A Street Named George Floyd?

Buchanan street in Glasgow is named after Andrew Buchanan who died in 1759, his money paid for a lot of the buildings in Glasgow and lifted a lot of people from poverty... but of course like a lot of rich people during this time he had (what we would consider now in out enlightenment) his “dark side” too as he was a Tobacco lord and as such he would have slaves working at his plantations.

Now it looks like the “Black Lives Matter”  Pixes we’re out last night sticking up a signage to now call the street “George Floyd Street” which is a renaming endorsed by Ivan McKee, Glasgow Provan MSP. 

George Floyd was a criminal, let’s not overlook this fact, he was in jail 5 or 6 times one of which was for holding a gun to a pregnant woman’s belly as his friends ransacked her house robbing her, and he was not a reformed character as was high on drugs and (allegedly) attempted to pass off forged money at the time of his arrest, he did not deserve to die, I agree upon that, a lot of people, in fact most, don’t deserve to die but tragically he did and the cop who kneed on his neck deserves to be punished without any doubt but..... George Floyd was not a nice person under any definition and should not be held as a martyr as this cheapens real martyrs (if you want to look up at a real brave black woman just check out Rosa Parks)

There is something very sinister about wanting to rename streets because we are ashamed of the past, it’s like rewriting history and that’s never a good thing, the past is what has made the person we are, we evolve from the past, learn from it, take the good and shed the bad but never ignore it.  We know keeping slaves was terrible (ironically it was the much demonised Republicans who ended slavery in America) 

Does George Floyd deserve a street named after him?...NO

Should Buchanan street remain named after Andrew Buchanan from the 18th century considering how much more enlightened we are now to the evils of slavery? In my opinion YES, it’s part of our history ... nothing to be proud of but yet we can be proud of how far we have came and how our morals have evolved for the better. We can’t rewrite history on hindsight but we can control the present with knowledge we currently have.