A few weeks ago I wrote an article condemning GitHub’s Amy Palamountain for authoring a code of conduct policy that appeared to state complaints of ‘reverse’ racist harassment would not be acted upon. When challenged by numerous complainants GitHub backed down. The code of conduct project has been paused and Palamountain (@ammeep) has been keeping a low profile. The tragic murder earlier today of American journalist Allison Parker and a cameraman underlines my point.
I wrote a follow-up article explaining why expressing such views can be career ending in Britain. Whilst Britain is a pro-equalities nation, even our most left-wing institutions like the Guardian and BBC have long accepted that minority on majority discrimination (e.g. anti-white, anti-straight, anti-male) is real.
The catalyst for this view was the brutal murder of Ross Andrew Parker by an Asian gang in 2001, which led the BBC to say this (archive here) –
“Racism was once defined as ‘prejudice plus power’ – […] However, the ‘racist murders’ of Kriss Donald in Glasgow in 2004 and Ross Parker in Peterborough in 2001, young white men killed by Asians, demonstrate how society has been forced to redefine racism”.
Last year the issue was reinforced by a scandal centred on a town called Rotherham in the UK, where 1,400 underage girls were revealed as having been subject to paedophile rape over a 20 year period. The perpetrators? I quoted feminist Suzanne Moore in the Guardian newspaper (archive here), “men of Pakistani and Kashmiri descent, working in gangs to rape and torture girls”, who “called the girls ‘white trash'”.
Worse, as my article sets out, the scandal was covered up by extreme, SJW leftists. The Home Secretary Theresa May (British Cabinet Minister in charge of criminal justice) condemned it as, “institutionalised political correctness” (archive here).
Sadly, in the United States the progressive movement is still behind the curve and tolerates within it hate-mongers who seek to present a 1950s view of equalities by claiming ‘reverse’-racism does not exist. The term ‘reverse’-racism is itself objectionable. Racism is racism.
Law year I wrote about the Ferguson shooting, in which a white police officer shot a violent, non-white criminal. The officer was not indicted by a grand jury because they found the witness evidence showed overwhelmingly that the officer acted correctly. Thwarted by facts and logic, social justice warriors incited riots in Ferguson based on the wholly false allegations of racism.
One such figure is Anita Sarkeesian (@femfreq). Sarkeesian says that “sexism is prejudice + power” (archive here) and she talks of the “myth” of “reverse racism” (archive here). Sarkeesian is best known as the author of a series of videos called ‘Tropes Against Women in Videogames’. Sarkeesian is right to say some games are sexist – just like some movies and magazines are sexist. However Sarkeesian has gone further to find imaginary grievances in the most likely of places.
In Anita Sarkeesian’s world of grievance even “Ms Pacman” is said to be sexist – falling under the trope “Ms Male Character” (archive here) – a female character with the same role and skills as a male. Others, less inclined to be offended, call this ‘parity of terms’ or ‘equality’.
The tragedy of this error was illustrated again today when (in an eerie naming coincidence) American reporter Allison Parker from WDBJ TV was shot dead by former colleague Vester Lee Flanagan. Flanagan, who went by the on-air name Bryce Williams, is apparently a classic ‘Social Justice Warrior’, in the worst sense.
To quote WDBJ General Manager Jeff Marks (courtesy of Heavy.com) –
“Vester was an unhappy man. We employed him as a reporter and he had some talent in that respect and some experience. He quickly gathered a reputation of someone who was difficult to work with. He was sort of looking out to people to say things he could take offense to. Eventually, after many incidents of his anger, we dismissed him. He did not take that well. We had to call police to escort him from the building”
Why should Vester not behave just like that? After all, it is what an increasing number of extremist SJWs do. In their desire to blame life’s challenges on injustice and discrimination they engage in ever more hysterical rhetoric over ever smaller grievances.
In Britain, whilst we still have the same infantile hard left with the same simplistic world view we have drawn some lines. Inciting racial hatred or denying racism is simply not acceptable here. Recently, for example, SJW Bahar Mustafa, a student leader at Goldsmith’s University, was questioned by police for tweeting, ‘kill all white men’.
The United States must learn to do the same. Extremists like Anita Sarkeesian and others must be recognised as such and denied access to the public square in the same was as members of the Ku Klux Klan or Nazi revivalists. It is simply unacceptable, for example, for Time magazine to include Sarkeesian in its list of the 100 most influential people. To that extent, far from being a reactionary movement as it is complained of, #GamerGate in the US is leading the way in its opposition to these extremist viewpoints.
If you believe that anti-white racism is no more acceptable than anti-black racism, then there are polite, peaceful, lawful ways you can help to set the terms of debate. In my previous article here I published contact details for GitHub for people to politely complain about the wording proposed by Palamountain. Later I published contact details for major investors in GitHub. Why not check the contact details at the bottom of each article and politely email. Or you can simply tweet @TIME magazine to express your concerns about Anita Sarkeesian’s views and ask them to stop giving her a platform.
[Clarifying Edit, 26/08/2015 After talking to a reader on Twitter, I feel I should say this. It is not that I want to silence Sarkeesian. I just think her hateful views are not deserving of celebrity status]
Good article, in large part agree. Writing this comment just to add some nuance in regards to the Ferguson riots where, while the shooting of Michael Brown was justified, the Department of Justice investigation that began after the riots found many instances of police acting oppressively toward the population and particularly toward the population that is Black and in such a way as to be regarded as racist, at least I would say. Certainly this talk of Reverse-Racism makes distinguishing real Racism from fake outrage more difficult and makes defending instances like the Rotheram rape gangs easier and in some mindsets justifiable.
I’m an American living in Britain and, honestly, I see *no* evidence that Britain is handling anti-white racism very well at all. The example you gave — Bahar Mustafa — is a perfect case in point. She was investigated by police … absolutely nothing happened to her. She didn’t even lose her position as ‘Students’ Union Diversity Officer’ at Goldsmith’s.
Also, let the record show, she’s a red-headed white girl.