Overthrow of heritage is cultural vandalism

A BLACK man in another country is killed by a white police officer but every year in the USA about 1,000 people (a quarter of them black) are killed by police.

In our country, three people were killed by the police last year, none of them black.

How has the Black Lives Matter movement taken such a hold on the public mood here when there is such a difference between our two countries?

It is significant that the ringleaders of the statue-toppling in Bristol and some of the Black Lives Matter protesters were white.

Among the idealistic young students were grim-faced older men who went equipped for the removal of a statue but have bigger revolutionary aims – defunding the police and toppling the capitalist system.

It was not so surprising to see Labour councillors in Amber Valley trying to enforce the signing of the Black Lives Matter plate on the whole council – there is a strong Marxist element on the left.

It was surprising to see Derbyshire Dales Conservative councillors swept up in this hysteria. Have they forgotten their party’s support of traditional British values, which don’t include giving into the mob.

Somehow a lot of people have been persuaded to think the way black people are treated here is unfair. Great Britain is not a fundamentally racist country and many successful efforts have been made here to improve equality.

Oxford University – a beacon of white racism according to protesters – admits 18.3% of its students from British ethnic minorities – the proportion of the national population is just 13%.

In Derby we hear nearly a third of the hospital workforce is from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and over half of the more highly paid medical staff. Yet we hear prejudice is the reason that BAME applicants are less likely to be appointed once shortlisted for leadership roles. Why is it racist if BAME people are under-recruited for some rules but not if they are over-recruited for others?

History shows revolutions happen when the established order loses confidence in its values and lacks the will to sustain them. We are facing a cultural revolution that wants us to see our own past as irredeemably bad. We should be proud of our contribution to law, justice and human rights, including the abolition of slavery.

Symbols of Britain’s heritage should not be overthrown just because our forebears didn’t think like “woke” people today. By all means attach explanations – they enable people to reflect on past and present attitudes, but the mass overthrow of monuments is cultural vandalism and should be resisted.

G Jones, Chaddesden