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Originally Posted by Onkel Neal
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The daft incident in Bristol with the Edward Colston statue and a few more like the example above fails to recognise the historical context. In Bristol we have a statue of a famous city father who did much good work for the community that was destroyed due to his record as a slave trader. His trade - amongst others - was to transport slaves during a period when slavery was legal and when it was a world wide institution. Incidentally who sold the slaves to be transported? Black slavers did. I say this not because I do not abhor the trade that was slavery but simply to note that we are looking at things from a 20th Century context and then applying our current value system to a period that was totally different. Also where does this end? I have read that some of these protestors now want to remove Nelson from his column because at one point he was known to have supported the slave trade. - Well of course he did because in 17th and 18th Century Britain it was rare to find someone - regardless of class who did not. So stop trying to eradicate a history simply because it does not follow our current moral view point. We have a history where lessons can be learned from a history that we can both dislike and be proud of but do not let us destroy it or try to eradicate it. Finally, as far as the slave trade was concerned lets not forget that there was at least as many black slavers as there were white slavers so it is far to simplistic to paint this as a question of white against black.