Colston falls #BlackLivesMatterUK
Hard to express how much this moment means for Bristol #BlackLivesMattter
People will ask: What does removing a statue achieve? In reality, this is part of a growing global movement allied to the #BlackLivesMatter struggle, which seeks to remove monuments erected during a surprisingly sort period of time – the 1890s to the 1920s (1/4)
(2/4) Those monuments commemorated anti-black violence, and sought to normalise and naturalise white supremacy. Communist and fascist monuments have been removed across Europe, but as I write in my new Brutish Museums book many memorials of colonial proto-fascism are still here
(3/4) Their ongoing presence in our cities continues colonial violence into the present. That’s what they were built to do. Removing them starts to dismantle the white infrastructure of racism. We've all talked about removing the 1895 Colston statue for decades. It was overdue.
*SHORT period!!
(4/4) Now Bristol needs to dismantle its other principal monument to anti-blackness – by returning the Benin head looted from Nigeria in 1897 — currently on display at the other end of Park Street in @bristolmuseum
— to the Royal Court of Benin. #BlackLivesMatterUK #TakeTheKnee
— to the Royal Court of Benin. #BlackLivesMatterUK #TakeTheKnee
PS "The depth of grassroots feeling was exemplified in by the defacing of a statue of 18th-century merchant Edward Colston with a slogan naming him a ‘F*cking Slave Trader"—me writing, ahem, TWENTY YEARS AGO about protests in Jan 1998 > archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archives/view/…
#BlackLivesMatterUK
#BlackLivesMatterUK
A key question is now: once we've fished the old racist out of the water, will @HistoricEngland approve the de-listing of the Grade II listed Colston statue? Hard to imagine it being re-erected. Could be a once-in-a generation test of social legitimacy for the UK heritage sector.
In my personal view, this cheap 1895 sculpture belongs in a store-room in @bristolmuseum, and a new sculptural commission by an African artist should take his place. Space in the museum is tight—but could maybe be found by restituting the Benin bronze looted from Nigeria in 1897.
From the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the USA we learn that physical removal is just one part of the fallism movement - which is about the poltics of what can and can't be seen, dismantling and repurposing monuments or institutions built to memorialise and naturalise inequality.
Statues and museums are among the places people are using to re-frame how we think about anti-blackness and social justice in the 21st century. They become places to gather. The transformative actions that result can take many forms, in some cases, as today, removals.
So as I said above one immediate test for the UK heritage sector will be whether it is bold enough to de-list the Colston statue - either leaving it where it fell, underwater, or putting it in a museum store. Now it's gone, it's very hard to imagine the statue being re-erected.
And that is exactly how things like statues or museum exhibits are built to work - as if they could stop time. So an urgent task is to understand how monuments built for white supremacy in the 1890s-1920s continue to inflict violence on black people today AND to listen when
requests to remove them are made. People have been asking for Colston to be removed for decades. The museums/heritage sector must learn from this moment if we're to understand what addressing institutional racism means for us in this new moment for the #BlackLivesMatter struggle
Yes silence is complicity. But so is dialogue that never leads to action. As for 1890s statues so for 1890s loot. So yesterday we archived 1,000 of the responses to the British Museum #BlackLivesMatter statement—all demanding action for African restitution>
Please take time to read those incredibly thoughtful and unanimous calls for justice and restitution at this time when the social legitimacy of Britain's museums and heritage sector is in the balance - on the streets of Bristol, and in the museum storerooms. #BlackLivesMatterUK
Bristol has some great leadership in @MarvinJRees, in @HistoricEngland's Queen Square team, and in the fab curatorial team up the hill at @bristolmuseum too—is it too hopeful to think the stars are aligned for Bristol to show the UK heritage/museums sector how to get this right?
