Revisionism gone crazy

T

The_Banker

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I am guessing that this has grown out of the Black Lives Matters when protesters tore down a statue of a slave trader in Bristol after taking there lead from the BLM movement who tore down statues of Confederate generals and politicians in the USA.

But has this protest movement gone too far? My thinking is that it has turned to mass hysteria.

Christopher Columbus statues being pulled down in the US and the ever alert People Before Profit jumping onto the bandwagon with regard to the memorial to him in Galway.
People screaming for Eamon Ryan’s head after he used (or quoted) the N word in the Dail. I can never under stand how it’s ok for black people in the US (and especially rappers) to use the N word but if a white person uses it then it’s a career ending event.

Now I see that HBO has dropping Gone With The Wind from their library and the BBC have dropped the Faulty Towers “don’t mention the war” episode. Even the kids cartoon Paw Patrol is under pressure as the police dog is called Chase.

Utter madness if you ask me..
 
I think you are conflating a few different things here.
I see no problem with removing a statue of a slave trader, just as I think it was a good idea to remove the statue of queen victoria from in front of Trinity College.
Many of the Confederate statues in the southern States in the USA were erected in the 1920's to the 1950's during the Jim Crow era and were all about white supremacy. Robert E Lee was against statues of that type as he said they would be divisive.
Christopher Columbus is a different matter as while his discovery certainly led to mass genocide and the death of about 80% of the indigenous population that wasn't his fault or his intention.

I showed my kids episodes of the cartoon Honk Honk Fuey (remember that?) have a look on You Tube and tell me it isn't a little bit incredibly racist. They were totally shocked by it. The thing is that when we know better we do better. I do agree that things should be seen in their historical context and taking Gone with the Wind off is crazy as it won't be watched by kids but I don't think RTE should be showing The Birth of a Nation as their Saturday Matinee.
 
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It does seem like some of the reaction is OTT. The reaction to Eamon Ryan is a case in point. I would much rather someone use the wrong word and subsequently apologise for it than for that person to be afraid to speak on the topic for fear of using a wrong word. His intentions were good. We don't want the high horse brigade shutting down conversations.
 
The_Banker said:
Now I see that HBO has dropping Gone With The Wind from their library and the BBC have dropped the Faulty Towers “don’t mention the war” episode.
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HBO have temporarily taken Gone with the Wind down to add a notice / commentary about the historical depiction of black people at the time. It is coming back

The "Don't mention the war" episode was taken down from UKTV streaming service because they had an old edit of the episode that didn't contain a warning about language used - nothing to do with the Germans it was a scene where the Colonel refers to the West Indies cricket team as n*****s and c**ns. UKTV is planning to put it back up with appropriate notices. It is still available on Britbox and Netflix with the warnings.

Maybe don't get your news from your Auntie Karen's Facebook page
 
Ceist Beag said:
The reaction to Eamon Ryan is a case in point. I would much rather someone use the wrong word and subsequently apologise for it than for that person to be afraid to speak on the topic for fear of using a wrong word. His intentions were good.
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I don't think anybody outside his party has taken him to task. It seems to me there is a civil war going on inside that party. I'd be very surprised if ER got his 2/3rds majority for any government formation deal.
I agree with EmmDee that the Gone With The Wind and Faulty Towers thing was misrepresented in the media.
 
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EmmDee said:
HBO have temporarily taken Gone with the Wind down to add a notice / commentary about the historical depiction of black people at the time. It is coming back

The "Don't mention the war" episode was taken down from UKTV streaming service because they had an old edit of the episode that didn't contain a warning about language used - nothing to do with the Germans it was a scene where the Colonel refers to the West Indies cricket team as n*****s and c**ns. UKTV is planning to put it back up with appropriate notices. It is still available on Britbox and Netflix with the warnings.

Maybe don't get your news from your Auntie Karen's Facebook page
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ah I get it now.. people are too stupid to know that the programme/movie was made in a different era and need to be told in advance. That’s perfect !
 
Purple said:
I see no problem with removing a statue of a slave trader, just as I think it was a good idea to remove the statue of queen victoria from in front of Trinity College.
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It was essentially a mob pulling down a statue they didn't agree with. No debate, no democratic process entered into, 'our way or the highway'.
A new ideology has taken hold and is only going to get more extreme in the years ahead
 
Delboy said:
It was essentially a mob pulling down a statue they didn't agree with. No debate, no democratic process entered into, 'our way or the highway'.
A new ideology has taken hold and is only going to get more extreme in the years ahead
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Public protest is often an expression by the people of the gap between the law and what’s right.
When a minority is excluded from power due to political and economic design then they are excluded from the social contract. Protest is often their only option.
 
I was driving around locally today and I noticed names like Torquay Road, Brighton Road and Westminster Road and suddenly I was painfully reminded of our erstwhile imperialist oppressors:mad:
 
Purple said:
Public protest is often an expression by the people of the gap between the law and what’s right.
When a minority is excluded from power due to political and economic design then they are excluded from the social contract. Protest is often their only option.
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Who decides what's right if against the law? Liberal mobs?
No one is excluded from power in Ireland or the UK. Or is there some law that rules certain people out of running for office or from having a vote?

Protest is a valid form of voicing your opinion in a democracy. Taking the law into your hands because it feels right, is mob justice no matter whether it's the Left or Right who are doing it
 
Delboy said:
No one is excluded from power in Ireland or the UK. Or is there some law that rules certain people out of running for office or from having a vote?
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Hmmmm. Says the white male who is probably hetrosexual with no disabilities and all his own hair......

There is law that rules people out just like there isn't one in the US either. Doesn't mean that belonging to a minority means you are equal. We have a gay mixed race leader which is great and a testament to him but he was also brought up in a middle class household where the father was already a doctor and the mother was a nurse. His parents were able to send him to one of the Country's top schools. So as much as I admire Leo who I have no doubt faced discrimination in his life, I bet he appreciates his life would have been very different if it wasn't for his parents. So he was lucky and worked hard to take advantage of it

We have never had a woman leader. We will probably never have a member of the Traveller Community as leader of the Country or in a position of elected power in this Country. Despite over 10 years of immigration, minority groups are still severely under represented in all areas of public life, in business and in things like sport. Simon Zebo is probably the closest we have come to a member of a minority group playing for Ireland in rugby apart from imported players. Same with Irish provinces. Intercounty GAA can be counted on two hands. Children from minority groups have been calling out racism at underage sport for a long time now in this Country but are met with silence. No black news readers. Can't even think of any black Irish TV presenters currently working on Irish television. I have worked in business for over 20 years. I have never worked with a black manager/executive. I reckon if I looked at every boardroom in this Country, the number of black people would be tiny. The number of women would still be smaller than what it should be.

So no, there are no laws or rules that make things harder for sections of society but that doesn't mean there aren't problems. And we can't turn round and say look at Leo and Obama and what they did and say why can't you because there will always be some people that are more fortunate than others but that doesn't mean that people aren't right to demand that they are listened to.

As with all protests, there are always idiots who will look to take advantage and take offence at everything. We saw it at the #me too movement as well. We see it with the debate about gender and transgender. We see around gay rights. The media all rush to report the ridiculous until the sensible arguments and points being made are drowned out.
 
Delboy said:
Who decides what's right if against the law? Liberal mobs?
No one is excluded from power in Ireland or the UK. Or is there some law that rules certain people out of running for office or from having a vote?

Protest is a valid form of voicing your opinion in a democracy. Taking the law into your hands because it feels right, is mob justice no matter whether it's the Left or Right who are doing it
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Sunny answered that way better than I could have.
 
We'll agree to disagree on most of what Sunny has said but it's gone away from the issue that brought me into this debate which was around the pulling down of statue by what I consider a mob.
 
Sunny you make some good points there but you may be a bit unfair on us. You talk about 10 years of immigration. For a start this was voluntary so they were not put off by the "discrimination" you cite. They came for jobs that they were skilled to do.
Your criticism would be much more valid if we had a large minority population who were born and reared here and yet did not have the same opportunities as their earlier generation peers.
 
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Duke of Marmalade said:
Sunny you make some good points there but you may be a bit unfair on us. You talk about 10 years of immigration. For a start this was voluntary so they were not put off by the "discrimination" you cite. They came for jobs that they were skilled to do.
Your criticism would be much more valid if we had a large minority population who were born and reared here and yet did not have the same opportunities as their earlier generation peers.
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Fair point but I would hope that Ireland would be a better option than some of the Countries that exist in the World. Also, the Children of those people didn't choose to come here and even if they were born in Ireland and are Irish, I am not going to pretend that the majority of those kids are not going to face challenges and discrimination that my white freckly kids will never face.

I am not saying that Ireland is the most racist Country in the world. But there is no point in pretending that we are morally superior than other places either just because we don't have visible problems that other Counties have. There was an EU survey done where Ireland had one of the highest if not the highest amount of workplace racism. We can either decide that this is just minority people complaining about things that don't exist and using excuses for their own failures or we face up to it and have a honest discussion about it.
 
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