Much of Dan Guthrie’s life has been haunted by...A family tragedy? Escaping war and strife? Being caught up in a natural disaster like a tornado or earthquake?
...a disturbing mechanised figure resembling a tethered black slave boy, which is supposed to strike a bell hourly in the centre of Stroud.
*blinks*
He first passed the automaton, which is known in clockmaking circles as a jacquemart, on his way to primary school in the 2000s and then secondary school – and now on his daily journey into work in the Cotswold town.
Has he not heard of Google Maps and their ability to find you an alternate route? Do all roads in Stroud lead past this automaton?
“It is an offensive racist relic from the transatlantic slave trade, and the fact that it is still up in Stroud is a mystery to me.”Oh, I can help you with that. It's because the world doesn't revolve around you.
...the debate about the clock’s future has become increasingly fraught since the town’s Conservative MP, Siobhan Baillie, criticised local anti-racists campaigning to have the divisive figure relocated. Baillie said “a certain minority of people with loud voices have an unquenchable desire to be constantly finding things to be outraged at” in a statement published in the local press and on her website last month.
Good lord, I think we might have found an actual real Conservative for once!
Naturally, the usual suspects spring into action:
The founder of the group, Polly Stratton, a Stroud-based English teacher, says Baillie has poisoned the debate about the clock, which has been moved twice during its history and was last restored in 2004.
By expressing an opinion that the majority in the town probably have, Polly?
“We didn’t look for this fight...
Oh, really? What, teaching doesn't keep you busy enough?
... – all we are doing is raising awareness about a racist caricature that is having a traumatic effect on many people of colour in Stroud. Their views should be heard, not shouted down by someone with a public platform,” she says.
Like...you're trying to do to everyone else?
“We’re not trying to hide it or tear it down. We want it on public display in a museum.”
To do that, wouldn't you have to tear it down? Or do you plan to build the museum around it?
For an English teacher, you don't seem very bright. Or to appreciate what English words mean...
Baillie – who has spoken in parliament about the distress caused by anonymous racist and misogynistic social media trolls – has also worked with the Kick it Out charity, which campaigns against racism in football. But it firmly disagrees with her stance. “Whether it’s on the football pitch, online or in our town centres, we have to fight racism wherever we find it,” says Tony Burnett, the CEO of Kick it Out. “With that in mind, I would remind Ms Baillie that her work with Kick It Out on online anonymity does not give her a free pass to undermine anti-racist groups.”
What on earth gives this twerp the right to pronounce on this matter? Is the automaton depicted kicking a football?
Right, that's it! No golliwog for Ms Baillie for Christmas then.
ReplyDelete"resembling a tethered black slave boy"
ReplyDeleteTethered? Slave? No. Simply a standing figure of a boy. No rope, no chains.
Once again the leftists are lying, with the expectation that newspapers will not refute their lies.
And isn't Europe full of mechanical clocks like this? Human figures of all sorts who strike the hours? Knights? Fools in motley? Animals? Etc?
I am surprised that no one else has pointed this out.
Delete