What I don't get is why people are protesting in OUR country about something that happened in the United States, combined with events from 300 years ago.
All over the world there are people being killed, displaced or otherwise harmed because of their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. Black people have been oppressed and maltreated for centuries, but they don't have a monopoly on being victims:
White people are being attacked and often murdered in Zimbabwe and South Africa - there are no protests about that. White people, Jews, and Christians are being kidnapped, tortured and killed - often on camera in horrific videos - in the Middle East and parts of Asia - gay people are being executed in some African countries and in the Middle East they are killed by being thrown off tall buildings as punishment for their 'crimes', but no protests about that (although there ARE protests when military action is taken against groups that carry out these acts). Muslims are being oppressed in Israel, Russia and China - as well as in their own lands (more Muslims are killed by fellow Muslims than by any other ethnic group or foreign power). In some African countries young girls are being mutilated according to cultural tradition. In Saudi Arabia women aren't allowed to drive (that might have been relaxed recently - not sure). Look how the Nazis behaved towards Jews, Slavs, Romanies and other ethic groups in the 1940s. The Incas and the South American tribes were all but wiped out by the Spanish colonial invaders. The North American Indians live on reservations in their own land. The Japanese were utterly brutal to the Chinese in WW2, and then there are the Australian Aboriginal tribes who, like their North American counterparts, were displaced and now live like second class citizens in their own land. Look at the Ethinic Cleansing that the Serbs did in Bosnia as recently as the 1990s - and the simmering tensions that still exist between Catholics and Protestants across the Irish Sea.
There are loads more injustices that I haven't mentioned - and they are ALL tragedies, ALL wrong and ALL utterly pointless. Britain certainly played its historical part in these atrocities, but we are not the only bad guys here and we have cleaned up our act considerably since the colonial days.
Black lives ABSOLUTELY matter - but so do ALL lives - there only seem to protests about black people though...…
Because it's fashionable
Hear hear !
I have spent an awful lot of time in the USA over the past 20 years both on business and for holidays, and this situation has never changed in that period.
Successive presidents since the 1950's, including a black one have failed to address the issues sitting right on their doorstep, but the roots and causes run much deeper than is possible to fix, even in several generations. And from what I know and from what I've seen with my own eyes and the people I know as friends in America, there are plenty of blacks there who simply do not want to change the way they live. I hasten to add these visits haven't been to Florida or California or any other tourist destination, but in what I call real blue collar, lower-middle class America with no glitz and glamour.
The Japanese were also brutal towards the English, the Australians and the allied forces.
The English were brutal to everyone we encountered over the centuries and were responsible for the deaths of millions of north Americans, Indians, Chinese, Africans. But that's history, as long as lessons are learnt, eventually.
If history has shown us anything it's that the human race have been incredibly cruel to one another across all creeds and cultures.
The difference is that World Wars I and II eventually changed human behaviours to one another across the world to a large degree. OK we still get posturing from America, China, North Korea and civil wars/uprisings in Syria/Africa, Middle East etc and there are still plenty of countries with atrocious Human Rights abuses but we no longer control things, but things in our lifetime have been more settled here than more many generations before ours.
Gang warfare amongst blacks in this country, especially in London is a major major issue, and who knows how many young lives have been needlessly cut short by fatal stabbings because of stupid territorial squabbles and/or drugs.
If it's that important, then BLM UK would do better turning their attention to such matters and coming up with some ideas, rather than taking it out on a statue of someone who lived 200 years ago where they probably don't even know the story.
Jesus Christ that’s brilliant. Last time I checked they weren’t blowing up civilians mate.
