Exactly , just been reported Floyyd is hailed the cornestone of a movement.................................................i really fear for this generation they way they are getting manipulated so easily by social media
From what I've read he was a nasty piece of work throughout his life, but reformed himself in the last few years. It doesn't make what happened to him right, but not the type you'd really hail as a martyr whilst defacing Churchill's statue (who also did a lot of bad & good things.)
The point I am trying to make is that in my opinion these figures need to be remembered as the sum of their existence, not for one chapter of it. Churchill made some questionable choices that resulted in a lot of people dying, but had he not lead the country to war and beat the Nazi's I believe life for the minorities would be much harder for them today than it is currently. Stopping them was a win for all races and religions in the long run, so out of all of them, I personally think his statue in particular should have been left alone. Maybe not so much the one in Bristol, but that statue seemed like a more elaborate version of people leaving money and having a park bench in their remembrance by a bloke who made his money from slave trading. He is not an important figure in improving the country for all who live there, more so "Here's a bloke who made all his money immorally (albeit legally at the time) and didn't know who to leave it to, so gave it to the city" Probably comparable to a modern day wealthy pensioner leaving their money to the cats protection league because they like cats and didn't have any family to leave it to.. doesn't warrant a statue in my opinion.
Floyd was apparently a repeat offending criminal for things such as armed robbery, and something I saw (not sure if true) said he robbed a pregnant woman by holding a gun to her 'bump', which takes a special type of ******* if you ask me. BUT, his death has highlighted the bad practice of some of the american police force, and reignited the discussion over racism which is a very good thing when done in the right way, as here in the UK we are a lot more accepting than most countries, but by no means free of racism.
Will he be remembered as a criminal for his bad deeds, or as a martyr to the BLM movement?
The same way Churchill is remembered for being a symbol of British spirit and defeating the Nazi's, and not for other things he did throughout his life, because those things aren't celebrated, the same way Floyd's criminal past isn't being celebrated.
I think the problem is, the protests are tainted by ulterior motives as we've seen with people looking to cause trouble, criminal damage and act violently towards the police. As well as these, you have the white middle class champagne socialists jumping on it like they did with greta, as a new cult they can follow to rebel against their parents/the government and to 'show solidarity' to the under dog, and show they are such caring humans to gain instagram followers and scream personal insults at anyone who dare try to engage in questioning them with reasonable discussion. Ignoring the fact they're usually propped up by capitalist families and their ancestors were probably as bad as the people who's statues they are campaigning to have removed. It's a shame they've chose to jump on this, as their behaviour detracts from the cause, the same as it did with brexit, the election etc. The left are, in my opinion in no position to be screaming about racism given the very recent history of it being rife within the Labour party, but I suppose that was a different race so it's ok. That's another discussion though.
And as another point, has anyone seen any BLM protests about atrocities happening to them in other areas of the world, other than Europe and the US? I haven't.
For the record, I can hand on heart say I have only been on the receiving end of any racial abuse(and not many times), which doesn't really follow the rhetoric as i'm white.. It's not something I really think about as I've not been dragged up to judge someone by race, religion etc, and I don't. But I do acknowledge it still exists in society. However, I think campaigning to remove anything that has benefited from slavery is mad, you need to wipe the everything off the face of the planet because every country and civilisation will have benefited from it at some point in history.
Sorry, long rant over
DISCLAIMER : All views are my own, and I am a bit of a tw.at by self admission