TW: this may not be comfortable reading for Black people, as I am sharing my own anti-racist education, and therefore my ignorance.

I’ve just learned about Stokely Carmichael, a huge figure in the US and global civil rights movement, who transitioned from a mostly non-violent philosophy to a much more radical one. As chairman of the SNCC he stopped white membership, and soon after gave a speech during which he popularised the phrase “Black Power,” triggering a new radical movement in civil rights.

This is really profound for us white people to pay attention to, right now – when even the most ‘well-meaning’ of us can have our white fragility triggered by the most genuine and important cries for freedom. Imagine the bravery of Carmichael in revoking white membership to the SNCC, anticipating the backlash of white fragility it would cause – while still knowing this was needed for radical change.

So I will try to pay more attention to the kinds of white fragility I see in myself and others, and know that real radical change requires the provocation of white fragility. I must deeply acknowledge that white people are all complicit in white supremacy, and we can not be a part of radical change without accepting our inherent role in maintaining white supremacy.

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/stokely-carmichael

Content warning: lots of misogyny, sexual assault, racism, violence.

I have spent quite a lot of time engaging with incels (“involuntary celibates”) on Reddit in the past. Their highly misogynistic, often racist, and downright petulant worldview is a perfect storm of wilful ignorance, blind hatred, and childlike tantrum-throwing.

Incels, for those who don’t know, are a disparate community of women-haters who believe that women are both worthless objects and also the most important things in the universe. Incels believe that all men deserve love and affection from the women who they find most attractive, and that the best way of going about receiving that affection is to rape and murder them.

Although incels deserve nothing more than total ignominy and dismissal, I was fascinated by the blind rage and pig-headedness of the average incel opinion I saw floating around on Reddit. I eventually started talking to a few in private messages, trying to learn about their lives and offering a compassionate response, letting them know that there was a way out of their destructive ways of thinking (Yes, I know – misguided and maybe plain wrong, but I wanted to try).

Continue reading “Why my incel pal still owes $1000 to charity” →

Thirty years ago today, the 1989 Democracy Movement in Beijing reached its end. Using tanks and bullets, the Chinese government massacred as many as 10,000 peaceful student protestors in Tiananmen square and across Beijing over several days in early June.

Students who feared the direction of the authoritarian Chinese state had spent several weeks camped out in Tiananmen square, at the centre of Beijing, demanding freedom of the press and accountability for government officials. Protests spread across the city, until in early June the government mobilised thousands of troops from all over China and marched towards the square – a process lasting several days and costing many lives.

Although protestors had managed to slow the advance of the troops, and in some cases had convinced soldiers to lay down their weapons, the military reached the square in the early morning of the 4th of June. Hundreds of students had already been slaughtered.

Continue reading “Remembering the Tiananmen Massacre” →

This will be short and is purely my opinion. You have been warned.

A line I’ve often heard in discussions about right- and left-wing views is that both perspectives are grounded in social benefits.

This line holds that right-wing views are about ‘protecting the group’ – the right-leaning morality is about keeping our family safe. It defends us from outside threats.

Meanwhile, left-wing views are about ‘protecting the outsider’ – the left-leaning morality is about opening our arms, lowering our defences, and treating those less fortunate like human beings rather than burdens or obstacles.

So this right/left dichotomy is framed as a necessary balance between building stable, safe, happy groups and opening those groups to outsiders.

The problem is that this interpretation of right-wing morality assumes a bunch of stuff.

Continue reading “Why right- and left-wing views are not equally valid moralities” →

All information obtained from the End Deportations website.

In March 2017, a group of 15 activists snipped through a fence and walked onto the apron of Stansted airport. They carefully and safely chained themselves together under the wing of an aircraft that was unjustly deporting 57 people from the country.

The aircraft was grounded, the airport was closed for an hour, and a dozen or so flights were diverted to other airports.

The 15 activists were arrested, and later sentenced with an anti-terrorism law that carries a maximum life imprisonment.

Continue reading “Stansted 15 freed – but proto-fascism still alive and well in the UK” →

There’s a saying that there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who have suffered and do not wish others to suffer; and those who have suffered and believe others should go through that too.

A friend recently mentioned that there is a third type. The people who believe that suffering is not real.

These people have either not suffered themselves (e.g. through privilege), and don’t have the scope of imagination to conceive of higher realms of suffering – or they believe that the only kind of suffering that matters is their own.

I think this is a much more dangerous kind of person than the first two.

Continue reading ““Suffering is a Lie”” →