@not_for_sale2025 wrote:
"What does that mean"?
It means they remain upset and angry because, in their eyes, Cook invaded their land, and those white invaders who followed murdered their ancestors, raped the women, beheaded the dead, pillaged their land, used them as slaves, stole their babies and forced a system upon them that they struggle with till this day.
This is the era when black lives matter. I'm surprised you had to ask - it's a no brainer!
But Cook didn't engage in any of that!
He travelled along the eastern coastline of Australia and chartered it, and continued on into the Pacific.
"At Cook's original landing contact was made with the local Australian Aboriginal inhabitants. As the ship sailed into the harbour, they noticed Aborigines on both of the headlands. At about 2 pm they put the anchor down near a group of six to eight huts. Two Aborigines, a younger and an older man, came down to the boat.[42] They did not accept the offer of gifts from Cook, whose lack of knowledge of Aboriginal custom may have prevented him from behaving acceptably in such exchanges. A musket was fired over their heads, which wounded the older man slightly, and he ran towards the huts. He came back with other men and threw spears at Cook's men, although they did no harm. They were chased off after two more rounds were fired.[42] The adults had left, bu"t Cook found several Aboriginal children in the huts, and left some beads with them as a gesture of friendship.[42]
On 6 May 1770, the Endeavour left Botany Bay and sailed north past an inlet "wherein there appeared to be safe anchorage". Cook named it Port Jackson, today generally known as Sydney Harbour."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_voyage_of_James_Cook
He did not invade the land and kill off the inhabitants. That was left to the subsequent British settlers, who had no difficulty in using the white convicts as slave labour, so they didn't need to enslave the blacks during that era.
Agree this happened later once convict transport to Australia had ceased.
And as to the protesers:
"Xiaoran Shi, 28, and Charmaine Morrison-Mills, 27, allegedly defaced the statue at about 4am on Sunday.
The friends were granted bail on Sunday and will appear before Sydney's Downing Centre Court on July 2.
Ms Shi is a part-time staffer within NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge's office and runs Sniff Off, a collaboration between the Mr Shoebridge and the NSW Young Greens against police use of sniffer dogs."
https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/pair-bailed-over-nsw-cook-statue-graffiti/news-story/...
Neither of them seem to be of Aboriginal descent, so what's their agenda?
