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dcba
... and Europe. And elsewhere!
In South bloody Korea people felt the need to demonstrate their support to the current demonstrations. What's next for them? Apologizing for the crimes of slave trading [which - I feel compelled to add - never took place in Korea].

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Green Lady
I'm sorry to find that the road I live in, the pub on the corner of my High Street and the primary school I attended are all named after somebody on the renamers' hit list. Not a slave trader, but someone who held the catch-all "racist views", so nothing else he ever did now matters at all.

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paulywaul
If only the Rolling Stones would play ... sigh !!

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dcba

And where do you stop after you started cleaning the past?

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ryanpow
In 2020, there shouldn't be confederate statues unless they're in a museum. A concern though is that a symbolic change, like removing the statues, will be used as a substitute for the substantive reform that needs to take place.

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Green Lady

So not a slaver, but a friend and defender of slave owners. This is not an admirable part of his character, but is it enough to justify removing all monuments to a very significant (and in other ways much admired) figure in British history?

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Big Al

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EddieByword
Just out of curiosity, what does your wife think?

We’re estranged at the moment!

No, we are in contact and I was intended to chat with her about this. She’s South African and fled apartheid with her mother and sister in the late 80’s. I would say that she is a person with a strong understanding of race and prejudice. I suspect she’ll see the pulling-down of statues as vandalism, but her heart will undoubtedly be with the cause. She’s quite a racially-aware person, so I’m sure her overall views are strong and formed on the issue. In regards to Brown Sugar: I genuinely don’t think she paid attention to the lyrics. She liked wearing my Rolling Stones t-shirts.

The above would be her view, but I also have black male and female friends who couldn’t give a hoot about any of this!

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windmelody
It is a self destructive, stupid and dangerous development in western societies to demonize the own past and to reduce it to negative things. Another idiocy is judging people from the past by moral standards of the present.

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Maindefender

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Doxa

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Koen

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Midnight Toker
They will play BS again. Please do not bow to the FAR LEFT.

It’s about humanity, please stop politicizing this.

Well, what Midnight Toker says implies that those in the FAR RIGHT think racism is alright.

Which probably is the case.

Anyway, the case of "Brown Sugar" is a tricky one. I have always interpreted the song playing with the images and attitudes of the past - something between journalism and sarcasm - and I have never interpreted it as racist. More like antiracist one. But then again - they truely are playing with the fire there (kids, don't try that at home!). I think telling is the first public performance of it - Mick playing it to Ike and Tina Turner, and see the hilarous reaction of Tina... Mick clearly knows the dariness and shocking value of the lyrics, which probably is the point of whole song... and taking today's (justified) sensitivism, I understand why it easily can be targeted. There was an individual attack against it last year. At the time I saw it ridiculous, but I don't know now. I guess for many of us belonging to the old guard of rock generations, that kind of dariness and edge "Brown Sugar" represents is a part of the charm. I mean, that's rock and roll, baby! Da Stones! But what about if we were, at least partly, wrong? Were there things we didn't realize back then, but that are now, as the awereness increases, revealed and we should know now better? Time to grow up for us as well? I have no answers, just questions.

I guess the problem with "Brown Sugar" in regard to racism is not if the lyrics are, if put under scrutiny, racist or not, but more like: is it sensible, no matter what your intentions are, to play at all with images like that? Images with such strong racist connotations? Isn't that, if not necessarily racist, but just stupid and tasteless?

I guess it is a tricky issue for Jagger as well. He seemingly haven't been comfortable with it for a long time, like he hasn't with "Street Fighting Man" either. He clearly isn't the guy in his twenties any longer, no matter that he still does what he did back then...

Growing up gracefully? Well, that's the problem for Sir Mick and rest of us too who still dig the music we did in our teens many, many decades ago...

- Doxa

Oh the humanity. Question is who’s left(or right) to write stirring music about the times today? Who truly believes enough to write a rock song to today’s revolution/morals?

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windmelody
It is a self destructive, stupid and dangerous development in western societies to demonize the own past and to reduce it to negative things. Another idiocy is judging people from the past by moral standards of the present.

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Sighunt
When you have a single, horrific incident like the George Floyd killing caught on video that causes so much outrage to humanity, you can expect (at least for the foreseeable future), that the pendulum will swing hard towards rectifying and/or righting perceived wrongs (whether it be out of political correctness) like tearing down confederate statues, banning confederate flags from NASCAR races, pulling Gone With The Wind by HBO Max over racist depictions, etc.

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Sighunt
When you have a single, horrific incident like the George Floyd killing caught on video that causes so much outrage to humanity, you can expect (at least for the foreseeable future), that the pendulum will swing hard towards rectifying and/or righting perceived wrongs (whether it be out of political correctness) like tearing down confederate statues, banning confederate flags from NASCAR races, pulling Gone With The Wind by HBO Max over racist depictions, etc.

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windmelody
AH was one of the most diabolic creatures of all time.Yet there are people who say that one must not read Eichendorff or listen to Johann Sebastian Bach - since Adolf was so evil. These people are missing something.

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windmelody
It is a self destructive, stupid and dangerous development in western societies to demonize the own past and to reduce it to negative things. Another idiocy is judging people from the past by moral standards of the present.

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Aquamarine

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Sighunt
When you have a single, horrific incident like the George Floyd killing caught on video that causes so much outrage to humanity, you can expect (at least for the foreseeable future), that the pendulum will swing hard towards rectifying and/or righting perceived wrongs (whether it be out of political correctness) like tearing down confederate statues, banning confederate flags from NASCAR races, pulling Gone With The Wind by HBO Max over racist depictions, etc.

Whatever someone thinks of the means of righting them, they're not perceived wrongs, they're just wrong. There's no way to perceive slavery as morally right.