Statues are erected to say this person was one of Britain's very best but that's the problem with statues, if we are going to celebrate anyone with a likeness in our towns and cities, it should be people who are genuine heroes who have helped mankind, not conquered, enslaved or killed as many as possible of them so why the statue of Edward Colston was not removed decades ago is a disgrace.
Edward Colston was a slave trader who made his fortune by transporting 84,000 men, women and children from West Africa to the Caribbean in the 17th Century and his statue which until this afternoon standing in Bristol Town Centre, is now at the bottom of Bristol's Harbour after protesters pulled it from the plinth and dragged it to it's watery end.
The Home Secertary has come out and described the toppling of Colston's statue as 'disgraceful' but i would say a good guide is if the statue is a representation of someone who made money selling black people for slaves, then the statue is probably not of someone who should be celebrated.
Britain has a shameful and reprehensible past with the likes of Colston, a white supremacist who wreaked havoc in Africa and represents Britain at it empirical worst, when it was stomping around the globe and putting the natives down while they raped and pillaged the land for Blighty.
Colston's actions were abhorrent in the 17th Century and it is wrong today in the cold light of the 21st Century when we see them for the hideous creatures that he and his ilk were, so they should be torn down and thrown in the sea out of sight, i would also lob every Winston Churchill statue into the river if it was up to me.
My only concern is that the people who did it, i hope they sanitised their hands afterwards but no amount of scrubbing will remove the stain of what Britain and it's slave traders did, but making sure we don't have a 18ft bronze statue to them as a constant reminder of our previous generations racism is a great start.
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