Don't Just Stand There, Do Something!

The death of a pretty young middle-class white woman, apparently at the hands of a policeman, has sent shockwaves through the nation. Were it not for the allegations being made about who killed her, she'd be just another statistic. I want to talk about this.

Racism, misogyny, and apathy

One of the most horrible aspects of the case, apart from the allegations against the policeman, is that this kind of fuss only ever gets made about "respectable white women." Black women, not so much. It's time we had a serious discussion about racism in this country. It's not just the police, it's the media and society in general. Not routinely using the N-word or portraying Black people as comical idiots isn't much to high-five each other about. We're still not including them enough in mass media and newspapers tend to spend more time talking about their crimes (as if we don't commit them!) than about their achievements.

How structural racism goes unnoticed

Where is the fuss about Blessing Olusegun, the business student found dead on an East Sussex beach last year? She was every bit as respectable, but there are no nationwide outpourings of grief for her. The police can't even decide whether foul play was involved. She didn't get much media coverage.

There was little in the way of public outrage and personal reflection over the stabbings of the perfectly respectable Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry, daughters of Wilhelmina Smallman, the UK's first female Church of England archdeacon from a minority ethnic background. The police took selfies with the bodies. Of the 13 involved, two are suspended and five are on restricted duties. At least the perpetrator has been caught, charged, and is in court. Still, not much in the way of media coverage.

Would the officers who posed with the bodies of those Black women have done that to Sarah? I think not. That thirteen of them were involved is horrific. That they even considered it is even worse. Why? Because they haven't really dealt with the systemic racism that makes it okay to do that. Don't kid yourself that now that they're dressing in rainbow accessories they're all woke and with it. Hell, no. It's all for show. You find out just how much they care when you're at your most vulnerable and they do nothing.

Whoever is teaching their diversity courses clearly isn't getting them to challenge the embedded racism in their attitudes. I grew up in a right wing household, it took decades of Christianity to knock it out of me. Why? Because the deeply ingrained "common sense" beliefs we have about "those people" come from the media, from anecdotes, and even from the way history and other subjects are taught in our schools. In primary school we read Huckleberry Finn. At that time we had Trevor McDonald as a newscaster and Floella Benjamin on Play School. Note that the ideas I had of Black people was either as hapless victims of a system they had no agency in, as the occasional token, or as entertainers. Mr. McDonald was the only "serious" figure, and of course he's male. Since then they've been police detectives, action heroes, soldiers, and civic leaders as well as athletes and entertainers. And criminals. Don't forget the criminals. The point is, while we're better at representing them in the media as people, we don't value their lives to the point where, if one goes missing, there's a massive manhunt and nationwide scenes of mourning. We only do that for white women, most of whom are blonde. You know, the best kind of white.

How can we change this? 

I believe systemic colour-blindness is the answer. If you'd do it for Princess Di, you do it for Blessing. If  you'd do it for Sarah, you do it for Nicole and Bibaa. In the TV show The Voice, the judges don't see the singers until after they've heard them sing, so they have only their talent to judge them on. This means their unconscious biases don't get a look in until after they have seen the singers, but by then it's too late. Them's the rules. It means being more mindful of how we treat people and, if we notice that we're treating Natasha differently from Ngozi, we catch and correct ourselves. We also need to call out the media outlets when we see them doing this. They have to know and understand when they're doing news reporting in a racially biased fashion. It really needs to stop.

There is, of course, the fact that institutionally racist attitudes pervade the media. Italian Vogue was stunned to find that when they did a special edition that made a point of featuring Black models, it sold out and they had to reprint it, with copies changing hands at many times the cover price. Why were they stunned? They believed they would have trouble shifting it in the first place. They threw a sop to the woke and got a shock when they realised how wrong they had been. Is there a similar attitude among the "if it bleeds, it leads" brigade? The Black deaths, etc., don't sell, so it's not worth reporting on them to the extent that they do when it's a white girl who's been found in a ditch? We really need to call them out for this, or nothing will change.

How "Trans Rights" brought back misogyny

Anyone who tells you "Trans women are women" doesn't actually believe it at all. The statement is like a tropical bird puffing up its feathers and doing a dance to attract a mate; it's pure performance to attract high-fives. If they actually believed it, they would trample on them the way they trample on us. It's also a convenient fig leaf to hide misogyny behind. Women aren't being listened to. Our concerns are being ignored and when we organise or even just talk about it online, men come along and make it all about themselves. It really is ridiculous, they expect us to centre them at all times. To moderate the language of grief to accommodate them. No, I'm angry and I'm going to scream it from the rooftops! It's even worse when women are part of this. The fact that they're playing on our sympathies to get us to subordinate ourselves to them us nothing short of scandalous, but I believe I managed to convert a woke guy tonight. Short version: doing the right thing should never mean demanding that women and girls take one for the team. Ever.

Misogyny was retreating until the "trans rights" issue became a thing. See the way Insider frames the argument for including biologically male trans people in women's and girls' sports; the idea is that it's mean to stop these people from playing sports when they're not, they're just being made to play with their biological sex. When I took on The Caller Outer, he began with "don't be so mean to those poor vulnerable people." I won the argument by pointing out that they're not poor or necessarily vulnerable, and that the whole thing is a misogynist trojan horse to obliterate women's rights. After bringing in TW Catlady and Debbie Hayton and explaining that AGPs are ruling the Trans roost, game over. I don't hate anyone, I just want to keep my rights as a woman to sex-segregated areas. That this is considered bigotry shows just how bad the situation is. I'm hoping my new friend will spread the word and that this whole horrible mess will be kicked to the kerb so I can get back to blathering on about politics and the internet. 

What can we do about this?

I began an initiative to create a workspace for interested parties to band together in common cause to create anti-misogyny training packs, the idea being to hold a conference of some kind, set up working groups to cover specific areas, then disseminate these to every school, college, civic institution, and workplace in the land. These would cover men and boys learning not to be abusive and teaching women how to deal with their own internalised misogyny, an area few of us are actively tackling. I've had a bit of interest but nobody has put their name down for this. They talk a good game but they're so into their own stuff (and doing it their way) that the idea of cooperating to produce a package we can spread nationwide has not occurred to them. My campaign is dead in the water. I'm sad. Individually they are great people but they need to work collectively if we're going to effect change. Transgender Trend are incredible. They're already in schools. Now imagine them working with Men At Work CIC. Now imagine getting Filia, A Woman's Place, and all the other women's groups involved, sharing information and working to get this stuff adapted for a range of environments and out into the mainstream the way Stonewall did. We'd be unstoppable. But no, apathy reigns. Maybe they're too busy. Seriously, though, they only have to populate the spreadsheet with their contact details and commit to taking part in a conference to talk to each other at some point. Why have they not all piled in?

I'm hopeful that at some point I will see people getting involved. I just need one to start. I've seen what we can do when we pull together. I just hope that we will.