Things the last few weeks have taught me
Jun. 9th, 2020 11:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
weaselettSo I have learned a few depressing things in all of this:
- The Scottish Police have more protections than English/Welsh - and don't actually have to release much information when they...kill people (Sheku Bayoh - 2015 - there was an enquiry....but who knows what the result was, or what actually happened that morning)
In England and Wales - they rarely do anything besides a statement and investigation through the oversight committee, court cases are rare and they tend to end with lots of shrugs and hand waving - it's always depressing, but at least details get released. Information is known.
- SO many people have no idea about British History. SO MANY. Urgh.
(An official statement had slavery being a Victorian era thing....Slavery was abolished in the Georgian Period, slavery was a Georgian crime - Victorian era, you are talking about indentures. Indentures are this thing we strangely do not talk about, 80% was slavery with a different name, 20% were apprentices (some of the 80% were considered apprentices, but their terms were.....less 'free' shall we say).)
It is extremely unlikely that there was ever a time that the UK didn't have a mixed population. Things have been traded internationally since the Neolithic, people moved around the world.
You can take your 'this is a recent change' thing and shove it. (I mean The Book of Kells has black monks in it! The 'Romans' who came to the UK came from North Africa and the edges of Asia. SO MUCH EVIDENCE. (this is a common argument with Ma, she has now given up, because I keep finding new examples))
- People are being very damned selective about the things they no longer want. (I am sorry but if you own antique mahogony furniture....there's only one place that came from - the broad intent now seems to be to rename things and remove statues, but really we need to deal with all of it folks. And it is a depressing and very long list, because sadly even most of the people who ended up wanting to abolish the salve trade....had already made their fortunes from it.
Move more recent and there's even more in the way of people like Livingston, who went and did their white saviour bit (as an example, he's rather mixed, he helped end slavery in some places because he thought other kinds of trade would be better, but missionaries had interesting methods for conversion, our explorers were all about being the first to do things when the natives peoples were actually, you know, the first)
Working in Lancaster I was always so angry that the only memorial to the slaves who died for the city's wealth is hidden away on the riverside and horrifically badly maintained (for a year it was hidden behind boards, because that was the 'best' place to store stuff for the road works). It was designed by a black artist (Kevin Dalton Johnson), however it lacks supporting information (I know this, because I had to explain it on a regular basis, and direct people to it).
There needs to be a much better education of folk about our past. We need to celebrate a greater range of British people (there are a lot of women, LGBT+ and POC who really do deserve to be celebrated more than the white dudes that feature the most) and we need to recognise the variety that exists, now and in our past.
We also need to recognise everything, good and bad. There's a weirdly selective thing where we focus on the most vocal (i.e. Florence Nightgale (who is problematic in a few ways)) rather than the some of the other folk that actually got the things done (i.e. Mary Seacole).
- The UK police need a review. In this country it is more likley for a member of the military to be held accountable to the courts than a police officer.
The police need to take less steps before they can shoot/act, and are nowhere near as well trained. (Dad's running thing in the past was that they had to give three warning before shooting, even if someone was driving a car at you - the police can just shoot).
There isn't the accountability.
The police also don't 'have' to go into situations that paramedics have to do into, they can just not attend scenes. They don't get called to account for bad management (Manchester - we will see, but so far :/).
They also get violent and restrain folk they are arresting in ways they shouldn't.
People who work with violent and mentally ill people, outside of the police, have to be non-violent and de-escalate situations. Causing harm or death loses you your job, or gets you charged with a crime.
To finish, I am getting a little frustrated with the lack of specific, useful for change in the present, demands from the UK protestors there are. We NEED change, so that what's happening in the here and now changes. Educating people is a big part of that, but we also need to sort the police out.
Also, we need to get angrier about the things done to indigenous peoples, like, you know, Canada at the moment O.O - colonial BS has not stopped.
- The Scottish Police have more protections than English/Welsh - and don't actually have to release much information when they...kill people (Sheku Bayoh - 2015 - there was an enquiry....but who knows what the result was, or what actually happened that morning)
In England and Wales - they rarely do anything besides a statement and investigation through the oversight committee, court cases are rare and they tend to end with lots of shrugs and hand waving - it's always depressing, but at least details get released. Information is known.
- SO many people have no idea about British History. SO MANY. Urgh.
(An official statement had slavery being a Victorian era thing....Slavery was abolished in the Georgian Period, slavery was a Georgian crime - Victorian era, you are talking about indentures. Indentures are this thing we strangely do not talk about, 80% was slavery with a different name, 20% were apprentices (some of the 80% were considered apprentices, but their terms were.....less 'free' shall we say).)
It is extremely unlikely that there was ever a time that the UK didn't have a mixed population. Things have been traded internationally since the Neolithic, people moved around the world.
You can take your 'this is a recent change' thing and shove it. (I mean The Book of Kells has black monks in it! The 'Romans' who came to the UK came from North Africa and the edges of Asia. SO MUCH EVIDENCE. (this is a common argument with Ma, she has now given up, because I keep finding new examples))
- People are being very damned selective about the things they no longer want. (I am sorry but if you own antique mahogony furniture....there's only one place that came from - the broad intent now seems to be to rename things and remove statues, but really we need to deal with all of it folks. And it is a depressing and very long list, because sadly even most of the people who ended up wanting to abolish the salve trade....had already made their fortunes from it.
Move more recent and there's even more in the way of people like Livingston, who went and did their white saviour bit (as an example, he's rather mixed, he helped end slavery in some places because he thought other kinds of trade would be better, but missionaries had interesting methods for conversion, our explorers were all about being the first to do things when the natives peoples were actually, you know, the first)
Working in Lancaster I was always so angry that the only memorial to the slaves who died for the city's wealth is hidden away on the riverside and horrifically badly maintained (for a year it was hidden behind boards, because that was the 'best' place to store stuff for the road works). It was designed by a black artist (Kevin Dalton Johnson), however it lacks supporting information (I know this, because I had to explain it on a regular basis, and direct people to it).
There needs to be a much better education of folk about our past. We need to celebrate a greater range of British people (there are a lot of women, LGBT+ and POC who really do deserve to be celebrated more than the white dudes that feature the most) and we need to recognise the variety that exists, now and in our past.
We also need to recognise everything, good and bad. There's a weirdly selective thing where we focus on the most vocal (i.e. Florence Nightgale (who is problematic in a few ways)) rather than the some of the other folk that actually got the things done (i.e. Mary Seacole).
- The UK police need a review. In this country it is more likley for a member of the military to be held accountable to the courts than a police officer.
The police need to take less steps before they can shoot/act, and are nowhere near as well trained. (Dad's running thing in the past was that they had to give three warning before shooting, even if someone was driving a car at you - the police can just shoot).
There isn't the accountability.
The police also don't 'have' to go into situations that paramedics have to do into, they can just not attend scenes. They don't get called to account for bad management (Manchester - we will see, but so far :/).
They also get violent and restrain folk they are arresting in ways they shouldn't.
People who work with violent and mentally ill people, outside of the police, have to be non-violent and de-escalate situations. Causing harm or death loses you your job, or gets you charged with a crime.
To finish, I am getting a little frustrated with the lack of specific, useful for change in the present, demands from the UK protestors there are. We NEED change, so that what's happening in the here and now changes. Educating people is a big part of that, but we also need to sort the police out.
Also, we need to get angrier about the things done to indigenous peoples, like, you know, Canada at the moment O.O - colonial BS has not stopped.
