By Ashley Young-
The removal of the figure of a black man’s head from a pub in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, amid the recent racism row has sparked controversy in the area, The Eye Of Media.Com can reveal.
Derbyshire Dales District Council said on Monday that the 18th Century iron and wood feature in Ashbourne would be “removed with immediate effect”.
The decision has annoyed some residents who feel the anti-racist protests have gone too far by defacing historic statutes, and this later resulting in councils voluntarily removing statutes.
A random sample of residents spoken to in the area revealed anger about the decision.
One angry 35 year old white male resident who insisted on anonymity to avoid a potential backlash told The Eye Of Media.Com:
” I think racism is wrong, but removing statutes all over the country is madness.
‘You mean after an angry group of protesters deface a statute in what has been confirmed was illegal, they get rewarded with council officials removing these statutes on their own accord? Those statutes are history, we have moved on from those days of slavery. The statutes should not be removed everywhere. Where does this stop, are we going to remove every single statute of people in the slave trade?”
When asked whether statutes of individuals involved in the slave trade should remain on display, he said : ”they are just fxxxxxx statutes aren’t they. It’s history”! he fumed.
‘This particular statute had nothing to do with racism. It’s just a picture of dark looking bloke”.
Another white male, 36,who also spoke on the condition of anonymity said: ‘issues of racism that need correcting should be changed, but many people who went to these protests just used it as an excuse to identify with something. They were bored and wanting to feel a part of something dramatic getting a lot of attention.
It has nothing to do with them. I don’t think the Council should have volunteered to remove the statute”.
A third female resident told The Eye Of Media.Com: ” I think all these demands to remove statutes is just political correctness. An excuse to play the card. We are now going to stat seeing people finding all sort of excuses to play the race card. Do you think it’s right for us to take all our statutes down because of something that happened hundreds of years ago,?she asked us.
About 150 residents gathered to take down the figure, intending to return it when the protests in the country had concluded.
A petition to remove the head, launched on Friday, gathered more than 40,000 signatures.
Ashbourne resident Mark Redfern had said the head, which is part of the Grade II*-listed sign for The Green Man & Black’s Head Royal Hotel in St John Street, “will be restored while on the ground and returned to its position at a later date”.
In a Facebook post, Mr Redfern said the head would be given “a lick of black paint”, and claimed the move was to save it from vandalism.
His son, 17-year-old Shaun Redfern gathered over 4,000 signatures on a petition calling for the head to remain for historical reasons. In the end, wider considerations meant the statute had to be removed.
Derbyshire Dales District Council said it’s decision to remove the head followed the statue of a slave trader in Bristol being torn down during demonstrations on Sunday.
The figure is apparently the head of a Turkish man who came to Ashbourne hundreds of years ago and traded coffee. It had been coloured black, but residents say it had nothing to do with racism.
As I had come here with one colleague of mine, we decided not to ask any other opinions, after being challenged for coming there. One resident asked, are you guys actually supporting that lot?”
He said we were breaking the law by travelling to Ashbourn, as he insisted: ”aren’t you only allowed to meet one other member of another household in a park? You have travelled all the way from London to Derbyshire to ask about the Council’s decision to remove a historic statute”.
When told it was work related, he said: ”you could have conducted a poll online, you don’t need to come all this way to ask questions that make us look we support racism when all we want is for statutes to stay where they are. People need to get a grip, slavery happened years ago”.
Ashbourne locals think the removal of statutes are unnecessary, and too big a deal is being made out of the killing of George Floyd which they think they should have been restricted to a campaign against racist police brutality.
One random black male we spoke to, Philip Walters said: ” many people who are not black may not understand how it feels seeing slave masters commemorated in a special way.
Thankfully, there were many white people at the protests which shows that many white people understand. Referring to us, he said: I trust you guys are one of those who understand . White people who are fair and not racist will understand”.