You can practically smell the glaze crackling. Which reminds me, I need to sort out a roast for sunday.
> Colston School governors emphasised the change of name was not an attempt to change or deny the school’s history and its links to the slave trade.
Well said. You don’t need to continue to honour someone’s name, just to avoid accusations of hiding from your own history.
> Four out of five members of the public who took part in the survey said the school should retain the name of Colston’s.
Well sure, if you’re retired, hiding in your home terrified of roving gangs of boat-wielding refugees, and you’ve finished woke-proofing your stairlift, then *of course* you’re going to be spending your time desperately trying to stop progress.
> The school said it chose the name Collegiate School, Bristol, out of hundreds of suggestions by students, parents, staff and alumni.
So … “school school”? What a wasted opportunity. Might as well have gone with Schooley McSchoolface.
Stupid and terrible tbh. Don’t really care if I’m the outspoken minority. They aren’t renaming schools built by slaves in the middle East.
I don’t care at all, but it seems weird to me how much we focus on changing the symbols of oppression instead of the oppression. This name change doesn’t really matter at all in the grand scheme of things, but many people will look at this as a victory and be satisfied that work is being done for equality.
Quite a few schools are named after monarchs. Obviously all the current living members of the royal family are models of perfection, but some of their ancestors were a bit dodgy.
There were monarchs who definitely benefitted from slavery and colonialism, and others who have waged unjust wars. Will they be next?
They’ll quite happily continue to use the school founded by Colston (literally ‘built on slavery’), but don’t want his name associated with it any more.
A frankly disgraceful attempt to eat their cake and still have it.
>The survey on whether the school’s name should be changed received more than 2,500 responses – including 1,096 from the general public.
>
>Four out of five members of the public who took part in the survey said the school should retain the name of Colston’s.
That’s quite funny!
Similar thing happened with the Colston Hall name change (prior to BLM). It was a smaller scale, and the “victory” was a lot less decisive, but another example of where the people FOR the “Colston” name outvoted the AGAINST. Still, I don’t fault Colston Hall (or whatever it is now) because they at least pledged to change their name BEFORE BLM kicked off. The council, on the other hand… couldn’t even be assed putting up a plaque!
6 comments
You can practically smell the glaze crackling. Which reminds me, I need to sort out a roast for sunday.
> Colston School governors emphasised the change of name was not an attempt to change or deny the school’s history and its links to the slave trade.
Well said. You don’t need to continue to honour someone’s name, just to avoid accusations of hiding from your own history.
> Four out of five members of the public who took part in the survey said the school should retain the name of Colston’s.
Well sure, if you’re retired, hiding in your home terrified of roving gangs of boat-wielding refugees, and you’ve finished woke-proofing your stairlift, then *of course* you’re going to be spending your time desperately trying to stop progress.
> The school said it chose the name Collegiate School, Bristol, out of hundreds of suggestions by students, parents, staff and alumni.
So … “school school”? What a wasted opportunity. Might as well have gone with Schooley McSchoolface.
Stupid and terrible tbh. Don’t really care if I’m the outspoken minority. They aren’t renaming schools built by slaves in the middle East.
I don’t care at all, but it seems weird to me how much we focus on changing the symbols of oppression instead of the oppression. This name change doesn’t really matter at all in the grand scheme of things, but many people will look at this as a victory and be satisfied that work is being done for equality.
Quite a few schools are named after monarchs. Obviously all the current living members of the royal family are models of perfection, but some of their ancestors were a bit dodgy.
There were monarchs who definitely benefitted from slavery and colonialism, and others who have waged unjust wars. Will they be next?
They’ll quite happily continue to use the school founded by Colston (literally ‘built on slavery’), but don’t want his name associated with it any more.
A frankly disgraceful attempt to eat their cake and still have it.
>The survey on whether the school’s name should be changed received more than 2,500 responses – including 1,096 from the general public.
>
>Four out of five members of the public who took part in the survey said the school should retain the name of Colston’s.
That’s quite funny!
Similar thing happened with the Colston Hall name change (prior to BLM). It was a smaller scale, and the “victory” was a lot less decisive, but another example of where the people FOR the “Colston” name outvoted the AGAINST. Still, I don’t fault Colston Hall (or whatever it is now) because they at least pledged to change their name BEFORE BLM kicked off. The council, on the other hand… couldn’t even be assed putting up a plaque!