Tuesday 9 June 2020

George Floyd, racism, demonstrations and history

In the wake of the scandalous murder of George Floyd by police in the USA there has been a justifiably sorrowful and angry reaction. This tragic event has not only sparked demonstrations in its own right but has given impetus to the ongoing concerns of racism implicit in most white institutions, and anger and outrage against it. Of course these expressions of public concern have both their critics and their advocates.

It is naturally the case that any event no matter how tragic is tinged with various nuances and complexities which can be exploited by any who have an agenda one way or the other. I have heard critics comment on the less than perfect record of George Floyd as a person and complain therefore against the status of martyr to which he seems to have been raised. But that is to miss the point. The point is that what was done to him was wrong with a capital W. You cannot argue that his killing was less of a crime because of his moral status, and if you dislike his profile being raised in the way it has been, that was not of his doing but because of what was done to him.

Now that the fuse has been lit good and proper it will be interesting to see what develops. Already since the toppling of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol a light has been directed upon our tawdry history of enslaving others to be a means of great financial profit and gain. Fresh debate has been ignited over memorials, statues, road names and other types of "honour" bestowed upon those who made fortunes from slavery. We need to tread very carefully over this ground. Some voices are calling for the eradication and removal of all these statues and memorials, and the changing of road and place names to those more edifying and worthy. This would be wrong.  I say this not because I believe that those who gained from slavery and whose memories have been cherished and whose reputations are enshrined in praise deserve to continue in that favourable light. But to eradicate all memory of them would be wrong because it would be a wiping away of a part of our past that needs to be owned and settled with properly. So instead of tearing down and removing, we should make the stories which we display alongside these memorials tell more of the truth. There should be longer explanations of how they came by their fortunes which can be factually accurate without being vituperous. Explanatory plaques or "storyboards" could be placed alongside street names and statues and other memorials. Indeed, as a youngster I would have appreciated some explanations alongside Street names in my own native town as so often the street names remain a mystery to the curious youngster.

There is an even more challenging side to this honouring of a past that may not be so honourable after all. The profiteering from slavery for instance runs very deep and benefitted many white people in the north western hemisphere. We probably continue to reap the rewards of it in many of our institutions today. Much that has been done cannot be undone. The stealing of land by conquest is another hot issue. It rages curently in Israel/Palestine but Australia, the USA and Canada come to mind as relatively recent examples. There is also the unsavoury fact of present day slavery and bonded labour,
both here in the UK and many other parts of the world used in the sex trade. in sweat shops and in agriculture. This too needs to be brought into the light and eradicated.

But to return to where we started, and the incipient racism that plagues humanity. We have a tendency to pick on and exploit the exploitable, vulnerable, different. They need to be protected by social mechanisms that have the power to protect and to change mindsets too. What is needed is the political will to do it. I hope that this latest disastrous episode will be the spur we need to make these changes, just as I hope that the current pandemic of Coronavirus will galvanise more efficient action in the race to slow or halt climate change.


No comments: