Source: Charles Coates / Getty
It’s time for all racist symbols and statues to come down.
Well, it’s been time for them to come down, but if they were living and breathing, they would probably be shaking in their iron boots. Protestors around the world marching in solidarity for Black Lives Matter and demanding justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, are using the moment to take down racist symbols.
Champion Formula 1 racer, Lewis Hamilton, is calling for ALL OF THEM to be taken down. Hamilton put his flag down on Instagram, sharing in a post the video of the Edward Colston statue located in the heart of Bristol being taken down and then hilariously tossed in the water. Someone took the liberty of creating a fake Google Maps meme showing Colston’s statue’s new location.
In his post, Hamilton wrote:
“Edward Colston was a monster who bought, sold, and traded Africans, human beings, and forced them into slavery until they died. Nobody who did this should be honored. It was/is terrorism. Now. Then. He never should’ve had a statue. I’m proud of the activists and organizers in Bristol, in the United Kingdom, who tore this down. TEAR THEM ALL DOWN. Everywhere.”
If you need a history lesson, Colston was a deputy governor of the Royal African Company and was a notorious slave trader. He oversaw the kidnapping of tens of thousands of African men, women, and children that were shipped to America in the 17th century. It is widely believed that out of the 84,000 people on the slave ships, 19,000 of them died during transport, with their bodies reportedly being tossed in the ocean.
A statue in his honor was erected in 1895 for “philanthropic” efforts in Bristol. Of course, the money he donated he made from slave trading. So the tossing of the statue in water is very symbolic.
Good riddance.
Photo: Charles Coates / Getty
