Keeping a statue to William Beckford in London reeks of moral failure, says lecturer and broadcaster Robert Beckford
, the activist Stella Dadzie demonstrates how enslaved women were “consumed” by everyone. They were the most vulnerable to sexual violence, physical mutilation and premature death on slave plantations. Slavery as cannibalism is an example of what Christian theology terms “radical evil” – a descent into a toxic mixture of hubris, moral corruption and deprivation.
Second, Black suffering still does not register as fully human suffering in society. The false assessment of the suffering of Black bodies has a long history in western thought and practice. Imagined animalistically in slavery as beasts of burden, Black people were expected to bear more physical pain than their captors because apparently Black pain was not real human pain. The legacy of this racism lives on in contemporary medicine, too.
There may be some artefacts connected to the slave trade that are less problematic than Beckford’s statue, and that can be explained in situ. But a plaque is not sufficient to recontextualise the acts of a West Indian mass murderer. I would prefer that this statue be removed and placed in a London museum. My suggestion for the museum description is that it read:
“William Beckford inherited 3,000 enslaved Africans in Jamaica, whom he mercilessly exploited to accumulate great wealth in Britain. His enslaved Africans were victims of routine sexual violence, torture, bodily mutilation and mass murder. Today, we recognise slavery as a crime against humanity and an unresolved stain on the national consciousness.
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