Banksy is the master at packing powerful, poetic prose in his messaging. He is a rebel, for sure, and the Robin Hood of street artists was especially on point on his IG account earlier this week in support of Black Lives Matter. Unable to resist, and on a lighter note, the Bristol artist posted a to-do list this week on the fate of the destroyed and disgraced Edward Colston statue in the city.center. Per our research in TIME, Colston was born in1636 in Bristol, and was a "wealthy merchant trader who became involved in the Royal African company, which held a monopoly on trading slaves from the west coast of Africa to the Americas."
Obviously, destruction of the statue is part of a widening global conversation about racially insensitive, invasive monuments that scar cities and towns across the West, many glorifying the men who profitted from slave trade throughout the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. And what did Banksy think? "What should we do with the empty plinth in the middle of Bristol?," he writes, "Here’s an idea that caters for both those who miss the Colston statue and those who don’t. We drag him out the water, put him back on the plinth, tie cable round his neck and commission some life size bronze statues of protestors in the act of pulling him down. Everyone happy. A famous day commemorated."
