So, in summary, four white middle class sociology students from a University built and paid for by the very chap whose statue they destroyed get cleared after doing what they wanted because a convicted drug dealing arse hole died of a drug overdose. 4,000 miles away.
Only in the current 'reality' could that be considered predictable, let alone acceptable.
Zackly.
But the facts are that 3 residents of Bristol, and one from elsewhere, and none students, along with many others, pulled the statue of Colton, a 17th century slave trader who’s company was responsible for the shipment of about 84,000 black, men, women and children slaves, down after years of local disquiet over it’s presence. Some of the protestors may have been students at the University of Bristol, but that institution was first conceived in the 19th century as a College, later becoming a university, all without any financial support from the long dead Colston of the 17th century.
The pulling down of the statue was part of the global Black Lives Matter protests, sparked by the illegal killing of a black man by US police, but all as a result of centuries of injustice to black people, with racial discrimination very prevalent in many white countries, including the UK and Bristol in particular. This city, along with others, witnessed racially fuelled riots in the 1980’s that is still remembered by the black communities, which has not been helped by events affecting young black men, with the case of Stephen Lawerence highlighting proven institutional racism by the police.
Therefore the death of a US drug dealer, in the manner it happened with the visual evidence available, was just the spark to set the tinderbox off, with the BLM movement the result.
Those are the facts, but why any white person should feel affected by the downing of a statue of a largely forgotten and unknown 17th century slave trader is personally beyond me. I certainly have better things to worry about in this world than that.