Wednesday 3 August 2022 09:30 AM Bristol Harbour festival is too 'white and middle class' trends now
Bristol's leading festival has been branded too 'white and middle class' in a local council report - which added that the harbour which serves as its centrepiece 'represents colonialism'.
The investigation into the popular Harbour Festival, which attracts 250,000 people each July, highlighted its 'whiteness' and the 'invisible barriers to members of the global majority' – a woke term used to refer to the non-white population.
It also suggested that older and disabled people, families and black and Asian residents were being put off by the 'over-consumption of alcohol and the commercial approach to food'.
The council consulted on the 50-year-old event following Black Lives Matter protests in Bristol and the toppling of the statue of slave trader Edward Colston into the harbour.
The investigation into the popular Harbour Festival, which attracts 250,000 people each July, highlighted its 'whiteness' (pictured: the event this year)
The Harbour Festival is an annual celebration of Bristol's maritime heritage and the importance of its docks and harbour. The event includes live music, street performances, fireworks and a variety of other live entertainment.
Its origins as the Harbour Regatta were raised as an issue by council pen-pushers due to the traditional event celebrating 'the boating community' which is 'predominantly white'.
The council report warned that 'the festival currently has the perception of being a ''white English festival'' for some of those consulted', with 'nothing for communities from different cultural heritage'.
It added: 'The consultation highlighted the 'whiteness' of the festival and the invisible barriers to members of the global majority, as well as participants with mobility issues or neuro diverse needs.
'The perception of the Harbour Festival for the global majority communities within Bristol is that it is not for them, and that the cultural offer is primarily serving a white middle-class audience. Many of those of different cultural backgrounds find the over- consumption of alcohol and the commercial approach to food off-putting.
'The narrative of the work of the festival is lost and the branding harks back to the Harbour Regatta, celebrating the boating community which is predominantly white.'
Local Tory councillor Richard Eddy slammed the report, telling the Telegraph: 'This latest attack on the hugely successful Bristol Harbour Festival sadly comes as no surprise and is a further indication of how the current Labour mayoral regime loathes everything which is ''Shipshape-and-Bristol-fashion''.
'The current mayor, Marvin Rees – who Bristolians voted
