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00:00In the summer of 2020, one city in Britain would become the focus of international attention after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
00:13Overnight, Minneapolis on fire.
00:16The situation here in Santa Monica, California is very fluid.
00:20A storm of anti-racism protests captured in dramatic news reports spread across the United States and the world.
00:27A very serious escalation of disorder outside Bounding Street.
00:32And when this storm landed in Bristol, a statue of a slave trader was torn down.
00:47The world's media descended on Bristol.
00:50In another British city, this is Bristol, a statue of a 17th century slave owner was taken down, tossed into the water.
01:07Caught in the eye of the storm was the city's mayor, Marvin Rees, the first directly elected black mayor of a city in Europe.
01:15Mr. Rees, do you support the police in their search for those responsible for criminal damage?
01:21Or do you support the tearing down of this statue?
01:23Putting up those kind of binary options really doesn't help us navigate a complicated world, Krishna.
01:29There is something horrific about having a slave trader's statue in the riddle of your city.
01:34And yet there are people who feel that they're losing a piece of themselves with the statue being hauled down in it.
01:39All those things are true at the same time.
01:44Brilliant. As far as I'm concerned, every time I've seen it, I felt sick.
01:47It's just an excuse of premeditated violence.
01:50Bristol coming together and saying, you know what, we're going to support each other.
01:52How many statues are we going to destroy? How many buildings do we deface before we've got history looking the way we wanted?
01:58You can't live with it. Why do you come and live here?
02:01This film began following the mayor and the people of Bristol in the immediate aftermath of one of the defining moments of 2020.
02:10I'm hoping that we stay away from over street conflict.
02:15If we don't handle the next few days and weeks well, then clearly there's going to be a lot more dry tin there, as it were, for people to put sparks to.
02:22It's been five days since the Colston statue was taken down, and the international media's focus on the mayor's office is continuing to build.
02:45New York Times, Local Government Chronicle, Globe and Mail Canada, Channel 9, yeah, these are all to come, Channel 9 Australia, Canadian radio.
03:02Can you hear me? This is Mass Control, English Channel, Al Jazeera.
03:05How are you? You okay?
03:06Thank you, sir. Yes, I am.
03:07The weird thing about the media is, while everyone else is talking about trying to bring Bristol together, it's in their interest to prolong the conflict.
03:13We do need to acknowledge how this has divided people.
03:17What do you say to those who say that we're dismantling the historical context of the way British society is built?
03:24Well, I say we're not. The danger is we get caught up in symbolic acts that don't change underlying conditions.
03:31Just describe for me your emotions when you saw the statue being taken down the way it was.
03:37As a city official, I cannot ignore criminal damage. But as I shared, I could not pretend that I was anything other than affronted by the statue.
03:46Colston may have owned one of my ancestors. So for the statue to have gone in the grand arc of history, this was the right thing.
03:53Right.
03:54It's just been non-stop. It's been 100 miles an hour for three, four or five days from dealing with the actual issues around the statue and the harbour, dealing with the issues in the city, trying to hold that together while making sure that what Marvin talks about in the media is about a much wider issue here and about how the city needs to learn to live with its differences.
04:12And he did Al Jazeera, which is important. It talks to some communities in the city in particular. But then the New York Times is like, that's profile, isn't it? That's a chance to talk to the world about some of these issues from Bristol. And that's quite big.
04:25But to me, the most important interview is Radio Bristol. There's an opportunity to start to widen this debate. Let's talk to everyone in the city and understand why they feel the way they do.
04:35Simple question to start with. The management of Colston Hall described the name as toxic in 2017, decided then to change it. The statue has been debated for years. Do you regret not taking it down?
04:47That's not a simple question, John, to be honest.
04:49I think it is, actually.
04:50We have a number of challenges facing us. Austerity, the financial situation, the housing crisis, child poverty, and racism is about those underlying conditions.
04:59But if you have a top ten list of priorities that you're going to put in place to tackle racism, taking down a statue, you wouldn't be in that top ten list.
05:08But that statue is the start of something. And that could have been led by you.
05:14John, I think, I mean, there's another piece of irony here that if after being the first directly elected black politician in Europe, suddenly the statue is my fault.
05:23I'm not saying, no, I'm not saying it's your fault, Marvin Rees. I'm not, that's not what I'm saying. And you know that.
05:28I actually found that quite demoralizing. So rather than saying, right, Marvin, we've got some people who were, who were elated at the statue being torn down.
05:38Some people who sympathize with it being torn down, but don't agree with the way it happened.
05:42And there were some people who were dismayed and feeling alienated. How do you as a mayor hold the city together?
05:47What he wants to say is, do you regret not taking a statue down? That's not trying to get insight on what we're doing with the city.
05:52It's the smash and grab, simplistic, superficial search for a clip for the bulletin that says,
05:58Mayor of Bristol admits he regrets not taking a statue down. Most people don't interact with real arguments.
06:03They interact with the journalistic interpretation of the arguments. And they're getting underserved.
06:10I don't know how to look unrelaxed.
06:12It's a very dangerous moment for me, I think. I'm black. I'm mixed race. I'm from a poor background, working class, welfare class background.
06:24And these questions of race, belonging, white people feeling disenfranchised, political system not working for poor people, it's all swirling around.
06:34The danger is that the conversation on race remains incredibly immature. And then I get sucked into the vortex of being a black politician who only talks about race issues.
06:46And I'm not seen as a serious politician. That's the danger I'm in at the moment.
06:50Why are we wiping out our history, made our city the way it is?
07:02Once we start down this route, where does it end?
07:05I'm not saying what he did was right. It was extremely wrong. That was back then.
07:10Do we start burning down Colston Tower? Do we start going into the cathedral and digging up the graves of all the plantation owners there?
07:16In one of Bristol's museums, staff are tasked with the conservation of the statue.
07:34So here he is. The idea is, at the moment, just to stabilise him as he was when he was put into the dark.
07:46But the paint can flake off, so we're just trying to stop that happening.
07:50Well, it's quite apt, isn't it? The red paint on his hands, he's got blood on his hands, you know, seems quite appropriate.
07:57Edward Colston made much of his fortune from slavery, and he served as deputy governor of the Royal African Company in London.
08:08In his home city of Bristol, he was also a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers.
08:15They were instrumental in establishing Bristol as a slave trading port, and their members owned plantations in the Caribbean.
08:25In 1895, decades after slavery had been abolished, members of the Merchant Venturers were among those who paid for the statue and gifted it to the city.
08:36Well into the 21st century, they continued to support annual celebrations to honour Colston as a philanthropist who had donated money to many of Bristol's institutions.
08:47The city has, over the years, done a big and intentional job of elevating Colston.
08:58He's been chosen as the person to kind of embody the spirit of the city, and the mythology around it has been stitched into the city.
09:09It's no wonder that changing that causes people a sense of imbalance.
09:13I have every sympathy for everybody who have been trying to get that statue moved for years, but I did find it a little bit over the top.
09:42And I was a bit sad to see him topple into the harbour.
09:47That was my childhood, that was my growing up.
09:50And it's a shame in that way, but that's just sentimental attachment.
09:53I joined Colston's Girls in 1959, believe it or not.
10:05There were no fees in those days, it was non-fee paying.
10:09And it was supported partly by the local authority and partly by the merchant venturers.
10:16It was a wonderful education because everyone was encouraged to feel that they could do what they wanted to do and be whatever they wanted to be.
10:34And be mouthy, which as you can see, has worked.
10:39It was quite liberating, I suppose, in that way for girls in those days.
10:43So this is my friend Pammy and myself with our homemade wreath, putting it on Colston's tomb.
10:55To give thanks for the foundation of the school is what it was all about.
10:59Commemoration Day, it was called Commemoration.
11:02Everybody used to call it Commen for short.
11:04We all had to go to the cathedral and have this service and then afterwards we'd go and throw our bronze chrysanthemums at that statue.
11:12I think we were told it was his favourite flower.
11:15I cannot remember being told our founder made his money in slaves.
11:21He was seen as a philanthropist.
11:27In the next couple of weeks, Colston Girls School are going to change their name.
11:30How do you feel about that?
11:32Well, I can see it had to happen because the political climate has changed.
11:38I'm all supportive of the Black Lives Matter.
11:41But I don't know where you stop.
11:43There are statues of all kinds of so-called great and wonderful people,
11:47Nelson and Churchill and all that.
11:49And they've all done horrible things.
11:52It's a shame that people feel that everything has to be erased.
11:56What you need to get rid of is the racism underpinning all this
12:01and not just focus on some guy from the 18th century.
12:08The mayor's office has received news that a demonstration in direct response to Black Lives Matter
12:18and the toppling of Colston has been planned at one of the city's war memorials.
12:23I've just realised I've got a call in my diary, 10 to 11, to discuss the protest.
12:33Which protest?
12:34The football.
12:35Football ads.
12:36From City, Rovers, Swindon and Cardiff.
12:39Yeah.
12:40Yeah.
12:41There's a big signs about it all over the place.
12:43Risk levels, medium at the moment.
12:45They're expecting 200 to 300.
12:47I feel a bit concerned by this thing about the football supporters coming in from elsewhere.
12:51I mean, this demonstration at the moment seems to be centred around defending the Cenotaph, right?
12:55I mean, nobody in their right mind is going to want to attack the Cenotaph, right?
12:58So, we need to make sure that those demonstrations are about what they're about
13:02and I'll be much more comfortable with Prestonians at the heart of them.
13:04That's my real feel for that.
13:06Protesters, including local bikers and football fans, have begun gathering at the Cenotaph,
13:25just a few yards from where the Colston statue stood.
13:28It's about left-wing and right-wing, not race.
13:30It ain't even about left-wing and right-wing, it's about everyone coming together and dying
13:34Some of the protesters approach Colston's plinth,
13:42where there are placards and messages left by the Black Lives Matter demonstrators.
13:47So, I thought, that's a mess. That should never be there.
13:51I thought that statue should never be pulled down anyway.
13:54Not without some democratic process at the very least.
13:57I thought, you are a Mexican champion!
13:59I thought, you are a Mexican champion!
14:01You are a Mexican champion!
14:02You are a Mexican champion!
14:15Hi, Marvin. How are you, mate?
14:17Yeah, I'm right, Joe.
14:18Is this tough time, the weekend?
14:20Yeah.
14:21The weekend's a little bit complicated.
14:24We'd have some far right, but not everyone there was far right.
14:27But we only had two arrests.
14:29No big tear-ups, which is helpful.
14:32Yeah.
14:33One of the things I really want is for white working-class Bristolians to understand the interdependence of their story with black Bristolians, right?
14:40The common ground.
14:41You've got the history of slavery in that, but women, working-class people, tobacco factories, that's the rich area for me, you know, that we share history.
14:50And our struggles are the same.
14:58I went down there last minute.
15:00Everyone's over there shouting there's only one Winston Churchill.
15:03I've walked over, some lads give me a footy up, I've climbed up, and some lads shouting, Nigel, there's a flag.
15:14So I've leant down, got the British flag, and I remember the video of a black lad in London burning our British flag,
15:21and this woman pleading, begging with him to not burn, saying, please don't burn our British flag.
15:25And so I thought, my granddad took a fight for this war and this flag.
15:29This is our flag and we're proud of it, this is our country, we're proud of our country.
15:33It wasn't about black and white, it wasn't about race, it was about our heritage.
15:39White people got art as well.
15:41Let me tell you now, when you're shouting, when you're shouting white privilege,
15:46that makes me sad because, you know, you ain't seen the way I grew up.
15:51This is Gatcom Road, quite a few people have died on this road.
15:59A friend of mine was murdered by a couple of my other friends, just literally up from that corner leaving the pub, they shot him dead.
16:09There was a lad killed by a 15-year-old boy pushing a bike out in front of him.
16:14End of the road, people was killed by police back in 91.
16:19This is where I grew up, anyway.
16:21We lived in the corner down there, my mum didn't work, my stepdad didn't work.
16:26We used to drive round on Nick Motorbikes, like, when I was, like, nine.
16:30Constantly getting took home by the police.
16:32My mind was ruined.
16:34It had domestic violence and drugs, what we're seeing every day.
16:38And I couldn't concentrate to be educated because I had so many problems back home, you know.
16:48I didn't know that statue was a slave trader, imported loads of slaves.
16:52No one cares for a slave trader, everyone just cared about how it was done.
16:57I think race is overshadowing the main problem of poverty.
17:01That's where it all is, because, you know, the whites got it hard as well.
17:06It's not just the blacks who got it hard, the whites equally got it just as hard as what they have.
17:10It's not about black and white, it's about rich and poor.
17:13That's the difference, that's what people need to understand.
17:23Following the protest of the Cenotaph, a provocative statue mocking the demonstrators
17:29has been left near the plinth.
17:32OK, um, Saskia want to put this chav-type statue into the engine.
17:37I said, what you can...
17:38A chav statue?
17:39Yeah, have you seen it?
17:40No.
17:41So it's been chained to a lap roister.
17:43It's really quite offensive, actually.
17:45No, I don't like that.
17:46No, me neither.
17:47It's a classic with a cross-definition of what a racist is.
17:49It's offensive.
17:50Yeah.
17:51And the spoiler to say you're already focusing, it's so clear, like, you're racist chavs.
17:55There's snobbery and racism, isn't there?
18:01The placement of the statue of the chav, right, the working-class icon,
18:05I feel hugely uncomfortable with that.
18:07I can, from my background, associate much more, I'm a Bristol Rovers supporter, right?
18:11I'll turn up at football.
18:12I'll go to football and I'll be talking to, drinking with and supporting the team with those same people, right?
18:17The lack of law and order can be very frightening for people, particularly vulnerable people or poor people.
18:21And I understand the fear that people have about losing their city when they see statues coming down and all the rest of them.
18:34When people describe Bristol, they always describe it with this bohemian, individual, independent mood, right?
18:41I don't see Bristol either.
18:42Slum clearances and the war play huge parts in the way Bristol shapes itself.
18:49You have got council stakes in a ring around the city.
18:52And that means the city centre has become increasingly gentrified.
18:57And so the people who come and live in the city centre and experience Hot Wells and Clifton and Redland and Southville,
19:02that's a very different Bristol to the one I grew up in.
19:05When I go home to Lockleys and visit my sisters, that hasn't changed.
19:10It doesn't look any different.
19:11If anything, it might even be poorer.
19:12You know, Marvin's background is very similar.
19:14These are two different cities, right?
19:19I've often heard people describe over the years, this is an incredible place and it is in many ways.
19:25But it can be a very hard city for people and it was a hard city for my mum.
19:32Mum had me in 1972.
19:35White woman, brown baby, unmarried, no money.
19:38So it was tough.
19:40Before I was born, people were telling her she should have me aborted.
19:44And then when I was born, she was told if she was a good woman, she'd put me up for adoption.
19:49Housing wasn't secure.
19:50We ended up in a refuge for a little bit.
19:52We lived on an estate on the edge of town, Lawrence Western.
19:56And I watched my mum struggle, you know, just to pay bills.
20:00I always remember the day a bill came in for £88.
20:03I have that number etched into my head.
20:05I probably was about seven years old and it was like the world stopped.
20:08We had this £88 bill and we just did not know how we were going to pay.
20:11So yeah, I remember that.
20:27So this is my flat I lived in with my mum and then my sister came along as well.
20:33In 1976, Dion came.
20:35That window was my bedroom window.
20:37And the van, the nursery van used to come and collect us and it would park here.
20:42And rather than going out the door, because I like my kind of sense of action,
20:46I used to jump out the window and then run up the slope and jump in the van.
20:52Experiencing racism down here was mainly about being called names.
20:56Like Blackie Sambo, Chocolate and all those kind of things.
21:00My mum used to say, well, you might tell them you might be black but your name's not Sambo.
21:04I never ever wanted my mum to come out and get involved.
21:07Because I didn't want my mum ending up in a confrontation herself.
21:12I look back on some of the things I lived as a child and at the time, I wish I hadn't gone through them.
21:17But it's left me with a number of things in my politics.
21:20One is I'm quite pragmatic.
21:23You know, there is the perfect world and there's the world as you'd like it to be
21:26and there's the world we have to work with.
21:28And if I can be honest with you, and this is a very dangerous thing to say,
21:32I do carry around quite a lot of quiet, controlled anger.
21:36Now, I say that's dangerous because it's not safe for black people to admit that they're angry.
21:40In the extreme circumstances, it gets you arrested and in the United States gets you killed.
21:45But I am angry.
21:46How can you not be angry when every day people like me,
21:50and I don't just mean in terms of skin colour but I mean in class background,
21:53are born destined to die earlier than others,
21:56to become unwell before other people, to get poorer outcomes from our education system,
22:00more likely to end up mentally unwell.
22:03You've got to be angry about that.
22:05It's been ten days since the statue was taken down.
22:17The national lockdown is being lifted,
22:19but the mayor's usual face-to-face meetings with the public are postponed indefinitely.
22:26Hello, everyone. Welcome to another Facebook Live.
22:31As of 4pm today, we've had 720 confirmed cases of COVID-19.
22:37What we don't have in the city is a meaningful public transport system.
22:40Brought schemes forward from Hengrove, North Western, St. Anne's.
22:449,000 homes come through.
22:47We are opening up our toilets in parks.
22:50Free school meals over the summer holidays.
22:52It's great to see Marcus Ratchford get real traction with government.
22:55We're launching the History Commission,
22:57whether it be around black people, Asian people, women, working class, unions.
23:01We want to tell the full Bristol story.
23:03We clearly are going out, continuing to fix potholes.
23:10While there's been no further confrontation on the streets,
23:13the mayor's office faces questions about how it's dealt with the controversy surrounding the Colston statue.
23:19Steve Alexis asked in advance on Facebook,
23:23now that it has been dumped, we have a totally divided city.
23:27Will the council accept part of the blame for creating that division?
23:30Firstly, the council has caused divisions, but those divisions existed irrespective of the council.
23:35It's also worth sharing that even if the statue had been brought down in a formal way,
23:39it would have caused divisions.
23:40So we have to be quite rounded in this.
23:42Over the past few days, there has been a sharp increase in correspondence personally directed at Marvin,
23:52with over 1,500 messages received since the statue was removed.
23:57So I'm just going through all the posts that the mayor's received in the last week.
24:02And I'm just currently sorting it out in terms of what's kind of positive comment and what's negative comment
24:10and what is stuff that we need to report to the police.
24:13So, so far we've got kind of even piles, I would say.
24:18But we've definitely got some stuff which needs to be reported.
24:23It's very, very abusive.
24:25Yeah, okay.
24:27Africans are pack animals.
24:30Ninnog lives don't matter.
24:33I think you missed off a G.
24:35Supposed to say Ninnog lives don't matter.
24:37But we could do a dumb and a spell check.
24:39Someone has taken the time to send you a book.
24:43Jolly Little Numbers.
24:46I think it's something from the 50s.
24:48Along with a little pin badge as well.
24:51So gollywog pin badge.
24:54And ten little nigger boys jumping in a line.
24:57One fixed the hole, then there were nine.
24:59Okay.
25:00So it's racist subtraction.
25:02Yeah, okay.
25:03Yeah.
25:04Alright.
25:05But it's got nothing to do with what we're trying to do.
25:08It's just sad people.
25:09This guy's even put his address on it.
25:11It's just very unhappy people writing stuff, so what can you do?
25:14Yeah.
25:15I suppose the most useful thing about this is that, you know,
25:18those kind of that doughy-eyed reality in which people think the world has moved on
25:21and it's totally different to what it was when we were younger.
25:23People get a wake-up call to say actually he's still out there.
25:28I don't know how I feel about it.
25:30I find it irritating.
25:31It's the, you know, it's the classic kind of keyboard warrior type thing, you know?
25:35And that irritates me because it's pretty kind of gutless.
25:40I've always up that back of thought though, what if this is a serious person?
25:44And then I think about my family, you know, I've got three children and a wife.
25:47I've got to do the responsible thing for my family.
25:50I don't, I don't really sleep over it.
25:52It's just what it is.
25:54The mayor's office has just received news of an act of racially motivated vandalism.
26:04You know that Scipio headstone in Henry?
26:05Yeah, the slave here.
26:06Yeah, it's been vandalised, it's been smashed.
26:08In Henry Church?
26:09Yeah.
26:10Seriously?
26:11Yeah.
26:12That's a big piece of Bristol history.
26:13Yeah.
26:14Oh look, that's such a beautiful grave.
26:18That's really sad.
26:21There is a lot of agitation in the city.
26:24That's actually quite concerning, yeah.
26:27What does that say?
26:28Put Colston's statue back or things will really heat up.
26:32Yeah, that's a few agitators, isn't it?
26:35The pulling down of Colston's statue was not an anti-white oppressive move.
26:40It was a move about toppling someone who exploited other people.
26:43That is an overtly racist move.
26:45I mean, it's clearly meant to be an attack on black people in that sense,
26:49but actually that's an attack on Bristol's history.
26:51So it's a concern.
26:54The mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, says the tombstone of an African-born slave
27:05has been smashed in two.
27:07The memorial to the slave, known as Scipio Africanus,
27:10has been in the graveyard of St Mary's Church in Henbury since 1720.
27:15Mr Rees has appealed to residents not to go down what he called a tit-for-tat route.
27:20I didn't realise he was just 18.
27:31I've got children under the age of 18 and the thought of someone taking them away
27:35and turning them into a servant accessory is just horrifying, actually.
27:40I don't think it's possible as a human being to engage in horrible acts
27:45without it having some kind of impact on you.
27:48I mean, this isn't even just an abstract statue.
27:51This is a grave that's being desecrated in many ways.
27:54There must be some degree of discomfort, or at least I would hope so.
27:58Scipio Africanus, I'm sorry on who did this to your grave. I hope it's restored soon. RIP.
28:17What we have in the city is a contrast. The pulling down of a statue of someone who elevated themselves,
28:26and a humble resting place for someone who is one of the world's servants and one of the world's enslaved.
28:33The contrast couldn't be starker, really.
28:36The smashing of this headstone, it just goes against what I consider to be universally right.
28:44This is the smashing of a headstone of one of the world's put upon, one of the world's voiceless.
28:50And it hit me deep, really. And it just brought into real sight for me that we're not in control of this world.
28:58You know, we can do our best to try and manage it, but things happen that are not in our control.
29:03I've grown up in an era where political apathy seems like an easy thing for people to fall into, including myself.
29:29George Floyd's death, God rest the man's soul, but it's the sort of thing that is needed at times to really shape people from a bit of a slumber.
29:45Black lives matter! Black lives matter! Black lives matter!
29:51I guess that moment on the plinth was me really being politicised for the first time.
29:57I was trying not to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of people.
30:01If this is just the moment, let's go home now. If this is just the moment, what are we here for?
30:09I ended up in a band. We moved from Bath to Bristol just for the music scene, really.
30:15And I just fell in love with the place. Like, it's been seven, eight years now being in the city and feeling like it's home, feeling like it's been a place I can really grow as an artist.
30:25We're a very divided city. Though we seem multicultural from the outside, we've got pockets of Jamaica, we've got pockets of Somalia.
30:33Do you know what I mean? You can't not notice Clifton on the top of the hill looking out at the rest of...
30:37Just after we voted to leave Brexit, walking through the bear pit, someone decided it was okay to make monkey chants towards me.
30:45If that moment can galvanise a racist to open his mouth, if Trump getting into office can galvanise America, racist America to come out of the woodwork,
30:53some stuff that Boris is doing here, if the bigots feel emboldened to open their mouth, this moment has to make us feel big enough to open our mouths.
31:01Look.
31:02Black is beautiful, black is excellent. Black is pain, black is joy, black is evident.
31:07It's working twice as hard as the people, you know you're better than, cause you need to do double what they do so you can level them.
31:13Black is so much deeper than just African American, our heritage been severed, you never got to experiment with family trees.
31:20Could they teach you about famine and greed? They show you pictures of our fam on their knees, tell us we used to be barbaric...
31:26And stuff like this is wicked to get people out, but in between all the marches and all that going on, we need something that's concrete.
31:34This city feels like it very much responds to the energy that's inside it. It's a very charged place and I don't want the energy that we have to just dissipate.
31:43I don't want to have to have another person lose their life for this sort of response to come again, so let's take the energy that's there now and do something with it.
31:51As our first cutting our teeth in activism, we have been blocking the sale of the Rastafari Cultural Centre in St Pauls.
32:00A space that was gifted for anti-racism work. The council are now going to tell us that today, in 2020, there's no need for this space.
32:08Can't let it run. If we stay passionate for the things that are happening in our community, what hope for the world?
32:15Welcome to today's meeting. Full details of questions submitted are on the council's website and will be displayed on the screen as we work through them.
32:32Under Covid restrictions, the City Council's monthly meetings are being held remotely.
32:38Green at question one. Councillor Lake, do you have a supplementary?
32:44Yes, I do.
32:45Since Marvin became mayor, Councillor Cleo Lake has been critical of a lack of support for Bristol's black communities.
32:53My question was directly about investment and support for our black led institutions that already exist and whether we can get some commitment from the council to ensure that decades of under resourcing is resolved.
33:09So, first of all, you specifically named the number of organisations. I can't bypass a process to specifically say from the outset that what we will do is get money to those specific organisations. That wouldn't be, you know, a fair and a just thing to do.
33:27Well, it's not easy to be the overall leader of a city. Let's be honest about that. I'm sure coming into office, sections of Bristol would have thought, well, he's just going to do X, Y and Z for these people because he's from there or this and that and the other, which hasn't happened.
33:42Whilst he may and as an administration come up with schemes like the one city office and stepping up, which are award winning programmes or whatever, they're all very well, but they're not radical and they're not revolutionary. We haven't got a revolutionary mayor. It's the bottom line.
34:00Do you think you get given a harder time from the black community because you're black?
34:05Not everyone. Not everyone. Sometimes people can understand who they are in the fight. But the moment someone says, all right, well, come sit at the table with me and let's come up with a solution. They don't know about making solutions. What they know about is shouting analysis criticisms.
34:19I think it comes also from sometimes quite a weak understanding of what politics is. When you get elected, you don't get a blank piece of paper and you just write out your wishlist and get it all. It's a very challenging world.
34:30The purpose of being elected is not just to get a seat by which you can come and ask me to do stuff that you could actually do yourself. But as I said, come and see me in between meetings. Please, you know, the theatre of an unrepresentative full council meeting.
34:43Two weeks ago, Marvin, I've been ignored. Go and have a look at all the meetings we had put.
34:48What would you have done before?
34:50I would have, if I had the opportunity and the power to make certain decisions, then I would have apologised as a city for our role historically and commit to reparations in whatever way that came through. And I would have removed the statue.
35:10What do you make of Marvin's defence if you would just be seen as the black mayor who kind of came in and took that down? What would you make?
35:16What's wrong with that? What's wrong with being the black mayor who came and took that down?
35:23The day after the statue was pulled down, the police launched a criminal investigation.
35:28Three weeks later, one group of anti-racism campaigners gathers outside City Hall to protest.
35:40So the tearing down of the statue was not a criminal act. It was an expression of anger, not only with the killing of George Floyd, but also at the complacency of Bristol's leading representatives over three centuries to the crimes that have been committed against black people.
35:56The city council and business community should now make a public apology for the role the city has played in the slave trade.
36:08So you've got 50 white people calling on the black mayor to apologise for slavery. It's a fascinating situation.
36:17If I was to step up and apologise, what would that mean? Am I to stand in front of a group of kind of white progressive activists apologising for slavery?
36:29It's a little bit more complicated than that, I think, you know?
36:33Marvin Rees, what his administration has done is give a statement of evidence to Avon and Somerset police. Those young people that took that political act are now at risk of being arrested.
36:49The prosecution of people who were involved in bringing the statue down is a really tricky one for the council.
36:55It's such a sensitive and emotional subject and everyone has a different opinion that you're never going to really win whichever way it goes.
37:02For the police are in a tough spot because the whole world saw that technically a crime was committed.
37:07For us, we were asked whether we could give a statement, which was really a fact-based, evidential statement, literally that the statue was there in the morning and then at the end of the day it was in the harbour and we hadn't given permission for that to happen.
37:22Given the kind of toxic history of Colston in the city, could you have chosen not to have made the report?
37:29No, it's criminal damage. We've got to put the report in. Politicians don't get to choose when the criminal justice system is and is not enacted. That's very dangerous.
37:41The police do not get to choose when and not to investigate. Ultimately what happens is up to the Crown Prosecution Service and the judge.
37:59Just before five o'clock this morning, the empty plinth, which used to carry the statue of the slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol, was replaced with a sculpture of one of the protesters whose anger broke.
38:28Whose anger brought him down.
38:35I think it's a really good statue, to be honest, in comparison to what was there. It's very nice that someone from London has come down and put that there.
38:42Yeah, we love it. I mean, it's so exciting to wake up to the news that Mark Quinn has installed it.
38:47So we had to rush down, you know, before it gets taken down, but hopefully it won't.
38:51Yeah, hopefully it won't, but we don't know, do we?
38:54It does a whole lot more to represent, you know, where Bristol stands on the Black Lives Matter issue.
38:59There's the bikers. They're doing that all over. Whenever anything to do with Black Lives Matter is going on, the bikers are driving around revving their engines.
39:14Frank in Hot Wells, your thoughts on this new statue going up?
39:17It's a farce. It's an absolute farce. Now, what if another section of the same society turn up and rip this one down and throw that in the docks?
39:25You have one new message.
39:30This is a complaint about the statue, which is a symbol of black power in the United States that has no place in Bristol.
39:42I've just got off the phone to Alex. He's telling me they're anticipating a backlash.
39:46That backlash may not just be symbolic on statues. It could be in the lives of real brown people in the city.
39:53We have to act before there is another action.
39:56Yeah.
39:57All lives matter, my love. All lives. A democracy if you vote to take down this statue. You don't rip it down.
40:07So I had an email saying it's going to be on Channel 4 News tonight. So they were obviously there to film it.
40:14I had a call from BBC Radio Bristol. You think we're in on it?
40:18We need to be clear we're not, don't we?
40:19Well, I know I have been clear that we're not, but it looks like we've given them permission and we've been part of this, like, secrecy.
40:25I am compelled to write to you to encourage the immediate and quiet removal of the undemocratic and divisive statue of Jen Reid.
40:34I hereby object to the BLM statue that has been illegally mounted in Bristol. I find this offensive and unlawful.
40:40Time for Marvin to get off the fence and get his act together and do his job.
40:43This is a really beautiful symbol of what the top lane of the Costa statue represents.
40:46Take it down before it gets ripped down.
40:48I think you better take it down before the white statue protectors come down, then you will have a full-scale riot.
40:53Sod the decking statue. What are you doing to save mass redundancies?
40:57The police, their intel is it will probably be attacked tonight.
41:01Because it's made of resin, it's dead easy to smash up.
41:05So there's a council team ready to remove it.
41:08So I guess our decision is based on this timeline of it being attacked.
41:12So play it out, right? What if it does get smashed?
41:15Yeah.
41:17We've been warning for the start. We've been very clear. We want the space.
41:21We've been very clear about opportunists jumping into the situation to try and make their name and tell their story, right?
41:27Yeah.
41:28Sometimes you need to allow people to feel a bit of the pain.
41:31If it gets smashed, isn't that just another bit of PR for him?
41:35So I've just had a phone call from someone who says if the mayor doesn't take it down, him and 20 of his mates from the south of England are going to come up to Bristol and they're going to take it down themselves.
41:47What you're going to do is stand up.
41:49That was not, was not voted for and we didn't collect that stuff.
41:55It doesn't need to be voted for.
41:57Occasionally, people power takes over.
41:59Your word is not heard.
42:00And that is a symbol against racism.
42:03Do you think things have ever got better in the world without someone breaking the law?
42:06And you, by arguing against it, are in fact pushing forward that type of culture.
42:14If you speak out, you're labelled as a racist.
42:17No one hears a label.
42:18No one says that's a thing.
42:19My concern is there's a huge voice in the city who think it's absolutely wonderful.
42:23Yeah, rightly, probably mostly a middle class white audience are like, oh, it's brilliant, isn't it? Great, isn't it? Artistic.
42:28And then it gets smashed and then it's more vitriol aimed at the people that have done it and they're still not bringing those groups together.
42:35I don't know.
42:38Sometimes people need an opportunity to see where things could go.
42:42Yeah.
42:43The question is, it's got a decent statue, obviously it's a decent sculpture, of a black woman.
42:48Right.
42:49Therefore, the image of that being smashed...
42:50Of a black woman being smashed, yeah.
42:51...is strong, isn't it?
42:52Yeah.
42:53What if people decide they want to put a rope around it, pull it down and drag it into the harbour?
42:58I just think that'll be horrific.
42:59I'm just worried as well about the woman it's hot of.
43:01She is local, she's now going to be on the news.
43:04And I just worry that she perhaps hasn't fully understood the implications that could come back to her and her family.
43:13There ain't no clean decisions there.
43:15My sense is, relax about it as much as we can.
43:19Relax.
43:20You've made a statement.
43:22We'll give you the, you know, you can have the plinth for the day.
43:26You know, you've had your time, you've had your bit on China 4, and then we take it tomorrow.
43:33And we'll say, okay, so we'll look after it.
43:35But by the way, Mark, this is the cost in terms of our staff time.
43:38How much it costs in terms of police time, right?
43:41We'll send them the bill for that, because if we pay for it, it comes out of our budget.
43:45But he needs to know, you can't run around doing what you want without accounting for the consequences, be it the social consequences or the financial consequences.
43:52And that's, I find that frustrating.
43:55So let's do that.
43:57Andy, how are you doing?
43:59You a fan of the London arts world, are you?
44:03My sense is that we leave it till tomorrow.
44:06All right, Andy, cheers, take care. Bye.
44:13I think an empty plinth is one of the most powerful statements we have at this moment in time in a city.
44:18Because it represents a city that's taking time to stop and think about its future.
44:23The best way forward for the city would be to begin to come to terms with its full history.
44:29And within that context, be able to have a more informed view on who it wants to honour, if anyone.
44:35This circumvents that process.
44:38Now I recognise that it's an incredible statue. I recognise that.
44:43But as a political leader, you don't have the luxury of just stopping at the first bus stop of meaning.
44:49When you see an event happen, you have to think, okay, how is this going to be interpreted by other people?
44:55And what are the unintended consequences?
45:05We've just got back from holiday escaping Bristol for a couple of weeks, which was fantastic.
45:15Within an hour, get the police knocking on the door.
45:19The police have warned Marvin and his wife, Kirsten, that there are direct threats being made to their family.
45:27They've had anti-terrorist intelligence, like those three words together.
45:32It's like, what?
45:34They say it's low level, but we want you aware.
45:38And you're thinking, okay, yes.
45:42But your head's spinning.
45:44Because you're thinking of all the what ifs, you know, Joe Cox.
45:48The stories you hear of acid just being thrown in people's faces.
45:51People know where we live.
45:52They know our address because it was on the ballot, which is infuriating as well.
45:57I showed you some moves.
45:59You did show me some moves.
46:01Yeah, we have weapons in various parts of our house.
46:04If I come downstairs, I'm not coming downstairs to lose.
46:07I'm coming downstairs to win.
46:09We had a threat about five weeks ago.
46:14So we were already in conversation with upping security a bit more from the last.
46:22So each threat, it becomes a little bit more secure.
46:26With the kids, they saw the first threat because it was blatantly written out.
46:32Marvin must die on our sidewalk.
46:35So when I woke up that morning, opened up my daughter's curtains, who's on the front of the house.
46:40I saw it in big white painting.
46:44Marvin was in the shower.
46:46I was furious.
46:48Have you seen?
46:50And then I wanted to just swear my head off on Facebook.
46:55Don't do it.
46:57So, yeah.
47:00My neighbor said if he'd seen it first, he would have put a T on the end.
47:04So he would have said Marvin must die it.
47:07But he obviously didn't see it.
47:09What is amazing is numerous neighbors said any issue, you know, you've got your back.
47:16You said that I need to take these, take these, what, these threats more seriously.
47:23You know, I do take them seriously, but necessarily don't show it.
47:26And I don't, I don't feel physically threatened on a day to day basis.
47:30Where I get angry, and that is the word, is thinking about my family, Kirsten and the children.
47:37People kind of invading that space.
47:39But that I think is a white black thing too, that Marvin's, he has resilience.
47:45Because it's not new to him to be threatened.
47:48Um, and for me it is.
47:52Do you ever think, I wish you didn't do this?
47:57No.
47:58Well, probably.
47:59If I'm honest, yeah.
48:00Like being away by the sea.
48:01I grew up by the sea.
48:02So, yeah.
48:03I want to escape.
48:04Run away.
48:05But also you've got to do something in life.
48:06Not just swim every day in the sea.
48:12The threats to Marvin are part of a rise in racist incidents reported in the city over
48:30the summer.
48:31Sari has seen a backlash to both the toppling of the statue, but also when Jen Reid's statue
48:39went up.
48:40Today I've had about four referrals.
48:43Eggs thrown at the house was one of them.
48:46Cars being attacked and damaged.
48:48Windows being put through.
48:49We had a mum who just moved from one area from racial harassment, had moved to another
48:54area.
48:55And the son had been threatened with being stabbed.
48:58And then she'd had an air gun shot through the window over her and her baby's head in the
49:03sitting room.
49:04One referral came in today where a child was in a park and they were attacked by the mother
49:11of some other children in that park.
49:13And they were throttled and told that I'm going to send you back to the cotton fields.
49:18And I'm going to burn your family's house down.
49:20And you can see the language there is linked to slavery.
49:24While Marvin was on holiday, one racist attack left a young black man with life-threatening
49:34injuries.
49:35A hospital worker has been left scarred and frightened for his safety after being seriously
49:42injured in a racially aggravated hit and run.
49:45The 21-year-old was walking to the bus stop after finishing work at Southmead Hospital in
49:50Bristol.
49:51Witnesses say a car was driven at him deliberately before two men shouted racial abuse.
49:56We're going out to meet the young man who was attacked, I mean you could call it an attempted
50:05lynching by some people driving a car into him.
50:08He's out of hospital now and he's back home.
50:11So, these moments of crisis come, famously said, crisis comes as both threats and opportunities.
50:20You know, the threat is, if we can't hold it together, that, you know, the incidents would
50:27feed on each other and it would escalate and our society would disintegrate.
50:32The opportunity, it pulls the lid back, as it were, on our workings.
50:37And we discover all these weaknesses, these animosities, hatreds, inequalities in our
50:42society.
50:43And we get an opportunity to decide whether we're going to confront them or not.
50:48How is your recovery?
50:50Well, it's going good at the moment.
50:52Yeah, just keep getting better and better.
50:54But I'm quite an active guy, like, playing football, doing loads of stuff, like going to
50:58the studio and do music as well.
50:59So, just the fact that you can't do all of that no more and you've just been stopped
51:03and you're just in the house now.
51:04Yeah.
51:05It gets to you mentally, though, in a way, like, because you just start thinking of
51:08you over and over again.
51:09Yeah.
51:10His first thought was for his mother when he was lying on the ground.
51:14He couldn't actually contact her because the phone didn't recognise him.
51:18Yeah, he's got that stupid thing in his face recognition.
51:22And the second thought was for everybody else in Bristol to warn them.
51:27Yeah.
51:28We're lucky because we're recovering, but the motive of those people, what they wanted to
51:32do to our son and everything is horrific.
51:36I don't feel safe for my family, to be honest, or for anyone out there as well, all the black
51:42community.
51:43And I don't want any other family to go through this.
51:47If they can do it in broad daylight, so who is safe now in the city?
51:52Yeah.
51:53Football is probably one thing I'm going to miss, to be fair, because I don't even know
51:57if I can hurt a football with all these injuries right now.
52:00What's your team in Bristol?
52:01Bristol City.
52:02Do you have a Bristol team?
52:03Bristol City?
52:04Yeah.
52:05What about you?
52:06Both of them.
52:07That's the best way to put it, because it can't be on one side.
52:12I've got a list of things here just about trying to make sure you're getting what you
52:17need, physiotherapy and all that.
52:19The emotional support is important too.
52:21And then we'll talk about how do we keep it high profile with the police.
52:26And then, as much as it means anything, you know, you're not alone in it.
52:30Like, I mean, you were the one who went through the incident, but it's not invisible.
52:33Yeah.
52:34You know, and there are a lot of people who really care.
52:37After this stuff happened, I just recorded the song to just like, you feel kind of better
52:41when you make a song or something like that.
52:43And then plus it's spreading awareness and so on as well.
52:46First things first, I'm happy to be alive, I wanna bang G-O-D.
52:49And everyone that helped my family, they've really been through the L-O-T.
52:52I can never understand the racist world, they hate so B-E-D.
52:56We've been oppressed for a long time and I think about it, it's S-A-D.
52:59How can you try killing a man for the colour of his skin, man, that's outrageous.
53:03Driving a car into an innocent guy for no reason, that's so brainless.
53:07Politics is so much, it's such a kind of a crap game.
53:10You know, you try and do your best and all that.
53:13And you've just got this swirl around you of conspiracy, subterfuge, attacks, hitbacks
53:20and all this nonsense that goes on.
53:23And every now and again, you get an opportunity to ground it.
53:30The pain and agony his mum must experience must be terrifying for her.
53:36And I hate to think what must happen when she lies down at night
53:39and she thinks about her children getting through tomorrow.
53:50In response to the threats to Marvin, security is increased for the mayor's office.
53:56Okay, good morning. My name is Paul Lacey, I'm from the Somerset Police.
54:00I'm here today to give you a presentation on corrosive substance attacks.
54:05There are some quite graphic images, but it's quite important you understand
54:09the effects of what acids and alkalines can do to a human being.
54:15Over the following months, Black Lives Matter protests continue to be held peacefully in the city.
54:21Black Lives Matter!
54:22You're mountains, you're buildings. We are the architects of our future.
54:26Some of the city's institutions renounced their association with Colston.
54:38Colston Hall is renamed Bristol Beacon.
54:42And Colston's girls school becomes Montpellier High School.
54:45We've got a city that's gone through a huge event, very challenging, and we've held ourselves together.
54:55And I'm really proud of the way we've held ourselves together.
54:57That doesn't mean it's easy, doesn't mean there aren't tensions, and we've got those fractures.
55:01But Bristol's still together.
55:16But nine months after the statue was toppled, a demonstration dubbed Kill the Bill, by opponents of a new law restricting public protests,
55:25targets of police station a few hundred yards from Colston's plinth.
55:37Bad day, bad hangover this morning, Marvin, I'm thinking for the city.
55:41Absolutely. It's a shameful day after a year of great pride in Bristol.
55:49You allowed BLM slash Marxists to take down the statue of Colston.
55:53You have allowed the dregs of the Labour membership to protest, defecate in the street and attack the police.
55:59Shame on you, Mr. Mayor.
56:01One of the Conservative councillors wrote an email to all the councillors saying I should be hanging my head in shame
56:08because my involvement with Black Lives Matter et al, as he referred to it, I guess it's the cause of what's happened today.
56:15I absolutely condemn the violence we saw in Bristol last night.
56:18It was a display of selfish, self-indulgent, self-centred violence.
56:23This last year has been an incredible source of pride, actually.
56:26It's been amazing to be able to talk about how we as a city have navigated incredibly tense situations
56:32and had tense conversations, had the potential for conflict and actually moved through it.
56:38Those people who came and brought violence to Bristol last night tried to steal that from us, and it's not welcome.
56:45I mean, it's a challenging moment.
56:47How we've overcome this year, this year of loss for so many.
56:51That's what we should be talking about, how we stand together and build our future together.
56:56Thank you Bristol.
57:05Cities are complicated.
57:07The people are afraid of tension, but tension in and of itself isn't necessarily bad.
57:12And we've got some choices as a city.
57:15We can ignore it and ultimately try and stuff it back in the box.
57:19We can allow those tensions to be hijacked by ignorance or opportunistic leaders who want to appeal to a base and get some cheap power.
57:28Or we can engage with that tension and see it as an opportunity to learn and come out stronger at the other end.
57:32And this really goes to the heart of me. I've got a fundamental contradiction in my existence, being a mixed race man from a working class background.
57:47Racism is real. It is real and raw.
57:51There is such a thing called white privilege.
57:53And I'm on the wrong side of that white privilege because I'm not white.
57:56But my white mum did not need a life of privilege.
57:58And I hope that as a city we can be a place that shows a mature approach to grapple with those complexities and keep yourselves together.
58:06and keep yourselves together.
58:07And we'll see you on the right side of the mountain.
58:08I hope you will check this way over the next day.
58:09I hope you'll see you on the right side of this bill as well.
58:10In the right side of the mountain.
58:14And we'll see you on the right side of the mountain.
58:15.
58:34Details of organisations offering information and support with racism and racist hate crime are available at the BBC Action Line website.
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