June 09, 2020
Calls to remove the statue of imperialist Cecil Rhodes from an Oxford college have been reignited amid anti-racism demonstrations.
Who Was Cecil Rhodes And Why Do Campaigners Want To Topple His Statue At Oxford University?
The Rhodes Must Fall Oxford campaign group, alongside other student groups, argue that the university has “failed to address its institutional racism” and the impact on students and the city. A protest is planned for 5pm on Tuesday – the latest of several stretching back five years.
An open letter from campaigners to the university’s vice-chancellor says the institution has only made “inconsequential inroads” into tackling the material legacy of imperialism, adding it “is not enough”.
Thousands of people have signed two new petitions calling for the statue of colonialist Rhodes at Oriel College to be taken down.
Dozens of local Labour Party councillors are also calling on the university to work with Oxford City Council, residents and trade unions to “make Oxford a truly anti-racist city” by immediately removing the statue and associated plaque.
It comes after a statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston was pulled down and thrown into Bristol Harbour during a Black Lives Matter protest on Sunday.Who was Cecil Rhodes?Cecil Rhodes was the founder of the southern African colony Rhodesia, modern day Zimbabwe, which was named after him in 1895.
The son of a Bishop’s Stortford clergyman, Rhodes was a Victorian imperialist regarded as one of the main proponents of white colonial domination. He made a fortune from the mines and endowed the university’s Rhodes Scholarship.
Early commercial success enabled him to fulfil his ambition to study at Oxford, where he was admitted to Oriel College in 1873 and took his degree in 1881.
Cecil Rhodes’ legacy at Oxford University stretches beyond the statue. The scholarship invites students from across the world to study at Oxford. US president Bill Clinton was a notable recipient of the postgraduate award.
Upon his death in 1902, he left 2% of his estate to Oriel College, where he had been a student. His legacy helped fund the construction of a new building, opened in 1911, which is now Grade II listed and includes the now controversial statue commemorating his benefaction.
Rhodes founded the De Beers diamond empire, which pioneered the creation of “closed compounds” – where migrant labourers were racially segregated and locked in for the duration of their contracts.
He was admired by Hitler and had a reputation for being racist, with many historical accounts quoting him as stating: “I prefer land to n******s [...] the natives are like children. They are just emerging from barbarism [...] one should kill as many n*****s as possible.’”Rhodes served as prime minister of the British Empire’s Cape Colony, including South Africa, in the early 1890s and has been linked to apartheid-style policies including working to alter laws on voting and land ownership, thus disenfranchising most Africans.  
Rhodes considered the English “a master race”. “I contend that we are the first race in the world, and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race,” he once said.
His famously yearned to build a railway across the entire continent of Africa from Cairo to Cape Town, without ever leaving British territory.  
In 1996 Anthony Thomas wrote the biographic epic series Rhodes for the BBC. He said: “Hitler described him as the only Englishman who truly understood Anglo-Saxon ideals and destiny. It is too chilling to think of how Hitler empathised with him.”
In 2015, Cape Town University removed a statue of him, following mass protests which included faeces being hurled at it.  Rhodes Must Fall Demonstrators will protest in front of the Rhodes statue in Oxford on Tuesday as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. The campaigners want iconography that “glorifies” Rhodes to be removed from the university.
It comes amid a wider “decolonise” movement sweeping universities across the world in recent years.
The Rhodes Must Fall movement was established in 2015 at Cape Town University, and later spread to Oxford, where students demanded that the statue of Rhodes was removed from Oriel College.
In 2016, Oriel College decided to keep the statue despite the students’ demands. Campaigners from the Rhodes Must Fall group argued that the row illustrated Britain’s “imperial blind spot”.
An Oxford Union vote resulted in 245 ayes and 212 noes for removing the statue but a poll at the time found that 59% of Brits thought that the statue of Rhodes should remain in place.
According to the Guardian, the college admitted it had been warned “second hand” of the possibility that it would lose about £100m in gifts should the statue be taken down but a spokesperson insisted the financial implications were not the primary consideration.
Campaigner Brian Kwoba told the newspaper Rhodes was “responsible for all manner of stealing land, massacring tens of thousands of Black Africans, imposing a regime of unspeakable labour exploitation in the diamond mines and devising proto-apartheid policies”.He added: “The significance of taking down the statue is simple: Cecil Rhodes is the Hitler of southern Africa. Would anyone countenance a statue of Hitler? The fact that Rhodes is still memorialised with statues, plaques and buildings demonstrates the size and strength of Britain’s imperial blind spot.”
Femi Nylander, one of the original Rhodes Must Fall campaigners, said the university made “a series of promises” to Black students around the curriculum and access and representation following the movement in 2015.
But he said these never materialised.
The open letter to the university, signed by more than 6,600 individuals and organisations, outlines five steps that campaigners want it to take to “make upholding anti-racist values a reality”.
Liberal Democrat education spokesperson Layla Moran, who is MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, said: “The statues of white supremacists and slave merchants should not still be standing in our cities. That’s why the statue of Cecil Rhodes must come down.
“I’m not endorsing vigilante action, but I would urge Oriel College in the strongest terms to think about what message this statue sends in 2020, and to remove it.”
The official website for Oriel College itself, states:“The nature and coherence of Rhodes’s thinking have been much debated and cannot easily be summarized. In some respects he can be compared with other nineteenth-century men of wealth and ambition in the colonial world and the USA. He shared with many others of his time theories of cultural evolution according to which most Africans were not yet ready for equal treatment with Europeans [9]. He became a staunch imperialist and in his ‘Confession’ of 1877 wrote ‘I contend that [the British] are the finest race in the world and that the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race…’ [10]. He established the Rhodes Scholarships, however, on the basis that ‘no student shall be qualified or disqualified for election … on account of race or religious opinions’ [11]. Rhodes was a businessman and a political deal-maker who prosecuted wars in pursuit of his goals. He held late-Victorian ideals of public service, institution-building, and the importance of an educated ruling class.”Related... Sadiq Khan 'Hopes' London Statues Of Slave Traders Are Removed Exclusive: Dozens Of Councillors Demand Oxford University Remove Cecil Rhodes Statue Cambridge University To Examine How It Profited And Contributed To The Slave Trade #RhodesMustFall Protester 'Wanted To Cry' After Free Education Budget Announcement 'Hypocrite' Rhodes Must Fall Campaigner Accepts £40,000 Rhodes Scholarship At Oxford
Related Stories
Latest News
Top news around the world
Academy Awards

‘Oppenheimer’ Reigns at Oscars With Seven Wins, Including Best Picture and Director

Get the latest news about the 2024 Oscars, including nominations, winners, predictions and red carpet fashion at 96th Academy Awards

Around the World

Politic
'Trump tax': MSNBC host Chris Hayes shows how Trump winning would increase costs
Mar 28, 2024
How much would former President Donald Trump's proposed 10 percent tariff plan actually cost the average American household?The wave of tariffs Trump enacted when he was last president caused chaos, but there are many complexities that muddy this somewhat. However, MSNBC's Chris Hayes took an educated and simple guess at just how badly the country would be hit in the pocketbook under Trump's second-term plans."We don't know exactly how much everything would cost," said Hayes, but "just add 10 percent on the back of the napkin. Here's the cost of living under the Trump Tax."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills"Start with groceries," he said. "A dozen eggs cost about $3. Once you apply the Trump Tax, that is up to $3.30, with the U.S. importing over 4 million eggs a year, but cost consumers over $1.2 million. If you like oranges, they currently go for about $1.53 per pound. With the Trump Tax, that would be $1.68 per pound, which would cost American consumers almost $71 million for the nearly half a billion pounds of the import. Bananas. We don't really grow them in the U.S., do we? They average about $.63 per pound and going up to $.69 per pound with the Trump Tax, thanks to the U.S. importing more than 10 million pounds per year, that could cost Americans at $609 million and that's a $609 million tax on American consumers. Then there's tomatoes. They go for about $2.13 per pound. Apply the 10 percent Trump Tax. They would be $2.34 per pound, potentially costing Americans $3.5 million thanks to the 6.8 million pounds we import per year. If you are spending $1,200 on groceries, add another $120 to the bill. That's more than the peak of inflation in 2022, which topped off at 9 percent. This is 10 percent."Groceries are just the start, he continued."How about the refrigerator?" said Hayes. "You need to keep the groceries fresh. The average cost of a new fridge is about $1,300. With the Trump Tax, that could go up to $1,430, costing Americans $1.95 billion for the 15 million refrigerators that we import. Again, $1.95 billion of new taxes. What about the car that you need to drive to the grocery store? On average, a new car costs about $48,808 today. With Trump Tax, it costs $53,684, with Americans potentially taking a $66.3 billion hit across the board on the 13 million cars we import. That's not including the 50 percent tariff which would make it another $25,000. Even the smartphone in your pocket cost on average about $940 right now. With Trump Tax, it can go up to $1,034, with Americans potentially paying an extra $13.2 billion for the nearly 141 million smartphones that we import per year.""Everyone hates when you have to pay more for things," he added. "Inflation is one of the biggest liabilities for a sitting president. Yet here is Donald Trump, in the Year of our Lord 2024, running against President Biden, promising to make things more expensive for every American."Watch the video below or click here. Chris Hayes breaks down "Trump Tax" www.youtube.com
READ MORE
Politic
Trump-endorsed candidate says Beyoncé is teaching women 'how to be hyper-sexual'
Mar 28, 2024
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson had yet another group of extremist comments unveiled — this time about legendary singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.According to The Root, "During a series of rants spanning multiple years, Robinson —who is Black —insulted Beyoncé’s singing abilities, called her a 'skank,' and said she was teaching 'young women how to be hyper-sexual w----s.'"For example, in 2017, Robinson posted to Facebook, “Person; Beyoncé is a role model!” Me; “The only person that butt shakin’, devil worshipping, skank is a role model to is people who want a fast track to Hell.” This is on top of previous reporting that he referred to her music as sounding like "Satanic chants."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal billsThese revelations come at a moment when Beyoncé herself has found herself at the center of some national controversy, having written a country music inspired album known as Cowboy Carter, and some country radio stations refusing to play singles off of it because of her race.Robinson, who is challenging Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein for the governorship of North Carolina, has been put under the spotlight for a number of bizarre and offensive comments throughout the years.Among other things, he has referred to school shooting survivors as "prosti-tots," pushed QAnon and "lizard people" conspiracy theories, questioned the Holocaust, and suggested American politics was better in the era when women couldn't vote.
READ MORE
Politic
'Some prosecutor should be looking into' Trump's latest legal defense scam: expert
Mar 28, 2024
Former President Donald Trump's sprawling network of ostensibly independent political groups raising money for him, much of it in service of paying legal expenses, seems to walk right up to the line of breaking the law, former prosecutor Kristy Greenberg told MSNBC's Alex Wagner — and may in fact cross it."Kristy, how is this legal?" asked Wagner. "How can he keep saying this one thing and doing another?""Well, I think the big question here will be looking behind all of this as to who is coordinating it," said Greenberg. "If Donald Trump is coordinating between his campaign and these PACs that are supposed to be third parties and independent — the Save America PAC is independent, even though he directs it, independent third-party — if there is sufficient coordination, you could prove that, then maybe you would have something to say these expenditures are not purely personal, these are really campaign contributions. And therefore they should be subject to the limits of $5,000 that campaign contributions are subject to."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal billsWhat it looks like, Greenberg went on, is that Trump and his allies are "just trying to do an end-run around these various regulations, and it seems so transparent.""[Special counsel] Jack Smith ... had served some subpoenas in connection with that nonexistent, as it turns out, election defense fund," Greenberg said. "He served some subpoenas and then he withdrew them and it was unclear why, because that seemed like such a clear-cut fraud. I questioned why that happened. Perhaps it was optics. Perhaps he thought like he had such strong cases, the January 6 case and the national security case, that he didn't want to seem as though he was trying to drain Trump of the ability to legally defend against those cases. Hard to say. But I questioned it at that time because that seemed like such a clear wire fraud case that it seemed like it should be looked into, but maybe they just had limited resources and didn't like the optics of it.""But I agree with you, this raises a lot of questions," she added. "Someone, somewhere, even if not the special counsel's office, because they are pretty busy — some prosecutors should be looking into this."Watch the video below or at the link. Kristy Greenberg on the legality of Trump's PACs www.youtube.com
READ MORE
Celebrity News

> Latest News in Media

Watch It
Millie Bobby Brown & Jake Bongiovi Celebrate “Three Years of Bliss” Ahead of Wedding
March 24, 2024
C4Ehegcq1-A
Kate Middleton & Prince William "Enormously Touched" by Public Support
March 24, 2024
s8fig-RCjFc
Gisele Bündchen Denies Cheating on Ex-Husband Tom Brady
March 23, 2024
_SpRMagA8BM
Eminem, 50 Cent & Snoop Dogg Present Dr. Dre with a Star on the Walk of Fame
March 19, 2024
4bNLs1hxVp8
Opening Remarks for the Variety Summit October 20th, 2023 Jay Penske
March 18, 2024
c6Z707iLq8E
'Everybody Was S----ing Their Pants': Nick Thune Jokes About Being Born in the '70s and Fatherhood
March 16, 2024
mm7Baf6o2d8
Gunna Says Tour Will Up Creativity in Rap, Endorses Flo Milli | TMZ
March 22, 2024
QfMU24fw-Qo
Reporter Taylor Lorenz Says Palace Botched Kate Cancer News Rollout | TMZ Live
March 22, 2024
o43ZucdiyEo
Riley Strain's Body Found After Going Missing in Nashville 2 Weeks Ago | TMZ NOW
March 22, 2024
1m1zM-4_Cs8
Kyle Richards hasn’t spoken to co-star Dorit Kemsley, denies sending her a ‘manipulative’ text
March 24, 2024
LqLZzDP1hm4
Jordan Emanuel on her connection to 'RHOSLC' star Meredith Marks, advice from Amanda Batula
March 24, 2024
5NPAwlOov1Y
Kate Middleton’s uncle Gary apologizes after slamming ‘fickle’ Meghan Markle in scathing interview
March 24, 2024
JWG9kitALZk
TV Schedule
Late Night Show
Watch the latest shows of U.S. top comedians

Sports

Latest sport results, news, videos, interviews and comments
Latest Events
20
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
SK Brann W - Barcelona W
20
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Hacken W - PSG W
19
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
SL Benfica W - Lyon W
19
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Ajax W - Chelsea W
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Atletico Madrid - Barcelona
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester United - Liverpool
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Inter Milan - Napoli
17
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Brighton - Manchester City
17
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund - Eintracht Frankfurt
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Chelsea - Leicester City
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Roma - Sassuolo
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Verona - AC Milan
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Genoa
16
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Darmstadt - Bayern Munich
16
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester City - Newcastle United
16
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Fulham - Tottenham Hotspur
16
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Osasuna - Real Madrid
13
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Atletico Madrid - Inter Milan
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Barcelona - Napoli
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Arsenal - Porto
11
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Chelsea - Newcastle United
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Liverpool - Manchester City
10
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Real Madrid - Celta Vigo
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Aston Villa - Tottenham Hotspur
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Atalanta
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Fiorentina - Roma
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
AC Milan - Empoli
Find us on Instagram
at @feedimo to stay up to date with the latest.
Featured Video You Might Like
zWJ3MxW_HWA L1eLanNeZKg i1XRgbyUtOo -g9Qziqbif8 0vmRhiLHE2U JFCZUoa6MYE UfN5PCF5EUo 2PV55f3-UAg W3y9zuI_F64 -7qCxIccihU pQ9gcOoH9R8 g5MRDEXRk4k
Copyright © 2020 Feedimo. All Rights Reserved.