fish at 10:13 AM on June 7, 2020 [12 favorites]

SPLOSHITY BYE YOU DEAD RACIST is the best possible reaction.
posted by Etrigan at 10:16 AM on June 7, 2020 [26 favorites]

We could fill up the harbors.
posted by praemunire at 10:24 AM on June 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

Gotta love all the replies lamenting “vandalism” or being all like “WHYYYY DIDNT THEY START A PETITION IF THEY WANTED IT REMOVED????”
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:27 AM on June 7, 2020 [9 favorites]

The statue was put up in 1895, 174 years after Colston’s death. The 1890s were a decade of imperial anxiety, self-doubt and pessimism, not confidence. I think its creation and its destruction may, paradoxically, express the same idea: the end of empire.

(And good riddance to bad rubbish, btw.)
posted by acb at 10:29 AM on June 7, 2020 [18 favorites]

not floaty mcfloatface thats 4 sure
posted by lalochezia at 10:30 AM on June 7, 2020 [16 favorites]

The question is: will the authorities attempt to restore the statue, and if so, how much resistance will they come up against. Would unions be both in a position and inclined to ban any restoration works on this statue.

I imagine much of public opinion in Bristol (a rather alternative, left-leaning town, though gentrifying) would be opposed to restoring the statue, though if Johnson is persuing Trumpian culture-war politics, sending in workmen to reerect it under guard by armed riot police would be a pretty massive dead cat and/or something to rally the gammon base with. A bit like Proud Boys/Promise Keepers rallying in Portland (another left-leaning town built on foundations of white supremacy).
posted by acb at 10:33 AM on June 7, 2020

Hi 5. I was coming here to post this.
Petition to remove the statue for years, grapevine whispered plans were stalled because the council couldn't decide what to do with it after ...

I'm thrilled at this. Colston Hall, Colston Street, Colston Tower, Colston School ... name changes are in order guys

@_jackGrey and there was rejoicing in the land.

The Guardian, BLM protesters topple statue of Bristol slave trader Edward Colston
posted by glasseyes at 10:34 AM on June 7, 2020 [15 favorites]

Don’t care how much good was done with philanthropy, if you made the money doing vile, evil things, profiting off of the death and systematic institutionalized enslavement of human beings, you DO NOT deserve to be remembered, you DO NOT deserve to be honored, and “but I helped a lot of people with my money in the end” is NOT ENOUGH to be forgiven.

You get one shot at life on this planet. Some mistakes can be allowed, some acts can be overcome with generosity, but “slave trader” ain’t one of them. Good fucking riddance, and remember everyone, this is a good start but there are a lot more monuments to inhumanity waiting their turn.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:59 AM on June 7, 2020 [34 favorites]

There's the usual twitter noise about how wrong this was, which frankly tingles all my senses with the disingenuousness of it's agenda, as does nearly all online commentary these days. Newspaper comment sections, badly-moderated forums, they give me a dizzy feeling of disorientation due to the fizzing and fizzling subtexts and underhand origins of such.

Jimmy Savile is trending on twitter atm and I think it's due to this response to someone pointing out Colston's rep as a philanthropist: Hi martin, am I alright building a statue of jimmy saville in your front garden? For his charity work obviously not his paedophilia
posted by glasseyes at 11:15 AM on June 7, 2020 [21 favorites]

Opponents of statue removal are arguing in bad faith. "Oh history, heritage, add a plaque, make a committee!"

Let's be honest, the reason they aren't demanding these statues be removed as fast as Jimmy Savile's is because they think slavery wasn't that bad.
posted by adrianhon at 11:18 AM on June 7, 2020 [13 favorites]

“He tripped and fell. We all saw it.”
posted by Morfil Ffyrnig at 11:24 AM on June 7, 2020 [54 favorites]

Non-archaeologists: STATUES ARE OLD & SACRED!

Archaeologists: here is my funding proposal for capturing oral testimony of a symbolic depositional event, btw if we leave it down there will it grow cool encrustations and enter a new object life phase by agency/natural processes?

- @alixmortimer
posted by Gin and Broadband at 11:29 AM on June 7, 2020 [11 favorites]

Ah, my intermittently beloved home town. Stick a plaque up by the dockside where he went in, leave him there long enough to start looking really gnarly, then pull him out and put him in a museum about Bristol’s history with the slave trade (which the city has been curiously reluctant to build, but if not now....)
posted by inire at 11:43 AM on June 7, 2020 [13 favorites]

This statue has been a focus of pain for so long, and it was good to see it finally gone, the protest was peaceful and forceful but I am still in disbelief that the moment was now.

Previously activists have attached a plaque to it to explain the history behind the Colston name but these have been removed every time and damage repaired. Now finally the city has been able to speak and be heard in a way that can't be easily reversed.

The Society of Merchant Venturers who control much of the slave trade legacy wealth of the city and who fund schools and charities in Colston's name need to take a long hard look at his fate today. I doubt they will though, given their 700 year history of white only membership.
posted by RandomInconsistencies at 12:01 PM on June 7, 2020 [11 favorites]

Colston paid for a lot of things in Bristol - well he could afford to, naturally - and the Merchant Venturers* historically have had a very strong grip on the city's cultural and political life. As with other British port cities slavery is totally entwined with the physical and political structure, the gardens, museums, streets and monuments of the city. For as long as I've been in Bristol there have been protests about that statue and about the kind of reflex tendency to use the name Colston as a label of prestige. That statue, it was only put up about 100 years ago, how did it get a Grade II listing that quick? as though we're not already drowning in mediocre Victoriana.

Colston Hall, soon to be renamed. Colston Tower, built in 1972, why name it that? Colston School. Separately, Colston Girls School, founded much later but with a similar endowment.

One of the historic sites of Bristol is the Georgian House, owned by the Pinney Family (slavers and plantation owners) whose archives are kept by the museums service. In the 40 years I've been here there has been SO MUCH protest, uncovering, research, questions about this legacy, but the names and the valourisation have remained, untouchable until ... maybe the past 5 or 10 years? The naming of Pero's bridge is an indication that attitudes have been shifting. Several local politicians have supported the change. I've seen many (funded even) art installations/interventions with this theme over the past 10 or so years. Last year or the year before the statue that came down today had a year-long installation at its base representing the notorious inner plan of a slave ship. An installation that long lasting and properly maintained over the time period obviously had City Council backing if not funding.

But it's been slow, and the attitudes very entrenched, very structurally self-perpetuating. I am so proud of Bristol people today! And so massively proud of the people I know who marched. Well done guys.

* The Society of Merchant Venturers. Notice the careful language of this article, which yet in stating the history cannot conceal the character of the enterprise: In 1694, the Merchant Venturers Society petitioned parliament against the monopoly held by the Royal African Company in the slave trade, leading to the ending of this monopoly in 1698.[5]
posted by glasseyes at 12:02 PM on June 7, 2020 [16 favorites]

If the council had put it in a museum years ago (I mean, there is a slavery museum in Bristol!) maybe as part of a special collection on the post-abolition glorification and whitewashing of slave traders in the 19th century, then this wouldn't have happened.
posted by atrazine at 12:05 PM on June 7, 2020 [6 favorites]

if we leave it down there will it grow cool encrustations and enter a new object life phase by agency/natural processes?

The removal has drawn praise from the barnacle community.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:16 PM on June 7, 2020 [6 favorites]

Is there a slavery museum? I thought there was just a side gallery in the Maritime Museum, which museum is now closed. And it took a great many years and a lot of protest pointing out some obvious stuff about what that maritime heritage consisted of before that small concession. And now I think upstairs at MShed there is another small gallery where slavery is mentioned.

We also had an Empire & Commonwealth Museum for a while and well I remember the protests about that bit of naming genius, before it finally closed.

Has anyone mentioned Banksy yet? This is yesterday's news but I'm proud of Banksy too today.
posted by glasseyes at 12:24 PM on June 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

It is an actual museum for sure, not just a gallery. I’ve been a few times as I grew up nearby. As far as these things go in the U.K., it’s pretty good.
posted by adrianhon at 12:27 PM on June 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I always like to ask the "oh but we must preserve history" crowd about whether it was good to tear down the statues of Lenin after the collapse of the USSR, or Saddam Hussein's statue, etc.
posted by i_am_joe's_spleen at 12:47 PM on June 7, 2020 [7 favorites]

Where's it to, adrianhon? Im curious now
posted by glasseyes at 12:49 PM on June 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

It’s the International Slavery Museum, part of National Museums Liverpool, if that’s what you mean? It’s quite well done and I learned a few things myself. Apt that it’s in Liverpool given the city’s involvement in the slave trade.
posted by adrianhon at 1:00 PM on June 7, 2020 [4 favorites]

There is a small but decent section in M Shed upstairs but nothing else in the city as far as I remember.
posted by RandomInconsistencies at 1:03 PM on June 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

IIRC, there's a field of stone/bronze/concrete Lenins and Stalins somewhere in an industrial district in Lithuania or Latvia. Perhaps Britain could do with one of those of noble slaveholders of yore.
posted by acb at 1:03 PM on June 7, 2020

There's still the statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford. That one next, please.
posted by Cardinal Fang at 1:16 PM on June 7, 2020 [12 favorites]

Edward Colston's statue has already been relocated on Google Maps

Also, several people have pointed out that many, many people are learning about Colston from this event, so there’s your “educational” crowd sorted.
posted by Etrigan at 1:21 PM on June 7, 2020 [35 favorites]

The statue took its time in accomplishing its mission, but eventually it got there.
posted by acb at 1:24 PM on June 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

Thanks adrianon. atrazine mentioned Bristol so I was wondering, cheers. There's been a lot of hard-won anti-racist activism over the years in Liverpool.
posted by glasseyes at 1:43 PM on June 7, 2020

IIRC, there's a field of stone/bronze/concrete Lenins and Stalins somewhere in an industrial district in Lithuania or Latvia. Perhaps Britain could do with one of those of noble slaveholders of yore.

FYI. Statues of damned confederate traitors, too? They'd do well somewhere in an industrial district in Lithuania or Latvia.
posted by mikelieman at 1:51 PM on June 7, 2020 [5 favorites]

The problem with doing this is that hazardous materials really don't belong in the ocean. If I had my way, all of these cognitohazards would be sent to Hanford, diluted by being mixed with nuclear waste, vitrified, and buried for the next million years.
posted by GSV The Structure of Our Preferred Counterfactuals at 2:03 PM on June 7, 2020 [2 favorites]

"brexit will unleash free british people's iconoclastic nature"

not actually a boris johnson quote but it should be
posted by lalochezia at 2:04 PM on June 7, 2020

IIRC, there's a field of stone/bronze/concrete Lenins and Stalins somewhere in an industrial district in Lithuania or Latvia

Lithuania.
posted by sideshow at 2:19 PM on June 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

GSV - With the site marked with an appropriate plaque, of course:

“This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.”
posted by Fully Completely at 2:28 PM on June 7, 2020 [15 favorites]

Although I always mis-remember that quote as being “No highly esteemed dead are commemorated here”. The deed of burying that scrap metal would be pretty great.
posted by Fully Completely at 2:31 PM on June 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

There's still the statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford. That one next, please.

Activists have been working on that one for a while. Maybe this time it will take.
posted by praemunire at 2:31 PM on June 7, 2020

Oh well done Bristol! It's well past time the city was de-Colstonised*. I suppose the council will eventually hoick it up out of the water, and hide it in a shed somewhere, but it would be a pity if they didn't melt it down and make something useful with the bronze.

*I know someone who went to Colston Girl's School in the 90s and she told me that they refused to have Phillipa Gregory (an old girl of the school) as a guest speaker there because one of her novels, A Respectable Trade, portrayed Bristol's slave trade in a bad light and it would be inappropriate.
posted by Fuchsoid at 3:06 PM on June 7, 2020 [13 favorites]

Who has authority over whether any attempt is made to restore it? Could Westminster intervene and decide that they're throwing money at bringing it back up, repairing it and putting it back on the pedestal, Because Fuck You That's Why?
posted by acb at 3:19 PM on June 7, 2020

they refused to have Phillipa Gregory (an old girl of the school) as a guest speaker there because one of her novels, A Respectable Trade, portrayed Bristol's slave trade in a bad light and it would be inappropriate.

Have they actually been in touch with the remaining heirs of Colston and asked if they're offended by their noble ancestor's line of work being criticised? (Spoiler: there's only one and he isn't)
posted by acb at 3:24 PM on June 7, 2020 [10 favorites]

There's still the statue of Cecil Rhodes in Oxford. That one next, please.

Let's not forget Churchill and Thatcher as well. So many statues to, erm, relocate.
posted by Ouverture at 4:16 PM on June 7, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm an archaeologist and approve of this. The past only exists in the present, a truism which applies to all pasts in the past, as well. Taking down statues is history, just as much as putting them up is, perhaps moreso. The historical fact of the erection of the statue is in no way denied by this act, in fact it is enhanced by as someone put it, its entrance into a new life phase.

I like this twitter comment and the replies, from Classicist Dr Penny Goodman
@pjgoodman: Hi from this head of Augustus, hacked off a statue in Egypt soon after its conquest, carried away by raiders from Kush and buried under the steps of their temple so those entering would 'tread' on it. Their act ADDS to our historical understanding of Augustus. #BlackLivesMatter

And this thread from a former Inspector of Monuments.

Applying this principle globally can be challenging of course - the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in a revolutionary statement of cleansing history, for example (I'm not going to die on this hill, just an example which comes to mind that raises conflicting emotions, e.g. this discussion page 40, and interestingly, there has been a reinvention of these in projected 3-D in their original niches).
posted by Rumple at 4:31 PM on June 7, 2020 [3 favorites]

Come on, Oxford: where we're going, we don't need Rhodes!
posted by rum-soaked space hobo at 4:57 PM on June 7, 2020 [32 favorites]

Twitter thread on the proposed plaque for the statue.
posted by tavegyl at 5:06 PM on June 7, 2020

"Most Bristol take so far: 'They’re saying we should’ve gone through the proper channels to get im down. Well we tried that for years and were ignored, so now e’s in the proper channel.'"

(Exchange first spotted here.)
posted by swerve at 6:52 PM on June 7, 2020 [30 favorites]

Have they actually been in touch with the remaining heirs of Colston and asked if they're offended by their noble ancestor's line of work being criticised? (Spoiler: there's only one and he isn't)

acb: he isn’t an heir & was making it up.
posted by pharm at 12:47 AM on June 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

Take it out of the water each June so that it can be dragged through the streets and thrown back in every year, as part of a festival. If people want to see the statue and "learn" from it it they can do so during the parade.
posted by BinaryApe at 12:47 AM on June 8, 2020 [16 favorites]

Let's not forget Churchill and Thatcher as well. So many statues to, erm, relocate.

Thatcher was the democratically elected prime minister of this country, not a slave trader. Don't you think that this trivialises the matter?
posted by atrazine at 12:52 AM on June 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

Let's not forget Churchill and Thatcher as well. So many statues to, erm, relocate

Statues of Thatcher have not been especially popular. One proposed for a site in Westminster was rejected and fetched up in Grantham, her birthplace. As far as I know, it hasn't been erected there yet, because of fears of vandalism. Putting it on a very high plinth or in the middle of a pond have been suggested. There are two others, one in the House of Commons, and one in the London Guildhall. The marble one at the Guildhall was decapitated shortly after installation and replaced in bronze; the repaired original is now in a back corridor somewhere in the building.
posted by Fuchsoid at 1:25 AM on June 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

The statue of Rhodes is still in place because weathly college alumni threatened to withhold £100millions in donations if they took it down. I don’t know whether this is the case for Oriel specifically, but it’s certainly the case for a number of the smaller Oxford colleges that they are dependent on annual donations simply to keep the lights on. Those donations dried up when the Rhodes Must Fall campaign looked like they were going to be successful in Oxford: wealthy alumni were outraged.

As a result, this wasn’t the simple "just do it, what’s the problem?" action that it looked like from the outside: it was going to result in an immediate financial crisis for some of the colleges, probably including their own & hence Oriel was extremely reluctant to remove it.

(The alumni argument was a simple one in emotional terms: if you can do this to Rhodes, what is to say you won’t do exactly the same to us in the future? In which case, why should we donate at all if this is how you treat past donors?

You or I might say: well, maybe don’t go around fulminating about the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race & then hopefully everything will be OK? Apparently this isn’t a convincing argument.)

I’d hope that attitudes might have shifted as a consequence of current events, but have no idea what the current situation is.
posted by pharm at 1:39 AM on June 8, 2020 [4 favorites]

It seems a shame that the expensive bronze these statues are made from can't be recycled into something else, maybe with a tiny plaque attached explaining where the metal came from, like the Achilles statue in Hyde Park, made from guns captured in the Peninsular War, and incidentally the first large male nude statue in London (and paid for, perhaps coincidentally, by a subscription taken up from the ladies of Britain). When the Parliamentary government took down the statue of Charles I at Charing Cross, after the Civil War, they sold it to a metalsmith, who pretended to have melted it down, but actually hid it until Charles II's restoration. This didn't prevent him from selling the "original" head several times over to souvenir hunters before then. Come to think of it, there were supposed to be several versions of the original head from the statue on Nelson's Pillar in Dublin being offered for sale after the IRA blew it up in 1966

Marble and bronze - not nearly as permanent as they seem..
posted by Fuchsoid at 1:56 AM on June 8, 2020

For the curious, Financial Statements of the Oxford Colleges. This is obviously a complicated subject with a lot of variance between colleges, but as an example, Oriel received £1.9m in donations and legacies in 2018, and £3m in 2017. This can be compared with ~£5.5m income from tuition fees and the like, and £4m from investment income and trading activities.

It'd be a huge problem if all those donations evaporated overnight in response to a statue being removed, but in reality, not all of those donations would go because not all the donors are racists. So, could Oriel make up the shortfall? I think they could, if they cared enough – contact the alumni, the vast majority of whom do not donate, explain the situation ("hey, we're taking down this statue because it's racist, can you chip in some cash?") and I think they'd be OK.

Yeah, it's fine for me to say this, I'm not running the college. But especially now, I think a lot of alumni would respond pretty well to such a fundraising drive.
posted by adrianhon at 2:01 AM on June 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yeah, it's fine for me to say this, I'm not running the college. But especially now, I think a lot of alumni would respond pretty well to such a fundraising drive.

I mean, you’d hope so wouldn’t you? But these are the same alumni that were telling the college to get knotted four years ago.

Four years ago, if you were faced with having to sack 15% of the staff in your organisation (picking a number based on your income figures & the college losing, say, 2/3 of their annual donations. I have no idea what the actual number was.), or keep a statue of Cecil Rhodes, what would you do? It would be very easy to convince yourself that keeping the statue was the lesser of the two evils, which is exactly what the college did.

I hope they’ll be able to act differently today.
posted by pharm at 3:00 AM on June 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, our very own garius on Spencer Perceval, James Stephen and the British campaign against slavery (read the linked Twitter thread from 2019).
posted by Major Clanger at 3:11 AM on June 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Scrap bronze is about £3k/tonne and there are a shitload of unemployed divers right now.

I wouldn't worry about the council raising it.
posted by automatronic at 3:17 AM on June 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

Pharm: Yup, I can see their thinking. My hope/guess is that inevitably increased pressure from students, and changing attitudes among some alumni, will alter that cost/benefit calculus so that the disruption and cost involved in keeping the statue may outweigh the lost donations – especially if you can raise more donations from non-racists.
posted by adrianhon at 3:18 AM on June 8, 2020 [1 favorite]

From today: "Rhodes, You’re Next".
posted by pharm at 4:20 AM on June 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

Here's a question from February about decolstonising Bristol to Marvin Rees, directly elected Mayor of Bristol.

Question: Do you think it’s important to get rid of the ’Colston’ names and some of the other slave traders’ names in Bristol?
Marvin Rees: So, I’ll give you a frank personal thing on that; when I first came in, myself and a number of a number of black people in the creative sector said that the best thing to do is to keep that debate away from me; I’m the first mayor of African heritage in Europe, and then someone came and asked me in cabinet, actually a black person asked me in cabinet, and I reprimanded them them for it because I said: “you know this is loaded”, right? I don’t have the freedom to talk about these issues in the way that some of the other people do.

Cleo Lake, Lord Mayor of Bristol (a figurehead position rather than Mayor, which is executive) in 2018 did take the portrait of Colston down during her lord mayoralty in 2018.

But there are so many people who hate more about the status quo than any distaste they might find for these people that it's a huge uphill struggle.
posted by ambrosen at 5:49 AM on June 8, 2020

Take it out of the water each June so that it can be dragged through the streets and thrown back in every year, as part of a festival. If people want to see the statue and "learn" from it it they can do so during the parade.

You could put some little wheels on it, decorate it with flowers as it's pulled through, write traditional songs and in 100 years anthropologists will write papers on this obscure ceremony.
posted by emjaybee at 6:34 AM on June 8, 2020 [7 favorites]

The statue tripped and fell into the river, and had pre-existing conditions, anyway.
posted by Xiphias Gladius at 8:32 AM on June 8, 2020 [6 favorites]

Statues aren’t about history they are about adoration. This man was not great, he was a slave trader and a murderer. Historian @DavidOlusoga brilliantly explains why BLM protestors were right.
The toppling of Edward Colston's statue is not an attack on history. It is history.
Opposition leader Starmer has gone Tory lite saying pulling down the Statue was was “totally wrong”.
I really thought he had more balls than that.
posted by adamvasco at 8:58 AM on June 8, 2020 [6 favorites]

A Labour leader can’t be seen to approve property destruction or breaking the law if they want the party to take power via the ballot box: they have to seem safe enough to get those centrist votes if they want to take power in the UK.

"It was wrong to pull it over, but it ought to have been removed already & I can understand the protestor’s anger" seems like the right line for a Labour party leader to take to me: Walk your audience up to the line & ask them to empathise with the people who have done the thing.
posted by pharm at 9:21 AM on June 8, 2020 [6 favorites]

Opposition leader Starmer has gone Tory lite saying pulling down the Statue was was “totally wrong”.
I really thought he had more balls than that.

13% of British people approved of how the statue was removed in YouGov polling released today. How many of those 13% do you think live in Labour marginals and are "maybe" Labour voters?

(40% approved of removal but not method, 33% disapprove of removal)

I have to admit that 13% surprised me, I would have thought much higher but you know... filter bubbles.

I get wanting more from political leaders than winning elections but his first job has to be to win an election.
posted by atrazine at 9:49 AM on June 8, 2020 [6 favorites]

Good piece by Matthew Sweet:

It was erected over 170 years after his death, thanks to the efforts of James Arrowsmith, a Bristol businessman and Colston superfan whose fundraising campaign didn’t reach its £1,000 target even after the statue was unveiled in November 1895. (Having failed to guilt-trip Bristol’s inhabitants into coughing up, Arrowsmith seems to have stumped up the last £150 himself.) .....

.... So it would be wrong, I think, to read the Colston statue as an embodiment of civic or imperial confidence. Better, perhaps, to see it like one of those Porsches bought by men in the thick of a midlife crisis — a gleaming expression of self-doubt and anxiety. ......

.... The Victorians used American racism as a way to feel good about themselves. So do we. It’s a habit that dissuades us from genuine moral introspection. Another solid fixture we might hurl into the water.

posted by Rumple at 3:06 PM on June 8, 2020 [5 favorites]

One suggestion I read was to build a statue of people tearing down the old statue, which seems promising.
posted by Rainbo Vagrant at 5:40 PM on June 8, 2020 [2 favorites]

@PaulSeesequasis
Mistaseni Rock (Buffalo Child Stone): Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration blowing it up with TNT. December, 1966. This is what erasing history is, not throwing a slaver statue in the river.
posted by Rumple at 5:47 PM on June 8, 2020 [3 favorites]

As a cultural heritage professional (working in built heritage) I absolutely endorse this as a practice. On its face, it's obviously a good thing for this specific memorial to a bad person to get dropped, but it's also a geographic community showing a keen appreciation for its own heritage and memory in its own right. That's great! The people of Bristol are paying attention to what it means to be part of Bristol, and what Bristol means to the rest of the UK, and the rest of the world. These things aren't static, we are constantly reevaluating the ways we remember and memorialise the past, even if we don't do it as a deliberate process, and it's particularly so with indirect memorials—statues like this that were put up at a remove from the events as part of memorialisation, rather than being direct evidence of an event or process. Everyone knows about the process of 'listing' things but almost all heritage processes also have formal means to 'de-list' items and places that lose their significance or integrity, or where those change. As others are saying, this is just as much about ridding a place of the history of the 1890s as it is of the seventeenth and eighteenth century.

From a general point of view, do you know how hard it is to get people to care about memorialisation, about built cultural heritage, about conservation and heritage-sensitive processes of change? How many hours are, and how much money is, put into consultation processes and obtaining input and stakeholder management, but after which it's still the job of a professional to decide what isn't and isn't 'heritage'? So many, and so frustratingly so, that when someone like me sees a crowd of people deciding yes that's heritage and we have a firm view about it, even if that view is an assessment and status-revocation of 'heritage' to 'litter', you've got to approve.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 11:29 PM on June 8, 2020 [8 favorites]

PROTESTORS' CAMERAS REPORTEDLY OFF AT TIME THAT STATUE TRIPPED, FELL

(after this very funny Twitter thread by Paul Musgrave)
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:59 AM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

Thatcher was the democratically elected prime minister of this country, not a slave trader. Don't you think that this trivialises the matter?

No. It's not a competition for the most/worst crimes against humanity.
posted by Acid Communist at 3:02 AM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

Thatcher was the democratically elected prime minister of this country, not a slave trader. Don't you think that this trivialises the matter?

No, the fact that she was a democratically elected prime minister it makes it even more damning.

Just like a slave trader, her legacy has stolen decades of life from millions of people, with the worst of it experienced by people of color.
posted by Ouverture at 6:59 AM on June 9, 2020 [6 favorites]

Thatcher was the democratically elected prime minister of this country, not a slave trader. Don't you think that this trivialises the matter?

Everything Edward Colston did in his life was legal. He was, in his time, the very picture of respectability. That doesn't mean jack nor shit.
posted by Etrigan at 7:05 AM on June 9, 2020 [8 favorites]

I'm popping back in the thread to say, this is the best thing that's happened all year. And now Sadiq Khan has ordered a review of monuments with links to slavers and slavery in London. It's been like watching the Berlin wall come down. I wish I could get down there and take selfies at the plinth with everyone else! but I'm not going on the bus in covid times.

Bristol Evening Post reported the police have identified 17 people so far involved in tearing down the statue and they're waiting for them to come forward - we are waiting to see what will happen to them I suppose. But the photos and the videos are so very resonant and redolent of other recent popular acts of freedom that punitive action against those people would be just about the most politically cack-handed thing the authorities could come up with.

And if only the Merchant Venturers had been less intransigent they might still have had their nasty statue up there.
posted by glasseyes at 9:59 AM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

adamvasco thanks for posting David Olushoga's article, it's fantastic is it not?

And because the fact the Colston statue was grade II listed continues to puzzle, unintentional bathos not really being a sign of unusual talent - a note on these heroically posed Victorian statues. They tend to be so unconsciously camp. Which I don't think their creators were aiming for. Such is the prestige adhering to them it's hard to notice unless someone like Banksy gets his hands on one of them. (NSFW? I don't think that figure was a bishop when I saw it because I remember more of a helmet/mask/ball gag type thing)
posted by glasseyes at 10:29 AM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

I found some info on the anti-slavery installation mentioned above which was in place around the Colston statue for about a year: A hundred human figures placed in front of Colston statue in the City Centre. The photos don't show it very well but walking round the area and catching sight of it, it was unmistakably based on the Brookes.
posted by glasseyes at 10:57 AM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

Apparently some people are cleverly making the point that Mohammed owned slaves so how would you like it if statues of him were taken down too eh?

For some they thought this mooted iconoclasm would result in shocked mea culpas from Britain's Muslim community, rather than the enthusiastic agreement it actually received.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:36 PM on June 9, 2020 [5 favorites]

It appears my thoughts on the scrap value are shared by the local heavily tattooed plonker demographic.

Group of men try to get Edward Colston's statue out of Bristol Harbour with a pole (Bristol Post)

The pictures are priceless, but alas these lads were under-equipped.

I would not be surprised if it turned out some enterprising divers have already shifted it, under cover of darkness, to a different spot for later removal.
posted by automatronic at 3:38 PM on June 9, 2020 [2 favorites]

Christopher Columbus statue in Virginia taken down, burned, and rolled into a lake.

Authorities in Brussels take down statue of King Leopold II, responsible for deaths of millions of Congolese.
posted by Rumple at 7:24 PM on June 9, 2020 [5 favorites]

With respect to the grade II listing: though the UK system is different to my country's, people who drew up heritage lists and arrange for things to be protected, particularly in the pre-1990s, were very fond of what I call recursive significance—describing something as significant because of its representation as something significant. It's why you get statements of significance on lists that read 'X building is significant because it represents the characteristics of X', with the actual meaning or status of X simply assumed as worthy (and the person working with the listing sheet decades later groans). If you think it's weird that mediocre Victoriana and Edwardiana should be protected in Bristol, wait until you see it fetishised in Australia...

More to the point these instances are great teaching moments about exactly what heritage is: sometimes things and places retain significance because societies continue to value them; sometimes significance disappears because we don't; and sometimes, as in Colston's case, genuine significance doesn't disappear but alters, because of shifts in power or interpretation. The twentieth century was full of citizens gleefully tearing down statues they laid wreaths at not long before. Europeans know the process very well—how many streets used to be Karl Marx Platz or Hitlerstrasse or Stalinallee?—Colston's statue is arguably more significant now as an underwater statue, having been launched to worldwide fame, than he ever was as a street fixture and a municipal point of interest.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:14 PM on June 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

If they have to replace it with some other art I'd like to see statues of a group of Bristoleans at the water's edge, engaged in the act of pushing something over. That's something which could really represent the city:not a wealthy slave trader but a group of people engaged in civil protest.
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:13 PM on June 9, 2020 [1 favorite]

Apparently some people are cleverly making the point that Mohammed owned slaves so how would you like it if statues of him were taken down too eh?

Islam is of course famously keen on statues and images of Mohammed and other humans. Seriously, was this the best example they could think of.

I am sort of enjoying the cognitive dissonance people have of "if we have to take statues down just because they were slavers, genocidaires, or otherwise nasty people we won't have any statues left" which should really trigger some pretty deep thinking about history rather than a reflexive defense of statues!

It would be nice if Vienna would take down its enormous statue of Karl Lueger but I'm not holding my breath.
posted by atrazine at 1:06 AM on June 10, 2020 [5 favorites]

Indeedy, Fiasco.

But dammit its a bad idea to go plonking about in that water because of Weils disease. There's rat traps all along the back of the buildings at Harbourside and rat holes all along the water level. Sometimes kids try to swim in the docks, you have to properly scare them off with consequences because like most of the uk once the sun comes out people strip and make for the nearest body of public water
posted by glasseyes at 1:30 AM on June 10, 2020

Bristol Evening Post reported the police have identified 17 people so far involved in tearing down the statue and they're waiting for them to come forward - we are waiting to see what will happen to them I suppose

Would there be a legal basis for the Home Office to prosecute them for “terrorism”? Because if so, I wouldn't put it past them.
posted by acb at 3:48 AM on June 10, 2020

No. By which I mean that although you could just about shoehorn this within the technical definition of terrorism under the Terrorism Act 2000, it falls so far short of the nature and severity of conduct that Parliament intended the Act to apply to that (a) the Crown Prosecution Service would never prosecute, and (b) if the matter got to trial, any remotely competent defence lawyer would persuade the judge to agree to a submission of 'no case to answer'.

At most, this is a case of criminal damage, and frankly I'd be surprised if anyone is charged with even that. The CPS would be risking an acquittal that might well embolden others.
posted by Major Clanger at 8:12 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

TIL There's a statue of a KKK Grand Wizard in the Tennessee State Capital building. Yesterday there was a vote in the General Assembly to have it removed. The resolution failed.
posted by gwint at 10:52 AM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Indigenous people dance in a circle around the fallen statue of Columbus in St. Paul, and AIM members singing the American Indian Movement song.
posted by Rumple at 5:05 PM on June 10, 2020 [4 favorites]

It would be nice if Vienna would take down its enormous statue of Karl Lueger but I'm not holding my breath.

Funny you should say that, because look what I read this morning:

@pjstelzel
Vienna today: the monument to mayor (1897-1910) and notorious antisemite Karl Lueger received some red paint.

I hope we can all agree that this is wrong.
It's more pink than anything else.

Also, maybe it's just the angle and the limited resolution, but there seems to be a surprising amount of sexual tension in the scene depicted on the base of the statue. I mean, given that they're apparently a bunch of gardeners doing something symbolic with trees.
posted by Joe in Australia at 8:19 PM on June 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

VIRGINIAN STATUE IN LAKE AFTER ENCOUNTER WITH PROTESTORS
The statue, a representation of Christopher Columbus, was reportedly uncooperative and refused to answer questions.
posted by Joe in Australia at 1:56 AM on June 11, 2020 [2 favorites]

AIM got tired of waiting for MN to take down our Columbus statue, which is cool. After petitioning for years and years it looks like they kinda just walked up and . . . did it.
posted by Think_Long at 6:15 AM on June 11, 2020

Quick recap of the last few days from Bristol.

Best first, this picture of a history lesson has to be my favourite picture to come out of the Colston ducking. Because it is about the future.

A timeline of Sunday's events, ending with: Back at the plinth, the stone itself was daubed with graffiti. Placards and posters used by protesters on the march were being carefully laid out in concentric circles around the plinth. Early on Monday morning, they were collected up by Bristol City Council workers and taken to the M-Shed museum to be stored, as the plinth itself was washed clean.

Edward Colston statue: Chief Constable backs police chief as MP slams Priti Patel: Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy said: "It is deeply disappointing to read that the Home Secretary has taken the unprecedented step of calling the Chief Constable of Avon and Somerset Police and demanding an explanation as to why the police took the decision not to intervene on Sunday to protect the statue of Edward Colston. "As I told the Home Secretary in the Commons yesterday, the police have my full support for a decision made in difficult circumstances, as does Marvin Rees, Mayor of Bristol, for the stance he has taken," she added. "The police are operationally independent and already have directly elected police and crime commissioners to hold them to account, so it is completely wrong for Priti Patel to get involved in this way."

Chief Constable Andy Marsh said: “I fully support the actions of my officers. They responded with common sense, sound judgement and in the best interests of public safety.”

Toppling of Edward Colston statue referenced at George Floyd's funeral: this action by Bristol protesters was referenced in a powerful speech at Mr Floyd's funeral. Speaking in Houston, Texas, Reverend Al Sharpton said: "All over the world I've seen grandchildren of slave masters tearing down slave masters statues - over in England they put it in the river. I pour out my spirit among all flesh."

Petition launched to rename Colston Hall after Big Jeff: Big Jeff is known for being Bristol's most avid gig-goer, attending gigs pretty much every night of the week - before lockdown that is - at venues all over the city... Jeff told Bristol Live: "It's very flattering and nice that people would want to do something like that, but I feel a bit awkward about it...I think the council should contact art groups in BAME communities and ask them if they would like to use the plinth to showcase their work, or a statue of an inspirational figure such as Paul Stephenson would be a great replacement."

Why legal expert says he'd be 'surprised' if people are convicted over Colston: More than £18,000 has been raised to cover the possible legal fees of protesters who took part in the Black Lives Matter demonstration in Bristol... while a petition calling for protesters to escape prosecution has also attracted widespread support with more than 17,000 signatures.

'It's exciting!': Tracey Emin, Anish Kapoor and Jake Chapman on the statue-topplers

Edward Colston statue retrieved from Bristol harbour Looks like they fished it out this morning.
posted by glasseyes at 9:19 AM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Damn; and I was looking forward to its new life as the Bristol Harbour artificial reef.
posted by acb at 2:00 PM on June 11, 2020

Colston's name has been removed from Bristol tower

I'm kind of surprised visitors to Bristol could navigate; it sounds as if basically everything Bristolean had the adjective “Colston” applied. The article says the new building – Colston Tower, on Colston St – will be renamed, and Colston Girls' School has removed its own statue and is discussing changing its name; while Bristol University has “ launched a review into renaming a number of its buildings and updating its logo”.
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:00 PM on June 11, 2020 [1 favorite]

Oxford college wants to remove Rhodes statue.
posted by pharm at 1:05 PM on June 17, 2020 [3 favorites]

This is just beautiful:
Black musicians create a soundtrack as Raleigh’s tallest Confederate monument comes down

Via Lawyers, Guns, & Money
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:29 PM on June 27, 2020 [1 favorite]