Black lives matter, monument defacement and media erasure: unpacking the ethics

The 2020 expansion of the Black Lives Matter protests into a global anti-racism movement in Australia, the United Kingdom and elsewhere has been welcome in countries where black and Indigenous deaths in custody remain unacceptably high.

In Australia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are ten times more likely to die in custody than non-Indigenous deaths in custody. It has been nearly 30 years since the Australian Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody reported unacceptably high custodial death rates in 1991. While there have been some positive changes in social circumstances in that time, the rate of Indigenous incarceration in Australia has doubled. Only two thirds of the commission's recommendations were fully implemented, and much of the cultural, legal and social factors that result in Indigenous incarceration and death have remained in place. Although the Australian public is slowly learning more of the lived experience of Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander and other minorities, there is still more to learn about how racism results directly in custodial deaths.

At the same time, Australian Indigenous youth suicide rates remain about four times higher than for their peers among the general population, with marginalisation and exclusion from social participation among the key known causes. Indeed, the lack of a sense of future is at the heart of feeling life is unliveable for some Indigenous youth, and this is a social condition emerging directly from the way in which European colonisation or invasion established the condition for Indigenous lives to be less liveable than others.

Just as the past is responsible for the conditions of African-American citizens in the United States (which built a nation based on slavery) and for the endemic racism in the United Kingdom (which built an empire on slave-trading and conquest), the ongoing disregard for the lives and liveability of non-white persons in Australia is the direct result of history.

It is therefore not surprising that much of the protest activity of Black Lives Matter includes anger about those histories and how they have been memorialised in monuments celebrating key slave-trading and colonial figures, and those who articulated racist thinking.

Widespread public anger about the social injustices that have made some lives less valuable than others is an excellent sign that an instance of crisis might generate change. Indeed, the development of a movement in Australia has been positive in not attempting to speak on behalf of Indigenous peoples and other minorities, instead making clear that it is the responsibility of everyone to listen to the lived experience of those whose colour, race, ethnicity or minority status has left their lives less liveable or at higher risk of low life expectancy or custodial death.

Self-education is important in the absence of adequate formal education on these important ethical issues and this is an uncomfortable, labour-intensive but necessary pedagogy. It demands we understand how this movement came about, why it has become global, and how we might begin to thinking about what we do with monuments and media that celebrate the shameful histories while learning as much as possible about the real, lived experience of minorities in order to bring about justice and liveability quickly.

Why now?

Although the present protests began as a response to the death in police custody of George Floyd in May in Minneapolis, they are part of a complex range of social and political conditions.

Firstly, the ongoing work of Black Lives Matter campaign for half a decade has provided the intellectual framework and impetus for responding to black deaths in custody. What has now emerged as a global anti-racism movement builds on the powerful work of the Black Lives Matter Foundation, which came about in 2013 in response to the shooting of African-American teen Trayvon Martin in Florida.

While there has been some commentary that the Black Lives Matter framework being used in Australia and United Kingdom is an 'Americanisation' of social issues elsewhere, the reality is there has been a powerful realisation that race, racism, nationalism, liveability and health inequities are mirrored across many parts of the world, in many cases the result of histories of invasion, slavery, colonisation and empire. The conditions, politics and individual circumstances may differ, but we are now seeing a growing public recognition of the lived experience of racism and how it curtails lives.

Secondly, the present circumstances of the global COVID-19 pandemic have clearly presented the conditions for race-based deaths to be seen as an urgent social crisis. The increased capacity for engagement with social issues is a result of lockdowns, social distancing, and cultural introspection about how we live healthy lives in a sustainable environment. This thinking has produced new determination on a global scale to address issues of inequality, injury, pain, untimely death and race-based murder.

Finally, the continued rise of a populist, white supremacist movement that brings together spurious nonsensical claims about COVID-19, 5G technologies, vaccination as well as conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and other liberal elite figures, has also spurred people to respond to the real issues of life and death for those who are often silenced or sidelined by those supremacist political positions.

Together, these three conditions are responsible for what is a sudden, unexpected but long-overdue transformation in our social world on a global scale.

Cultural defacement and erasure

Public anger about the very palpable link between colonial histories, racism and minority deaths is understandably finding its outlet in the defacement of historical monuments connected with white settler culture as well as demands for removal of media that depicts racist stereotypes.

While the exact method of engagement with the issues should be led by those most affected by racism, police brutality and custodial deaths, defacement and erasure may not necessarily be the most productive way of maintaining an ethical focus on listening to the issues and developing remedies to ensure liveable lives are enjoyed equally by all.

There have been some arguments against the removal of monuments or cancelling media. For example, Boris Johnson argued against calls to remove the Winston Churchill statue, rightly pointing out that "Britain cannot 'photoshop' its long and complicated cultural history and that to do so would be a "distortion" of our past." Similarly, British classicist Mary Beard has argued that while no one imagines that every statue of every historical figure (such as a nazi official) ought to remain in the public, cultural erasure of every problematic figure blames past racism on a few bad individuals rather than recognising it as a huge social problem with implications for the present.

The 'evil individual' motif has always been a cop-out: for example, blaming Captain Cook for invasion rather than seeing both himself and the invasion as a product of a longer colonial history exonerates those who benefitted from that history, including those of us living today. It is akin to the school-aged understanding of European fascism: that some bad men called Hitler and Mussolini tricked everyone into some dreadful behaviour, if only we could go back in time and remove them. The reality is, of course, that individuals are part of the same circumstances that made such injustices possible.

As sensible as the argument to keep history in focus by preserving statues may be, it does not mean we simply leave intact the monuments and cultural expressions that commemorate imperial, white settler, slave-trading and racist pasts. It is not simply a two-sided argument in which we either maintain the tributes to flawed individuals or remove them because they are shameful reminders of a troubling history.

Nor is it helpful to suggest 'light erasure', including the solution offered by Winston Churchill's granddaughter who argued the Churchill statue in London's Parliament Square might best be moved to a museum, where it will be both safe and non-offensive.

Rather, a third position is needed: one in which we make use of those very monuments and cultural expressions as a site of education to produce real change, inclusion, socio-economic equality, equitable access to health and wellbeing, and equal capacity to build and enjoy a liveable life.

We cannot yet know in advance the best form for such an education, as there is much further listening to be done to understand what will 'work best' for those who are genuinely affected by racism, discrimination and inequality.

However, one possibility is to consider how those monuments serve not as 'reminders' but as educational opportunities. There are many ways in which monuments can be converted from 'shameful reminders' to 'educational opportunities. For example, for each statue of a figure like Winston Churchill, Captain Cook, Edward Colston or Robert E Lee, we could build a bigger, grander, permanent piece of art next to it that makes clear why the past was not always an ethical past. It might be art produced by a person or group affected today by that shameful history, (literally) overshadowing the original monument.

How this is done must not be up to local and city councils, but ultimately should be led by those who are most affected, encouraging all of us to listen and bear witness to the lived experience of racism. It should not involve a measurement of how much shame ought to be obscured or how much a statue serves public utility, but should be the result of an inclusive conversation.

Rethinking Media Erasure

The Black Lives Matter instance has also raised a number of questions about non-tangible works, such as films and television of the past that include problematic racial representation. The 1939 classic film Gone with the Wind has this week become a touchstone both for anti-racist activism and for those angry about what they see in simple ways as the effect of "political correctness".

The decision by HBO Max to continue streaming Gone with the Wind, albeit with an introductory warning, is a well-considered result. However, to again ensure an educational opportunity is not missed, we might go beyond just including a disclaimer at the start, and look better to how our digital, interactive technologies can build directly upon key scenes without the need to delete, remove or hide that which is offensive today.

The recent Fawlty Towers example is a useful one. In the episode that has been the subject of so much controversy over the past few days, we likewise have the opportunity to educate those who might have missed the parodic inferences of the elderly major who, out of touch already in the 1970s, used racial slurs unthinkingly. In its context, his language was meant as an obvious contrast against the sophisticated cosmopolitanism of waitress and art student Polly. What that episode teaches, of course, is not that there are two different ways to think about race, but that Basil, who was initially surprised by the major's racism, later allowed his own anti-foreigner sentiments out while concussed and medicated. There is a lot that episode says about submerged, unconscious and unthinking racism and how it can rise into outright abuse and deliberate insult and injury. If read in the right way, such an episode gives us opportunities to think about the direct connection between unconscious bias, police brutality and custodial deaths. Drawing those links out with overlays, interruptions, subtitles, and instant links to explanations by people genuinely affected may prove to be the ideal solution for the 2020s. With some care, we can go beyond just warnings and disclaimers or total erasure and develop sensible educational solutions.

Again, this is not to suggest that all media in all circumstances must circulate as part of 'free speech' alongside the occasional warning or adaptation. Rather, there are more recent examples that are offensive not because they do the same thing as earlier texts, but because they have occurred so recently they were already out-of-step. For example, Chris Lilley's use of blackface across several series to depict a troubled Australian teenager of Tongan heritage was not just something for which we ought to have higher expectations. Rather, it was actively injurious to Pacific Islander teenagers who suffered ridicule and stereotyping as a result of this awkward humour. There is a difference between recognising Gone with the Wind or Fawlty Towers instantaneously as dated and learning more about the historical context, and broadcasting a 2014 series that centres on a white comedian wearing blackface.

Art, sculpture and parodic entertainment provide powerful opportunities for learning in many different context. It would therefore be a shame to ignore those opportunities by hiding the things that make us uncomfortable about our shameful pasts.

As we begin to discuss these issues in public with a renewed depth, education, listening and thinking must remain at the centre of how we look for life-saving solutions without the chaos of outrage. This involves re-thinking the role of monuments and how watch film and television At the same time, it requires that we listen intently to the voices of lived experience and rely on the leadership of those affected.

These approaches will, of course, make many people uncomfortable. That is good: this is a damaged society, and lives are at stake in a serious and urgent way. The extent of the problem is so serious that our discomfort helps us all to realise there are no easy, relaxed solutions.