Now is not the time to sow seeds of discord
AS the child of immigrant parents, who grew up in multicultural Moss Side during the 1950s and 1960s, neither I nor any of my friends, recognise the hateful dystopia of racial bigotry which Mr McNeill depicts (Viewpoints, Tuesday, June 9).
Nor can I accept his assertion that everywhere interracial relations consist entirely of relentless white bigotry. Such a situation, I suggest, exists only in the imagination of the woke propagandist and nowhere in the real world.
To suggest that all white people are necessarily bigots is not only an assertion of the racism Mr McNeill claims to deplore, but also an insult to all those decent people – the vast majority – who strive to treat everyone with respect.
What makes it really dangerous, however, is that it is calculated to sow discord between ethnic minorities and white people by asserting that they are inevitably mutual enemies.
Mr McNeill’s simplistic dogma will never resolve the infinite complexities of community relations. Nor, as is evident to all, will violence, looting and the desecration of national monuments.
Contrary to what he claims, the line that separates good from evil, does not neatly divide one race from another; it runs straight through the heart of every man, regardless of his colour.
Joseph O’Neill, Westhoughton
We must have reminders
WHILE I agree we should remove some of the statues to slavers, should we not also pull down Town Halls and other buildings that were financed by the slave trade?
Why not instead place new plaques on the statues giving the history of the person?
If we remove all evidence to slavery how will future generations learn about this foul trade?
Dr Martin Seely, Worsley
Welcome look at statues
WE need to recognize that history is built on exploitation and brutality as well as positive progress.
Our memorials should reflect that and enable us to learn from history and, where necessary, never forget.
Most importantly, in order to do that, statues need interpreting for future generations to understand why they are there as well as what they did, balancing their positive with their negative attributes. We all have ‘feet of clay.’
As statues generally only honour one person, we should consider memorials and plaques which can reflect movements and events, such as the Peterloo memorial.
I therefore welcome the review by the city council of its statues and its call for more representation of the significant contributions made by BAME people and women.
Manchester is built on the legacy of slavery.
When some people say that working in the mills was like slavery, it has to be pointed out that slaves were not recognised and had no rights as human beings but were regarded as property, chattels, which could be used at will.
Gerry Diamond (M.E.N., June 11) wrongly blamed ‘left-wing agitators,’ not recognizing the anger that not just BAME people, including the largely young demonstrators, but all of us should feel about our inherited legacy. Perhaps he would support other Conservatives who paid homage at Nancy Astor’s statue, the first woman to take her seat in Parliament, but also an avowed Nazi-sympathiser and anti-Semite who told a roomful of AfricanAmericans that they should be ‘grateful for slavery’!
Steve Roman, Manchester
First steps to post-Brexit
RELAXING Sunday trading rules is wrong. It is only pandering to the demands of big businesses who are prepared to push staff into working when they could be with their families, so as to maximise their profits.
It is also a push-back against small family businesses which in the last few months have recaptured some of the space they have been pushed out of for so long. Many of these businesses may stretch the law (they certainly allow an interpretation of 2m as 2ft or less) in my experience and it may be they are staffed by family members working seven days a week.
However they do that to support their families, not fat corporations.
The proposals to further dilute regulation are a symptom of the Government’s softening us up for a raw world come next January after they have crashed us out of the Brexit transition phase.
What other lower standards can we expect as they capitalise on the massive NHS treatment backlog?
Will they normalise visits to the GP being by phone or Zoom?
Further invasive surveillance of anyone gathering in the city centre with ever enhanced facial recognition software?
F. Greenman, M12
Continual point scoring
WHAT I cannot understand is, when the Government has been trying to get some parts of schools back before the summer holidays, the opposition, Labour councils and teachers unions have tried all they can to block those plans.
Now the Government has backtracked and said they are not going back, there is now outrage by councils and Labour that schools are not going back until September.
The Government is damned if they do something and damned if they don’t.
I thought we were all in this together.
Instead we have continual political point scoring.
D Aspinall, Tottington