The latest blog to appear in Bristol is Bristol 2007’s Weblog. This appears to have been set up to look at the legacy left by the city’s controversial Abolition 200 events this year.
The city council’s Abolition 200 Steering Group, which has been effectively boycotted throughout this Abolition 200 year by the majority of the city’s black groups unhappy with the city council’s plans for “stagey insensitive activities”, has already laid down the official marker and published a Draft Legacy Report(pdf).
And although it does make a passing reference to the boycott, it prefers instead to dwell on the likes of David Lammy, who as minister in the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, visited Bristol this year and apparently declared Bristol is at “year zero” with the slave trade now behind us.
The report also makes the extraordinary claim that the obvious divisions in the city are a problem of poor marketing and expends most of its efforts on special pleading for more public cash for narrow interest groups.
Bristol 2007’s Weblog looks like it may take some stronger and more challenging lines than this.
The Blogger will be returning to Bristol 2007’s Weblog tomorrow to discuss black only schools, multiculturalism and Peter bloody Hammond.