Quote Originally Posted by crazyfists View Post
Sorry Old Pie but I don't believe taking down a statue of a man who made alot of money trading slaves (branded them on the chest with the companies initials, nice) which black people have to walk past every day whilst contributing to the economy makes us or myself less British. They tried putting up an additional plaque explaining about his slave trading but couldn't find the words obviously to justify the plaque and the statue so just left it, it should have come down years ago.

Infact I think as a Briton then we have a duty to be fair and inclusive, yes we have a history and we can acknowledge that whilst at the same time also admitting that in the modern world, some things are in poor taste now. Yes back then it was OK but now its not and people need to take that on board. It's not eroding people's britishness and to say if 'new british' don't like looking at things like statues of slave traders they should bugger off is more a reflection of your archiac views. It's like you can't fly a union jack or St Georges flag apparently when you really can, there are 3 on my street. You're not losing any britishness by holding your hands up and saying yes this shouldn't be here, for me that's adding to your britishness. The world is changing, you can still be British and proud whilst moving into the modern world.

All protests get brought over to criminality by anti government groups so I'm not sure why people are so surprised now and again it's kicking off. It's hard for myself to know exactly how black people feel in today's society, I've got friends but we have never discussed it if I'm honest. I do understand how white people can feel sometimes as I'm not racist, use all communities, have Muslim and black friends etc and am probably still the enemy to some people but we don't know what it's like to be black in this society so I won't judge them.

I am proud to be British, the past is the past, you don't have to scrub it out, just acknowledge that yes we did bad things as well as everyone else, we can't take them back but we can make sure that we don't make people feel unwelcome or that they're not equals anymore, it's not right.
And I ask where is the line to be drawn and who decides that?