Was Piers Morgan right?

Not to 'realise' the prof isn't white says a lot lemon grove. I don't imagine you meant to reflect the casual assumptions about white men being most likely to be professors but you did. The fact he's black isn't neither here nor there imo. His black experience is different to my white older woman experience. From what I read, he is of Caribbean heritage, that means his ancestors were slaves. He's more qualified than I am to speak about the black experience - that's my view anyway.

I expect you know a lot about things in threads too PECS they are called opinions and this is a social chat and opinions forum.
You are entitled to think anything you like, but I would imagine none of us even realised this professor isn’t white!
The fact that he is black though, now that we do know, is neither here nor there.

But PECS surely you realise he is here taking advantage of our wonderous free speech......oh hang on he was born here

lemongrove I am happy for you to think my post silly. But you do know a lot about things in many threads. I try hard to avoid being personal. I obviously failed this time.

However I am entitled to think that there was an underlying racist element in some comments about this black professor who lives in this country and benefits from it but suggesting that he should not be critical of it or British historical figures. That is how it sounds to me.

What a very silly post from you PECS always looking to make your comments to others personal, I do wonder why.

I believe the daft professor (?) is British.

Jalima are you looking at WC "dispassionately or impartially"?

Well I guess you would know Lemongrove you present as very expert on many things!

However I have not seen any post on here that feels WC did not provide the leadership needed in WW2! Not sure why you don't want to see that!

I sense an underlying negative attitude to a non white person daring to criticise WC. Hope it is not racist!

Andrews sounds a complete idiot to me, no matter what his qualifications in Sociology.
Well said luluaugust Diana54 Jalima nigglynellie
Iam64 Monica POGS Maggiemaybe anniebach and stansgran.....in fact the majority of posters on here.
He was, like everybody else a product of his time and upbringing and from all I have read and seen in documentaries, we would have lost the war without him as Leader. Even if he never did anything worthwhile before then, his war years during WW2 were just what was needed.
This daft professor knows this country is a good one to live in, so not so daft in that respect.

He could have the most impressive qualifications in the world but that may not stop him from looking at history from today's perspective and with his own pre-conceived attitudes.

ie not impartially or dispassionately

Andrew's is an academic with a PhD in Sociology and Cultural Studies, an MA in Social Research and a BSc Psychology so not someone necessarily just making statements grasped from thin air! One may disagree with his analysis but I don't think you can underplay his qualification to make the analysis!

"This man lives in this country and has taken what he wants from it, he then tells us how awful we all are, isn't this racism of a kind." sounds fairly like racism to me!

Nobody anywhere, including Professor Andrews, has said that it would have been better for the Allies to have lost the war!! WC was not a saint.. he did a good leadership role and contributed hugely to the successful outcome of WW2 for the Allied forces.

I have worked with some people I really would never wanted to have socialised with but who were brilliant at their job! Maybe Churchill was like that? We don't know.

Kahinde Andrews's field of expertise would appear to be quite specialised - which makes one wonder if he, too, has pre-conceived ideas and is somewhat blinkered.

Of course, Sir Winston Churchill is not here to speak for himself; easy to criticise someone who is dead and without looking at the full picture.

By today's standards Winston would be considered racist but he thought the English speaking people and their history was the greatest thing ever, an education in the Classics would have helped him and his views of Empire. The thing is most of our grandparents and probably parents would be considered racist today. This man lives in this country and has taken what he wants from it, he then tells us how awful we all are, isnt this racism of a kind. Its a strange idea that we would have all been fine if Adolf Hitler had won or Stalin had taken us over.

Iam64 did you watch 'A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad'? which was on BBC2 the other night? The first part of a three part documentary.

Yes Iam, apparently tales of the awfulness of the concentration camps did filter out to the wider world, told by the very few escapees who made it back to the west, but seemingly no one really believed them and perceived it as exaggeration! I think that no one could comprehend that a civilised European country like Germany could commit such appalling cruelties! After all our own dear RF were German, people went to school, college, had relations, friends, holidays in Germany - they're like us - surely?! Imagine the shock and complete horror when the camps were liberated.

You cannot judge anyone who lived in previous centuries by today's standards. Only by the standards of their age.
That sums it up M0nica

However - every so often, throughout history, murderous dictators have emerged and I think that Churchill saved many people from one of them, despite what people say who are applying today's criteria to judge him.

Good point niggley, about the human spirit and the desire to escape, to live and tell the story. I find myself waiting for the stories from Syria to begin to be told. It's so reminiscent of the way in which the stories of Jews and others, who managed to get out and tell the story of what was happening in concentration camps isn't it. The DM for example didn't want the uk to offer refuge to Jewish refugees, any more than it does now want us to offer refuge to Syrians fleeing the war there - or indeed refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo and all those other desperate Middle Eastern/African countries.

Yes and No, Dresden was a main railway terminus part of which went East. The Russians wanted this destroyed to prevent German soldiers being sent to reinforce the Eastern front. I guess they wanted revenge, tbh I think a lot of people both east and west did too! The Nazi's were, and had been for a very long time, unbelievably dreadful. Curiously in all that appalling chaos a number of prisoners being transported east to the camps were able to escape, and incredibly some survived to tell the tale after the war. Amazing!

"It was the Russians who demanded the destruction of Dresden."
And who can blame them? After what the Nazis did in Russia. They only wanted revenge.

It was the Russians who demanded the destruction of Dresden.

You're absolutely right MOnica. In 100 years time what will people make of us?!! or Winston come to that!! Perhaps Hitler will be considered a hero!!!

By chance, I spent Monday Evening in conversation with a German Businessman and at one point posed him the Question 'Who won the war?'Having qualified his answer first by saying that nobody 'wins' during a war, he said that no matter what the USA and GB think and the movies tell us it was undoubtedly the Russians who brought the war to an end by sheer ruthlessness.

During the war he wasn't and that's when it mattered!

You cannot judge anyone who lived in previous centuries by today's standards. Only by the standards of their age. In every age there will be people who transgress the standards of the time and can be condemned, standards also change.

I wonder what we are doing now that we find perfectly acceptable that we will be condemned for in 100 years time.

Could Gransnet be pilloried 100 years from now for reasons that we cannot now imagine?

It isn't easy to judge historical figures by today's standards, but it seems to me, looking back to my childhood, it is fairly clear who was 'prejudiced' and who just may have used language that is unacceptable today.
In my working class family, I was definitely taught to respect people who worked hard and lived decent lives and absolutely not to judge by their colour or religion. My parents would challenge what would now be called racism. My father taught me that 'nigger' was very disrespectful and never to be used. However he also taught me a great way to remember Pythgoras' Theorem that used the term 'squaw' because no-one had told him what it meant. One of our last conversations was lamenting that I couldn't pass it on because we wouldn't want to be disrespectful to Native American women.
He reckoned that Churchill would never have looked like such a great leader if Atlee hadn't been running the country.