#blacklivesmatter racism is a human problem

Everyone should learn about Toussaint Louverture - although being a book written in 1938 I find the Black Jacobins hard to navigate it's worth persevering with because of the leadership and cultural lessons it provides.

To some extent it is a military history book. Not always the easiest reading. I've often thought that a Netflix-style series about him would be a great idea.

I read it pre alt-right/Brexit/Trump. Now the context of the time he was writing seems even more poignant.

Most Brits were quite happy to have collectively erased awkward history from their memories. It's history being unerased that they don't like.

It seems kind of odd to me that despite a large part of British identity being based recent(ish) imperial dominance, barely any of that is covered in historical education, either in schools or mainstream historical media. It's just too awkward, and the avoidance of this part of our history has built up a resistance to the reflection that in international relations, with the exception of one World War, WE have been the baddies.

"Need to say" is a bit of a high threshold for me... I was musing that this thread is a bit like that cartoon? (which is good?) and that the usefulness of it is that those of us who are less exhausted can help each other and ideally take some of the load off those who are (in ref to REL link). I now feel this explanation is really unnecessary too...

Anyway - I listened to this a few days ago, and found it really interesting. There's a transcript which is a fairly short read, and a longer unedited audio of the conversation. It was recorded in Minneapolis, pre-lockdown. Resmaa Menakem is a clinical therapist who talks about intergenerational trauma, and also has a focus on therapy through the body rather than mind only. I don't really know anything about the context (eg. lots of excited mentions of "new science!" and various nerves) but a few interesting strands/ideas in there. I found the historical musings and the body/anxiety stuff interesting. Some discussion of the 'comfortable' corporate/institutional EDI world and how alienating it is if you're not white.

https://onbeing.org/programs/resmaa-menakem-notice-the-rage-notice-the-silence/

I did my secondary education in the 90s. We did study the international slave trade. My history teacher was the best teacher I ever had though. Perhaps our curriculum was the exception, not the rule.

‘Defunding Police’ has made the leap to US mainstream and rightwing media.

I think it’s been genius campaigning.

Like the tearing down of Colston here in the UK, it’s started a conversation and shifted the overton window.

These are the demands of Campaign Zero. I hope under the threat of defunding, some may happen.

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Amazing. Shifting ideas and discussion in the mainstream is such an important thing.

Think it was on here someone posted that article about the SWAT raid on the Black Panthers and the militarisation of policing. It seems so much more extreme in the US but I wonder how much it has already happened here by stealth as well. I remember when it was really shocking to see (fire)armed police. Now I feel so desensitised to it.

My secondary education was also in the 90s and I did History through to GCSE (you had a choice of History or Geography) and the stuff re: the slave trade, empire, etc was pretty minimal, abit of reference to triangular trade but that was mainly it.

My history teacher was very much a stick to the syllabus, stick to the textbooks teacher which may partly explain it.

I did my secondary education in the 90s. We did study the international slave trade.

My secondary education did not include this (late 90s), and when I did A-level history, despite the sylabus covering a lot of rights issues, it focused on native americans, UK labour movements, suffragettes, and Afrcan American civil rights post WW2...understandably one cannot teach it all!

One of the major differences between the US and UK is that they US Police get all sorts of cast-off gear from the US military, AFAIK the UK Police doesn't get things like APCs and armoured Humvees

cast-off gear

And people.

One world war ?

My primary school was in London when there was still an IRA threat, so I don't think I can ever remember armed police not being present.

One of the most shocking uses of US police excess that has stayed with me was the bombing of MOVE in Phily. There was an excellent doc online about it, maybe ~13yrs ago now. Such a stark contrast to how the American psyche has engaged with Waco.

These demands don't really reduce the role of the police, which is the idea behind defunding (ie giving the funding to more suitable institutions) or abolishment.

Some further reading about "8 Can't Wait" and Campaign Zero -

https://twitter.com/BisHilarious/status/1268965777425657856

https://twitter.com/MsPackyetti/status/1270534642156949505

One world war ?

Ha, yeah. Bit extreme I suppose to say that, but the origins of the First are certainly complicated enough to argue that our participation in that conflict wasn't simply as bold defenders of freedom. It also isn't, in my opinion, good material for patriotic fervour, but that is an argument for somewhere else.

Thanks for the links

These demands don't really reduce the role of the police...

That’s true, they don’t. I’m agnostic as to whether that’s a problem.

Which institutions could take up policing, or reduce it’s need sufficiently?

Or is the idea that the black community is better served less-policed and if so, how does one come to that conclusion?

One of the major differences between the US and UK is that they US Police get all sorts of cast-off gear from the US military, AFAIK the UK Police doesn't get things like APCs and armoured Humvees

Some military equipment was often offered to British police. My dad was a firearms and vehicle testing officer in the 80s and they'd regularly be taken off to test something that was available to them. 9 times out of 10, they had a nice day out and said "No thanks" as it was overkill for the requirements of policing at the time.

I can't locate stats from the 80s onwards but it seems the UK is not currently even at the highest rate of gun crime in the last 10 years, never mind the last 40. Whether that's because armed patrols are suppressing things or because gun crime isn't "that bad"I can't say but policing (like airport security) is a lot about making people feel safer, even if they aren't.

Having failed to implement the findings of previous commissions int racial inequality, Johnson's response to the current crisis is to set up a new commission.

This article was written before the publication of Theresa May's commission by the person who Johnson has appointed to run his commission.

I despair.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/theresa-may-s-phoney-race-war-is-dangerous-and-divisive

I think at the moment I'm being extremely frustrated by a couple of things:

Statues and TV shows are a distraction. They're a way for people to take easy steps that show they're doing something so they can feel better but it's not doing anything to really make a change. The media jump on these actions to celebrate them either in an innocent positive way or maliciously, but in both ways the end result is more division.

The 2nd thing is this current idea of censorship is totally flipped on its head.
People saying removing statues is censoring the past and quoting 1984 are not even understanding that the statues themselves are a form of censorship. The past has already been censored to only display the positives, not the negatives, all that is happening now is it is being uncensored. We're celebrating a version of the person, a version of the past, not the whole truth.
Likewise, I don't think we should be censoring TV shows, they exist, leave them there, use them to teach what is right and what is wrong. Just don't make more like that.

Statues are totally irrelevant. Their removal is not censuring the past or amending history. It reflects a dismantling of the prejudices that create history as it is taught. Much of our history is based upon the prejudices and opinion of Whig and Victorian historians who saw the world through those prejudices.

There have been numerous examples of widespread iconoclasm over the centuries. A couple are worth examining.

After the reformation, most public art in this country; statues and paintings, were destroyed. Most art to that stage was religious in nature. It was wiped out. Centuries of art; statues of venerated saints; frescoes and wall paintings. All gone. That iconoclasm is part of our history. It is part of what makes Britain Britain. I don't hear Johnson or his acolytes complaining about it.

At the fall of the USSR, statues of Lenin were removed from everywhere. They are now housed in the grounds of a modern art museum in Moscow. Again. No complaints. It was a fitting way to deal with them.

As I said, the statues are an irrelevance; a distraction from the real issues.

They're a way for people to take easy steps that show they're doing something so they can feel better but it's not doing anything to really make a change.

Whut? The statue toppling has had a dramatic impact on the political debate. Just walking past those statues is what has demonstrably had zero effect. Most demonstrations have zero effect.

You think some statues gone and that's job done?

We beat racism, let's pack it up and go home.

It means fuck all, the dialogue in the media, from some of the MPs, and on social media is all about whether statues are racist, or censoring the past. There's no conversation about positive steps after we've fired all the statues into space on a rocket.

It's a token gesture, so when it's all over and the media cycle has ended, and a few statues get relegated to the confines of a museum, and I'm still getting pulled over for driving a fast car, and black people are still getting shot, people can turn around and say, "well we took the statues down, that's what you wanted."

It's really fucking not.

A cynical view would say the debate had been steadily reduced to the easier ground of representation in the media; it was breakfast cereal packaging yesterday etc. Rather than where this began with the visceral protests two weeks ago. Kind of why the CHAZ / CHOP thing in Seattle is interesting as it is causing debate to happen by its simple existence.

It probably would do more good if the conversation moved on from statues to profiling and current manifestations of racism.