Guardian journalist claims that the club crests of both city and utd featuring a 3 sail ship have nothing to do with football and everything to do with slavery. Calls to change the club crests have ensued.
sigh. Its such a shame that actual history doesn't back these kinds of noisy people up. ships logo is more about the canal that was built after slavery was official ended and was not used by said city in those times. 1842 the coat of arms was granted to said city which contained said ship. there's an antelope, lion and bees on it. Slavery was abolished in england in 1807. quite how people can conflate stuff i do not know, maybe they think the stuff carried to the docks and sailed up that canal was all steeped in slavery? who knows..
You could argue that the cotton was steeped in slavery but that's a stretch. The city of Liverpool was built on the proceeds from slavery. What should we do, knock it all down and start again? People who weren't/aren't slaves pointing fingers and demanding this, that and the other from people who weren't/aren't slave owners has got to stop.
Change old street names, sure. knock a statue over, go for it. Knocking on doors of a city and demanding it change the coat of arms and highlight the bees instead is just being silly.
Tbh I don't think we should be changing street names or taking statues down either. History is history. We've learnt not to repeat the same mistakes. Should the sins of the father be visited on the sons? I say they shouldn't.
no but i don't see the harm in tipping a few slaver statues myself. We've clearly almost forgiven the french for napolean and almost gotten round to not outright hating the germs over world wars like. we clearly don't hold the sins of their fathers against them much. Its amazing that people don't hold more sins against us but as you say its silliness and counter productive stuff. if you want to change a mind i don't think you will by doing stuff like this or indeed using orange powered on a snooker table.
There are some standards that you can't take from one era and apply to another. The Colston fella built the city from his slave trading. As shameful as the trading was, you couldn't have had one without the other. His statue wasn't put up to glorify slave trading it was for recognition of what he did for the city. Put up a plaque explaining his history or move the statue to a statue graveyard with similar explanation. I understand people have different views but wanton vandalism shouldn't be acceptable or it becomes the norm. The orange powder being another example. It is counterproductive and it turns people against a cause that they may have had sympathies towards if the protest took another form.
Imo, taking down statues and changing street names only contributes to the excision of the whole period from history - surely the opposite of what is needed? These people are historical figures, and their existence and their actions - good and bad - should not be erased from public consciousness, but kept in high profile as a reminder. A balanced view of history should be taught (as balanced a one as we're able, at least), and the major figures in slavery shown in their historical context. Slavery is an unconscionable practice that has nonetheless existed throughout human history, and does to this day despite its illegality now. The major crime of our ancestors was in developing the mass transportation to the Americas that moved it to another level. Humanity as a whole is responsible for some shocking inhumanities and atrocities, but only those responsible can be held accountable. The "sins of the fathers" is a thoroughly outdated concept that itself has no place in a modern society.
Thing is, you can probably find something bad about anyone with a statue, why stop just either racism. Just removing anything related to anyone that has done something terrible surely just blinkers it to the next generation. Should just teach kids about those things instead of removing and pretending it didn’t thappen
I agree. Back to the original story, I haven't seen anything published from either club regarding their crests. I wonder what their response will be.
