With the Colston statue removed, what else is there in terms of restorative justice for Britain’s BAME community?
As the weeks and months have progressed, you would be forgiven for thinking the world could be in a better place. Not only has 2020 seen a deadly pandemic sweep the globe, claiming many innocent lives, but America has also seen the loss of one other innocent life. His name was George Floyd.
After allegedly handing a store a counterfeit note, he was later reprimanded by police who attacked him with force and brutality, suffocating him to death. A video surfaced of his arrest, where witnesses can hear his harrowing cries as he exclaimed he couldn’t breathe. Despite this, police forces continued to treat him with force and aggression, causing his untimely demise.
Many events circulated the press and the social psyche soon afterwards, as important questions started being asked. Why was this man being treated with such force and aggression for an incident which was so minor? Was this case of police brutality an example of the structural barriers black people face, leading to the institutional racism of many within the police?
There are no clear-cut answers to these questions, but what we can do is take action and start dialogues.
One way to keep BAME communities oppressed and docile is to continually remind them of their history of oppression. To do this, oppressive figures such as statues became erected, like the statue of Colston, to celebrate some of the most evil atrocities within our history as part of the othering of BAME communities.
Because of this culture of othering, BAME communities are subsequently treated with suspicion and fear. Black communities are associated with deviancy and criminality. Muslims are associated with radicalism and terror. All these tropes are kept in place by the use of oppressive regimes and representations of these regimes, like the use of the Colston statue. This is why the dismantling of the statue was necessary, as it was one of the first steps needed in opening up a space for BAME communities to feel safe.
Despite the emancipatory benefits that came with the destruction of the statue, many were left divided on the issue, and appropriated several liberal schools of thought concerning amnesty and freedom of speech to perpetuate an alt-right agenda.
During my time at university I witnessed these arguments first-hand after my university’s implementation of the no-platform policy. Arguments began to circulate from conservatives concerning the trope of ‘generation snow-flake’; a backlash against liberal values and morals. These arguments surrounded the narrative that dismantling discussions and representations of oppression impeded people’s right to freedom of speech. Furthermore, they argued in favour of the historical values of these figures of oppression.
Of course these arguments are completely baseless, with no evidence to corroborate them, circumstantial or otherwise. If we were to follow this school of thought, then we would thus have to overlook the emancipatory benefits of dismantling oppressive objects and regimes. History is not linear progression of divide and conquer, but of revolt and revolution. There are countless examples in history of people overthrowing oppressive regimes and representations of these regimes; the fall of the Berlin Wall, the toppling of the statue of Saddam Hussein, the eradication of the Confederate flag and so on and so forth.
However, the reception concerning the dismantling of the Colston statue has been less than favourable. Home Secretary Priti Patel has been regarded as saying that the toppling of the statue was ‘utterly disgraceful’.
Britain needs to acknowledge that its historical roots concerning racism are beginning to show, when the dismantling of such representations of hate start to become appropriated by conservatives and the alt-right, in pursuit of their, often, misguided agendas.
The toppling of the Colston statue was much needed to begin the process of eradicating institutional racism within British society. However, the dismantling of the statue also raises much needed questions about what else is needed in terms of justice for the BAME community.
It is a fact that racism does not just affect BAME people’s wellbeing but physical health too. Evidence of this can be seen in the disproportionate number of deaths within the BAME community from coronavirus. Conservatives would have you believe that the fault lies within the communities themselves. I have often seen this rhetoric spun concerning the lack of assimilation within BAME communities, living in cramped and overcrowded conditions. But the reality is it is the racial bias within the medical field against BAME communities which are contributing to these increased number of deaths.
The Colston statue was one way in which BAME people were able to reclaim a sense of empowerment and justice. But more needs to be done. The Colston statue was a micro-agression and more needs to be done to fix these everyday micro-aggressions which are so pervasive within British society.
Our language and dialogue needs to change. For example, people should refrain from using inaccurate, derogatory and homogenising terms such as illegal immigrant, and instead use terms such as undocumented migrant. The developing world needs to become the Global South. Only when we change our narratives and dialogues can we then change the succession of history for the betterment of BAME communities.