UKC

If I want to commit a crime, and I make it dangerous/risky enough so that police won't approach the scene, I'll probably get away with it.

I hope the police office who made the decision not to intervene has to answer for it, because there lies a worrying precedent.

What does the combined wisdom of ukc think (this is a question about damage to property and the police taking no action, not a question about Edward Colston)

You might want to look at the London riots thread, it is discussed there. 

Personally I think the police are on the right side of history with this one. No one was hurt. Police intervention could have led to a different outcome. 

Anyone who cares about throwing a statue in the docks over 20000 dead people who were thrown overboard on the journey to slavery should look at themselves. 

I think removing the actions from the context in which they happened is absurdly reductionist and is unlikely to shine much light on the matter.

There are plenty of very risky situations the police routinely run towards. Some, like this require the bigger picture to be considered. Lose a statue or start a local riot? 

I think they made a wise choice, the situation cannot just be reduced to the issue of criminal damage, it has to be and appears to have been considered in the broader context. Bravo. 

Jk

https://rochdaleherald.co.uk/2020/06/07/statue-of-bristol-slave-trading-tor...

My one and only attendance at a music festival was in the late 80’s. Sellers openly walking around calling out their wares - weed, acid etc. In full view and hearing of a substantial police presence. 
No intervention, no obvious arrests. They clearly viewed it as a matter of contain the problem within the festival site and maintain public order vs potential for personal risk and public disorder.

The wisdom of UKC is that crime is okay if politics says so, and that the police should selectively enforce the law based on politics.  Separating policing and politics is no longer desirable.

That's what Durham Police said too. 

Absolute bollocks.  Durham police said that they followed protocol and treated him as they would any other person.

Yes that's what they said. 

And yet you don't believe A and S police.   

Any other person would have got a bollocking not a chat about security.  

If that's what happened do you think it's okay?  I bloody don't.

Edit to add - I don't believe A & S police because they should have been defending it before anyone even got there.  They were out in force defending Cabot etc during XR's and Greta's marches - in place before the march got there, of course.

Durham police visited Cummings father at his request to discuss security. They did not tell him his son shouldn't have broken lockdown.  

A and S police made a tactical decision which I fully support to put live and limb over property.  

Once again, if that's what happened is it okay?  Is that selective treatment acceptable?

You think A and S police should defend a statue?  Of a slaver?  Wow.

Their first job is to protect people.  People are more important than things.  Evil is treating people as things. 

Sometimes the right thing isn't legal.  The suffragettes were ignored until they broke laws too. 

Those hiding Anne Frank from the Nazis broke the law.  

In South Africa the law was clear on so many wrong things.

Rosa Parks broke the law to sit in the whites only area of a bus.

Talking of buses, do you know about the history in Bristol?  A refusal to hire black bus drivers? 

I don't condone violence.  But civil disobedience is sometimes not the wrong thing.  

Sounds a lot like good old-fashioned policing to me.  You know, traditional values that relied on a knowledgeable local copper to enforce the law with discretion.  Someone on the spot in Bristol did exactly that and as a result much damage to other property was probably prevented, no-one was hurt.  You weren't there.

I'm not saying it was the ideal result.  Ideally, the council would have taken the statue down some time ago and put it in a museum to be displayed with some explanation of context.  It looks as if that's exactly what will now happen.  I am concerned that others may now try to do the same where there is a less convincing argument.  I see it's kicking off again at Oriel over the Rhodes statue, which I think is a different situation.   

I agree with MeMeMe about removing things from context, but even without that context:

In an ideal world, the police would prevent damage to property, and those responsible for property damage would be arrested and punished according to the Criminal Damage Act. By the sound of this morning's news, they decided the first wasn't practical, but are going to try for the second.

We don't live in an ideal world. It is not always possible for the police to prevent property damage, due to a wide range of reasons including not being in the right place at the right time, not having the resources etc. One reason for them not to intervene is because doing so might escalate a situation and lead to worse long-term outcomes than a few grands worth of property damage.

This isn't a new idea, think about Ireland for for a much more extreme example.  The Good Friday agreement includes basically letting some murderers off the hook, people who have done much worse than pulling down a statue. In an ideal world, they would be punished for what they've done. But if letting them off is the price of peace, then it's a price worth paying.

The police have to balance their duty to uphold the law and prevent property damage with their duty to keep the broader peace. That's a hard balancing act, but it looks to me like they have been doing it pretty well.

I would suppose that those pulling the statue down can be identified from the numerous videos that were shot of them in action, so they may not have "got away with it".

Why not set up a crowdfunder for the restoration of the statue and see how many people chip in?

Absolutely. Public order and safety should obviously be prioritised over criminal damage where both cannot simultaneously addressed.

Jk

I grew up here and I live here.  I'm well aware of the history of the city.

I think that the police should protect property, it's their job.  You seem to think that they should protect certain property, and enforce laws selectively, depending on their politics.  I think that's madness, and they should enforce the law apolitically.

Why doesn’t the council just reinstate the old one?

Presumably you would have been egging on the East German border police to open fire on the crowds at the Berlin wall in 1989 then..?

Neither were the police, they were absent from a known trouble spot during an illegal protest.  As said during the last lot of protests (I was there for them) there were police in place guarding targets, as there were in London for this lot.

Because Bristol is equivalent to the USSR and satellites, right?  That's a sane comparison to make.

Do you really think that would be the right thing to do?

They couldn't fund the damn thing the first time!  

https://www.brh.org.uk/site/articles/myths-within-myths/

You think they should reinstate a statue of a slaver?  

So vandalising the Berlin wall was ok?  

I think they should reinstate a statue that was illegally removed.

Unless you believe in mob rule.

Insurrection against an authoritarian government is absolutely ok.

What the hell has it got to do with breaking laws in Bristol?

I think the "mob" in this case were doing the right thing.  

Just like the suffragettes.  

I'm not the biggest fan of mob justice. I think a plaque (and I know it has been discussed before) with details of his involvement would have served as an uncomfortable but important reminder that you can be a philanthropist but still on the wrong side of history.

What needs to be improved is democratic action on contemporary injustices. Unfortunately I couldn't tell you what BLM actually want in the UK. Ask the government to do something to help. How about properly addressing the huge disparity in COVID-19 deaths for a start? 

Toppling that statue hasn't brought those 20,000 people back. It has however reduced sympathy for the cause and made reform less likely today. We can't afford to write off those who would now write off the protestors as violent thugs. 

The Slavery Abolition Act was achieved through societies, pamphlets and petitions. Martin Luther King once said “...riots are socially destructive and self-defeating. I'm still convinced that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and justice. I feel that violence will only create more social problems than they will solve.”

I don't think you will find the answer to what BLM want on here. 

The suffragettes were fighting for a change in an unjust law.

What law were the mob fighting for or against yesterday?
 

If there was genuinely no option then that would have been fair enough.

On the morning before the protest the police knew it was coming, they knew the trouble spots and they could have guarded them.  That would have pissed some people off, and you'd likely have got a bit of a fight between police and protesters, just as there was in London.  Of course there would have been some disorder, some people (protesters and police) would have been at risk.  The alternative is allowing mob rule.

They've not said it was acceptable though. Their statement was that they have identified suspects and will investigate criminal damage charges. On the day they decided that direct intervention might lead to wider unrest and the associated risk of harm to protesters, officers, and other property.

A risk assessment balancing the damage to the statue against riots was made, and avoiding widespread riots was deemed more important. That seems fair to me; the situation remained peaceful, "public order" was largely maintained.

Had the police intervened and riots ensued - I can see the police being plastered across the news for being "heavy handed" and triggering the unrest. And I imagine that given the context, the police were conscious to try to avoid giving people any reason to turn their anger on officers directly, which would do no-one any favours.

Apparently there's a petition asking for it to be replaced with a statue of Paul Stephenson, who led the Bristol Bus Boycott, which sounds like an excellent idea to me.

For the sake of argument or as a thought experiment, rather than to try and win on the internet, if the police had judged there to be more of a chance of disorder and danger to life and limb if they'd not let the statue be toppled (given the resources available at the time or other reasons), would that have been the right thing to do?

None of that answers why they weren't already there when the protesters got there.  That the protesters targeted the statue is not a surprise.  If they had been there the protesters wouldn't have been able to do what they did.

So you don't think this then - 'I think that the police should protect property, it's their job ... they should enforce the law apolitically'

Or you do think that but not under circumstances where you think they shouldn't? 

Why doesn’t this man already have a statue?

Sounds like he deserves one.

Agreed.

Pulling down the statue, was a very definite outcome of the march. People wont say 'what have we achieved." As such it will have been a pressure release. It may have prevented far more violent acts from occurring.

Rushing in, to arrest a few protesters in the middle of a large and potentially hostile crowd, would provoke the situation leading to violence.

Every demo, for decades, has had a police presence of observers gathering evidence, both overt and covert. I would imagine that the 'identify bad people' team are going to be busy over the next few weeks. Some people will get a knock on the door, once the tensions have cooled a bit.

The first rule of conflict resolution is, or should be 'do no harm'. If it's a mostly peaceful protest, don't turn it into a full on riot.

Bloody typical, you wait for years for a statue then two come along at once... 

I do IN BRISTOL.

In authoritarian countries I don't think you have any moral obligation to obey the law whatsoever.  You're fully entitled to rebel.

I think they should too, with a large display covering his role in the slave trade and a warning to all generations to be watchful of how 'evil' can permeate a society. A 'least we forget' purpose.

Without these to remind us, its all too easy to forget, or not know in the first place. 

An interesting thought but context is critical. If I were in charge of the police response that day I would stand back and just ensure public safety. The sight of police protecting the statue would have been incendiary and any police worth their salt would have know that. The statue can be recovered and put in a museum, but the consequences of a riot are far more costly both in terms of damage to property and lives.

Your suggestion that the police who made that call should get their comeuppance fails to grasp the realities of policing.

This country has long placed a higher worth on property (particularly land), than on human beings. Do you really think the main priority of the police should be to protect property? If so how do you think that has come about? 

I couldn't answer that for you. Although I suspect that with finite resources you could defend a decision to prioritise a general police presence monitoring the whole area, rather than clustering resources to protect a statue.

Alternatively, perhaps the symbolism of the police guarding a statue of a slave trader was deemed to be likely to inflame things and make both police and the statue a target. Certainly I would not want to be the police officer guarding a memorial to a slave trader during protests triggered by police racism. I'm not sure that you are right in assuming the protesters would have just walked on by - it could have turned nasty very quickly if the police had set up camp there.

Ok, so a consideration of context is indeed crucial for effective policing.

If I thought that the protesters were likely to be attacking people then I’d expect the police to divert their attention accordingly.

I didn’t say they’d have walked on by.  I said it would have matched scenes in London - a very few criminals would have scuffled with the police.

Why not? Sod the statue. Let's get into it, what can *I* do to support their cause? What is their cause or list of demands? What sort of things can I ask my company to do? What petitons can I sign? My MP is in the shadow cabinet, what sort of questions can I ask her to table in Parliament? 

Let's do what the police struggle with in the US, let's be clear about what we want, and exhaust other avenues before we call for violence. 

You did, although I was replying to an earlier post of yours and hadn't seen that comment when I replied. But in relation to your later comment about fights with the police, I can't agree that knowingly engineering a situation where a peaceful protest likely becomes violent is the better outcome. 

In the end, a judgement call was made about a complex and tense situation, in which public order and safety was prioritised over a single item of property that has been a source of controversy for decades. No-one got hurt, and that seems like a good outcome. 

27 police officers being injured is quite a big scuffle https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-52954899

I saw a Bristol police officer talking about how peaceful and well behaved the people in Bristol have been while protesting, and when asked about the statue he said that the slave trader was a man of his time and a part of history, and maybe it was time he was consigned to the history books (something along those lines).

Guarding a statue next to some water could be a slightly alarming prospect or risky, too, in a situation where there are crowds of protesters. 

In theory that is, given the people of Bristol have been peaceful on the whole.

In the grand scheme of things that’s a scuffle, London’s 10 times the size of Bristol.  The police could have avoided those too I’m sure, if they’d just not been there.

Stuart - we’re obviously not going to agree and I do see what you’re saying, but as said the other side is mob rule.  What’s happened is that criminals have acted out and their actions will not be undone.  The mob (not the people) has won.  I can’t see that as a good outcome.

It was not next to water.

Some background...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Stephenson_(civil_rights_campaigner)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Colston

Seems to me that quite a lot of 'people' are wholly in support of that statue being torn down and chucked in a river. So I rather think that the 'people' may well have won. In which case, this is a good outcome. 

So anyone who disagrees is probably an “enemy of the people”, to quote the winners in the Brexit referendum and their supporters?

It's now time to pull down Westminster Abbey stone by stone, and throw it all into the Thames, don't you think? With all it's appalling associations. Followed by St Paul's Cathedral, of course. And then the Pyramids at Giza, of course, they can go into the Nile. Then nip over the sea and smash the Parthenon to bits

As soon as the UK police start getting involved in trying to shut down protests, they nail their colours to the mast and get grouped in with the American police. Suddenly you have riots and protesters vs police across the UK. 

The public's safety should be infinitely more important than any property, and by not intervening with what was essentially criminal damage (of something which was rubbing racial oppression in people's faces every time they walk past it), they prevented what I'm sure would have been a lot of people getting hurt. 

I'm sure they will investigate and try and bring about charges retrospectively, and they are within the letter of the law to do so, but trying to stop that statue being pulled down would have resulted in a violent clash and by letting it happen they stopped people being hurt.

I don't think it sets a dangerous precedent at all, I think quite the opposite. Causing clashes between protesters and police, and the next time you've got people packing molotov cocktails and bricks instead of placards. I don't think anyone is thinking 'oh wow, we can get away with pulling down statues. Bronze Neptune next to the fountains has been mugging me off for years'.     

It's the age-old ethics question about the train: If a runaway train is going to hit 5 people, do you intervene to divert it onto a track where there's only one person but you're actively hurting them?

In this case, leaving the train to run gives a statue a bath; intervening has the potential to harm a lot of living, breathing people. 

Absolutely the right call by the police, and a good example of more enlightened policing, hopefully.

Protest march going past the gates of Downing St, yeah, the police should just not be there.

No, the alternative, as we've seen is the police listening, taking on board the anger many justifiably feel, considering the likely consequences of their various options then acting to de-escelate the broader situation at the expense of allowing some local disorder. That choice will have made any number of difficult situations in the days and weeks to come less likely to escelate and easier to manage.

Jk

Do you think your experience of an open, safe and just Britain is universal? 

Jk

Fair, agree to disagree. Likewise I see your point that the law is the law, but feel it's not always possible to be so black and white in practice.

What will be interesting is to see whether the police follow through with their assertion that they will pursue criminal cases against those involved. If they do then that perhaps lends weight to the "tactical decision/harm reduction" argument, whereas if nothing is followed up then the "political policing/mob rule" argument will be strengthened.

You do realise I was responding to, and questioning, thomasdixon's comments above re 'mob' rule winning over the 'people'? 

You do realise I was responding to, and questioning, thomasdixon's comments above re 'mob' rule winning over the 'people'? 

Ever been involved in crowd control....I'll take a guess and say you haven't.

Scenarios such as this are hardly simple to manage, are fluid and involve lots of variables and rapid changes. I think the police have done a great job....

The police, as someone said above were spot on.  This is much the same as police not chasing a speeding driver when they have his reg, identity and home address, chose the safe option and pick him up later at 3am from his bed.

All the politics and social implications can be discussed afterwards in a far better atmosphere thanks to the police actions.

Cheers

Toby

OK. I was responding more broadly to the whole thread

Well exactly.  This statue was right in the centre of Bristol (on Colston Avenue).  It’s not hidden on some back street.  The cops should have been there.

Stuart - it certainly will.  Notable that calls are already coming from protesters and their supporters (peaceful, law abiding ones of course) to not follow up at all.

I'm absolutely not disagreeing with you, but to know what BLM want in the UK you might need some input from someone who is actually black.  I'm not. UKC forums aren't particularly diverse.  I think the answers are probably elsewhere.  

They made a tactical decision. Get over it. 

Fair enough. It is an interesting thread and issue[s]. 

I'm usually dead against removing books/ statues/ poems from history just because one part of their characters doesn't  fit the morals of today.  However having read the wiki page of this Colston guy it would appear he didn't just dabble in the slave trade and the only thing he did of merit is to give away a portion of his ill gotten gains to charity.  It seems like this statue really should have been replaced a long time ago.

Thanks for understanding, Mac. I see now that it did look as though I was having a go at you, which I wasn't, was not my intention at all

Interesting thread and issue[s], right, I agree

I happen to know the police officer in charge as he used to babysit my children when he was a teenager in Bristol. He certainly knows all about Colston and as he has worked the central Bristol beat in various guises, he knows all about local context. To add to that over the last 20 years various attempts have been made to remove the statue, the plaque below it or even just add another plaque. This has always been blocked usually by a very rich and powerful organisation, the Merchant Venturers Society, which uses it's money and influence to control Bristol. Given the places the police needed to protect, I think they did well to restrict the damage to one statue

I agree. Saying that, I think some of the white posters on here not poo-pooing the idea that there is an advantage in being white in the UK (ie white privilege) could be a good start, some looking into statistics and 'around at life'.

Notable why? Can't see how that makes any difference to whether the police acted appropriately.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/08/fall-of-bristols-colston-st...

What's far more obvious are the Government ministers telling Bristol police they got it wrong despite the huge crowds and the lack of injuries.

Fixed that for you.

T.

Kind of referring back to another thread there really - it’s notable that those who support a movement that claims to be peaceful don’t want those within the movement who commit crimes to be prosecuted.

Peaceful protest doesn't exclude careful removal of statues.  

No one was hurt.  

You obviously care more about a statue than the police or public getting hurt.  

I’ll resist the obvious response to that.

I don’t believe that at all.  You’re fighting for equal treatment apparently, and yet you’re quite happy with special treatment when it suits.

I don't think calls for the removal of celebration of historical figures whom were involved in activity now deemed cretinous is in any way negative or dangerous. 

Peaceful protest includes vandalism now?

The only public hurt if the police had done their job would have been those who attacked the police, and while I’m not happy with the police being attacked it’s their job.

So a society of rich white men set up on the back of slavery

Yet when people say its systematic racism that stopped the statue being moved it was denied by some posters.  

Next time you see a homeless white man on the streets be sure to remind him about the notion of white privilege.  Or is it just white UKCers that need your finger wagged at them?

It's their job to make a risk assessment and make a tactical decision. 

Just as they might do in a car chase.  

Funnily enough the almshouses for the poor set up by Coulson were only permitted to house well behaved Anglican men. 

So perhaps you could send your white homeless man there, as long as he is a good Christian of the correct parish and church.  

Good idea. Easy enough to convert someone these days.

There's a protest planned.  I thought there was some sort of pandemic going on.  

It's to do with things like black people being more likely to be sectioned than white people.

It's about 'the dice of society' being loaded in certain ways.

Edit: Currently being explored, is whether experiencing racism makes people more likely to experience mental health issues.

Should be interesting. The going rate for knocking the head off a statue of Maggie seems to be three months inside so we'll have to see how this compares....

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jun/08/edward-colston-statue...

The toppling of Edward Colston's statue is not an attack on history. It is history

This sums up my thoughts pretty well. I would contend there is limited public interest in a prosecution either. The simple fact is this statue should not have been there and many who have peacefully called for its removal for many years have been ignored. I reckon the "mob" on this day are on the right side of history. 

They would have to be willing to pray several times a day and parade on Colson's birthday.  

It's a movement calling for change right? How hard can it be to find what their aims are? I know what Fathers4Justice wanted but I'm not a father. I know what the suffragettes wanted and I'm not a woman. Is it a secret?

The thing is, a statue is not being removed "from history" but from a public space. What we have in a public space is a reflection of the society we want to be right now. If you're black, then seeing a statue of a prominent slaver that somehow - just somehow! - can't ever be removed, is a fairly stark reminder of the type of society you're living in. Any pain one might feel at what happened to your ancestors can be bought off with some dubious good works. We can and should have this statue in a museum, telling the whole story of Mr Colston, including the outbreak of anger that lead to the statue being chucked in the river. That strikes me as an important part of the history, although of course it's really too early to say. That's not the same as "removing" it from history, but rather putting it in its proper place, and acknowledging that the statues we have public is a choice we make about the kind of society we are now, not the kind of society we were a hundred years ago or more.

I am not sure a diddly extra plaque would really do the job of expressing what modern Britain is, unless we want to say it's the kind of place where we pay lip service to the deep hurt of minority groups.

Yes, not disagreeing with you in particular but rather the general view that somehow removing a statue is messing with history. Yours was just the first post I found scrolling up from the bottom.

Sorry may have missed that. Who was denying systematic racism? It's all carefully recorded. It's what Merchant Venturers do.

It's on another thread. Baron.  

Do you really not get it?

Jk

And it'll make a much more interesting museum piece with a few dents and barnacles added to it and Bristol's story.

Jk

The next logical move is for the school he set up to be either burnt to the ground or else have a wrecking ball used on it - and the same for ALL the other relics of Colston's past. One should not be selective regarding what is left of slavery.

Incidentally, I do hope there was no-one from Ghana or Cameroon (along with many other West African countries) helping to remove the statue. After all, it was their ancestors who actually SOLD slaves to the white traders, in order to get money and guns to become more powerful (and hence capture and sell yet more into slavery).

Your logic for the wrecking ball is not widely shared. I think more people would just rename the building.

Absolutely right. And it's broader than Colston. Let's not be selective. Let's get started right now on identifying, and then smashing to the ground, ALL buildings in London (and the whole UK) connected in any way whatsoever with the shameful past. That'll be half the older buildings in London gone, but hey, we need a clean start, right?

East Germany was officially called the German Democratic Republic - so you are totally off-base with calling them authoritarian. Everyone knows that all democracies are fair and just 100% of the time, absolutely no exceptions. It's all in the name. The UK is fair and just 100% of the time, to everyone, absolutely no exceptions ever.

They should be charged and an obvious sentence would involve community service for those involved...give them 6 months to get the replacement Paul Stephenson statue in place 😀

You have a very strange view of what is logical.  It would be logical to remove, or better, re badge memorials glorifying slavers 

I get it. I just don't automatically accept it as a fact just because people with a certain political agenda say it is so. There are lots of things where I don't automatically follow the UKC hive mind in their politics but that doesn't mean that it's me that's necessarily in the wrong.

I tend to go with the notion that someone else brought up: I'd rather people  be judged by the content of their character than by the colour of  skin.  In other words, don't call people  privileged until you have "walked a mile in their shoes". Note: not the shoes of people like them, but their exact own shoes.

Yes, but the logic of your argument is that each of us is entirely responsible for our own individual chances and opportunities i.e. by saying that each person is different and you cannot make generalisations or comparisons you deny that race (or gender, or socio-economic position etc etc) make any difference to people. So by asserting that 'white privilege' or 'male privilege' do not exist because some white people are homeless you do deny that there are demonstrable sociological patterns that can be analysed - these do not and cannot explain every individual experience but they can be generally true e.g. women are more likely to suffer domestic abuse or people born into economic poverty are more likely to have leave education earlier/ have less income/ more likely to end up in prison or (in this case) BAME individuals are more likely to experience discrimination/ get tasered/ be stopped and searched/ be in lower paid jobs etc etc.

I'm not saying white  privilege doesn't exist, far from it:  I'm not denying that it's more likely, for that matter. 

What I am saying is that it's not automatic or inherent  and that language claiming that it is  serves no purpose other than to widen the rift between black and white. 

But the point you're missing, and you seem to be skirting around "All Lives Matter", is were that homeless person to try and turn things around and get help, they would find it easier because they were white. Whether through opportunities, access to help, and general prejudices.

I don’t agree that acknowledging inequality or prejudice widens divisions in communities. Just to pick up your words - ‘not automatic or inherent‘ -  surely one of the points of these protests is the feeling that discrimination, although of course a social construct rather than inherent genetically, has become so deeply embedded and perpetuated that for many it does feel systemic and inherent. Hence the calls for acknowledgement and change.

edited for poor spelling!

Ps.l’m not disliking your posts btw, it’s an interesting and needed debate I think 

I didn't say that acknowledging inequality widens divisions; My point is that extremes in language ( claiming that white privilege applies to every white person without exception regardless of their individual circumstances) lead to extremes in attitudes and thus polarisation.

It's perfectly possible to acknowledge that racism exists, that white privilege exists, without cramming it down people's throats and saying "You're white so you must be privileged".  On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with saying "You're white so there's every chance that you've had more privileges than most black people".

Unfortunately that won't be good enough for a lot of people who seem determined to underline the differences between black and white rather than play them down. 

The obvious counter point to that is don’t deny the possibility that you are more privileged than someone else, unless you too have walked a mile in their shoes. 

I struggle to understand how anyone born into one of the wealthiest democracies in the world can deny that they have been given an easier ride from birth than others. Even your hypothetical homeless person will have been offered far more opportunities to turn things around than they might in many other places or points in history.

I don’t think it was you, but somewhere upthread someone rolled out the old “I can’t be privileged, I grew up on a council estate and worked for every penny”. So bloody what? For a start the council gave you a house to live in. There are kids in the world growing up living on literal rubbish tips, and an equal or greater amount of hard work is still likely to see them spend their entire life in abject poverty.

Those are some of the more obvious privileges that a British citizen (race aside) might be born into. In the context of racism the privileges might be less stark and obvious, but the “don’t call me privileged, no one ever gave me nothing” stance just doesn’t stack up. 

Once again: I am NOT denying that I'm more privileged. 

I'm denying that being white automatically makes me more privileged.

I might be born into more privilege, as your penultimate sentence says.  I even concede that there's a good chance that I'm more privileged than most non-whites.

But simply being white is not a cast iron guarantee of being more privileged and can't be applied across the board. It's a sociological tendency, not an innate characteristic. 

And once again, my main worry is that the type of language whch says that I'm white therefore I undeniably MUST be privileged  is inflammatory and does absolutely nothing to further the cause of racial harmony.  

Everything else being equal it does.

The poor working class black kid will face larger hurdles than the poor working class white kid and so on.

Of course an Eton educated black kid will have advantages over most of us although even then would probably be more likely to be stopped by police and treated with suspicion in shops than most of us.

If he spoke like an Eton educated kid he would indeed be treated suspiciously in shops round here, whether he was black or white.......... 

Anyway, as to your point about privilege we are nearly in agreement; you say having a white skin makes you privilleged, I say it tends to make you privileged, Nothing to fall out about there, unless someone thinks I should be forced to accept your opinion.

It's not really about being more or less privileged than someone else though is it? You can still benefit from some factors, even if they are outweighed by others. The need and priority of addressing the other factors that lead to inequality are part of different but related conversations - but the existence of other issues and factors doesn't detract from issues around racism. It's not a competition to see who is the most privileged overall, it's a conversation about racially biased social structures.

That's not how systemic biases work, it's how apologists justify their existence, by focusing on atypical counterexamples. But sure, you're more than welcome to walk your own path and you never know, you may well the way we're going end up the 'right' side of history.

jk

I don't think fear of triggering a riot quite qualifies as a broader context, it's more of an immediate concern.

What would, IMHO, constitute a broader context is the future of policing, the future of government, and the future of civilized society. 

The message from the police now is, "We're afraid of mobs - if there's enough of them, we're going to step back and give them a free hand".  The future of government is looking a little shaky.  And the future of civilized society is decidedly threatened.  These are the consequences of bowing (or pathetically kneeling) to a mob.  It neither appeases nor reduces the mob, it only emboldens them.  

There is also the context of the acceptance of a highly radical and foundationally baseless idea - the idea of identity politics.  This ugly, divisive, and deliberately destructive idea has not only gained huge traction with the public, it appears to have done so with some of our most senior police officers, too.

I'm not bashing the police here, BTW.  They are in a very difficult position - quell a riot and face accusations of racism and oppression, or step back and abdicate responsibility.  And do either while facing chants of, "Kill the pigs".

Such is claimed, yes, though I'm dubious about how much of an effect this is nowadays.  (It certainly was major in the past.)

For example:

"More than half of England's universities have fewer than 5% poor white students in their intakes, ...

"... in terms of a proportion of the population, white youngsters are less likely to go to university than Asian or black teenagers."

"When these factors combine, it means that white, working-class men become among the most under-represented groups in university.

"Education Secretary Damian Hinds said: "White British disadvantaged boys are the least likely of any large ethnic group to go to university."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-47227157

Going from an incident of some people pulling down a statue to '[...] the future of civilised society is decidedly threatened' seems a little hysterical! 

I disagree, not least because it's the consequences of suppressing the unrest more than localised disturbance which I was talking about. Britain is a tinderbox right now.

I agree, that would, but it's not to the exclusion of considering the consequences of needlessly inciting then quelling a riot in a country which feels very unsettled right now. We absolutely need to maintain (and rapidly build) social cohesion to manage our covid outbreak.

Bollocks!

Interesting.

Yes you are, just a couple of sentences back you're explicitly arguing they made the wrong choice. That's fine, we're entitled to our opinions but we should really own them.

jk

Agreed, because I expressed myself poorly.  I know the thread is about the statue, but my remarks were not confined to it - what I actually had in mind was the wider picture of unruly protest ("Kill the pigs", for example) rioting, and the idea that mob rule is OK if the participants claim a sufficient level of anger.

When the police back down in such situations and government quavers, I think that constitutes a valid threat to society.

Thanks for pulling me up, I wasn't as clear as I should have been there.

That's putting the responsibility in the wrong place.  The mob are inciting riots by behaving as they do.  The police have a legal duty and responsibility to maintain public order.  To call carrying out these duties incitement to riot is a 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument.  The losers being the police and society in general.

Yes, I argued they made the wrong choice, and I see no reason to modify that position.  But I am also acknowledging that they are in a very difficult position.  

BTW, excellent point about covid, I couldn't agree more.

That's interesting, although doesn't tell us why, or what happens after uni.

It is also interesting that while white youngsters are least likely to go to university (proportionately), they are nowhere near the bottom of the pile in terms of income. Black households have the highest proportion of families with a weekly household income below £400, and lowest proportion with a weekly household income above £1000. White households sit somewhere in the middle despite lowest attendance at uni. 

I don't have the answer as to why this is the case (although can think of a fair few possibilities), but I was curious all the same as to how income stacked up in light of the uni figures. Infer from it what you will.

Ultimately you're right, the police *are* afraid of a big enough mob for very good reasons, mainly the one where they practise policing by consent, because that works best in the long run.

That doesn't make then afraid though, simply underresourced.

You could always wade in and stop them!