Many public places in Saudi Arabia are closed to women. Some have segregated “family” areas, and some don’t; women by themselves are not welcome.
We understand why, of course. We’re not stupid. It’s because if they’re out by themselves they’re sure to fuck the first male they see, and disgrace the men of their family.
Guest post by Magdalen Berns.
Since I wrote about my experience of being excluded from Edinburgh University Student Association (EUSA) Women’s Liberation, LGBT Liberation, and LGBT Society Facebook groups, I can now confirm that I have also been banned from the NUS Scotland Women’s Campaign Facebook group which represents around 0.2% of roughly 100,000 female Scottish higher education students. My latest thought crime was having the temerity to post a discussion between Chris Hedges, Lee Lakeman and Alice Lee and quoting the following remark from Alice Lee.
I think with neoliberalism it’s worse for women of colour, indigenous women, because now a sort of–they use an excuse of subjugating women and the exploitation of women of colour and indigenous women almost as if it was a viable option for women–that’s the only thing that we’re good for. So it really puts us to being not human, in a way that it dismisses us and all the contributions that women make in those countries.
Such a post must have disrupted the natural order of things by “offending” the self defining student “sex work” caucus again. Back in September last year, I posted an article which resulted in members attempting to get me banned for being a “SWERF”. The President of the NUS disagreed with the hostile way I had been spoken to and offered to take a formal complaint from me. I still had not heard back about that by October, so I shared another article which was deleted by the NUS Scotland Women’s Officer after complaints were made by the Edinburgh “sex worker” caucus who were harassing me all over social media at that point. The Women’s Officer vowed to “look into” how a conversation on prostitution could be facilitated without making student “sex workers” feel unsafe. I haven’t heard from either of the NUS Scotland Officers since, and I did not get any warning before being banned from NUS Scotland Women’s Campaign Facebook group. I can only assume representatives have allowed themselves to become too intimidated to be seen to be showing any sort of sympathy for the idea that women have legitimate reasons for disagreeing with the global sex trade in women and girls. The threat of a non-confidence smear campaign seems to be one tactic which keeps NUS Officers in line.
In the spirit of identity politics, I looked over who should be checking whose privilege according to NUS “intersectionality 101” publications. It turns out the documents don’t have anything on “sex workers” (yet). Although one part says, “listen to and support lesbian women, do not question their judgement”, the “intersectionality 101” presentation makes no mention of sexuality and none of the “intersectionality 101” publications have anything to say about heterosexual women. A comprehensive description of class oppression is also absent from the “intersectionality 101” toolkit which might explain why student reps find it difficult to appreciate that vast majority of prostituted women and girls don’t have access to higher education because they are underprivileged compared to the student “sex workers” we are are told to listen to.
NUS “feminism” is easily reconciled with the cognitively dissonant act of banning a sister for posting an article on how structural racism, imperialism and colonialism work to subordinate the world’s most marginalised women in prostitution, because the NUS essentially rejects the idea that women are a subordinated sex class. Having resolved that the word “sister” is too exclusionary to be allowed at conference last year, the NUS recently came up with a set of new ideas designed to undermine female students’ ability to unite against patriarchy. It is no wonder that NUS Women are now under the assumption that “inclusion” means women should speak of oppression only when this is being done to shut other women up.
Via Maryam: a lecturer at a Swedish university is being investigated for lecturing on John Stuart Mill. It’s in Swedish but there’s a translate button at the top, so one can get the gist. Rrr provided us with a translation:
Groundless investigations of teachers jeopardize academic freedom and reduce the working and learning environment within the university.
Adamson (the male lecturer, who was by the way previously fired from Malmö university for criticising the Swedish variety policy) claims the quotes about religion are untrue. “All I did was to point out that while religions may not necessarily be true, they can give a sense of cohesion that secular society can not offer.”
The school planned an extensive investigation by an external jurist and some persons randomly chosen by the teacher, the complainant and the employer – not as a legal process but in order to gain a better view of what happened, explains the HR officer. The two lecturers oppose this, on the grounds that as a state institution the school cannot perform an investigation that is not a part of a legal procedure. (The other teacher holds a PhD in public administration.) They also refuse to take part in the selection of witnesses and stress that any participation of students may cause strife in the class and potentially be damaging.
The ARW’s take, based on the complaint and e-mails it has read, is that there are no grounds to believe that there can have occurred any direct discrimation, nor oppressive special treatment. The complainant refers to no concrete decision against her, such as exam results, and that the mere feeling one is discriminated against is insufficient for a suspicion of actual discrimination. For there to have been oppressive special treatment, the official guidelines from the directorate of worker protection requires a series of serious oppression over a significant period of time. Neither requisite is satisfied in this case.
In a situation like this it would be unnecessary and even harmful to commence an extensive inquiry. Instead the case should be rapidly handled by internal legal counsel, who can on the above grounds immediately decide that the accusations lack merit. A more ambitious inquiry would send a signal that even trivial occurances will be taken most seriously, which would blow them out of all proportion. The result: impeded freedom of speech and a worse working environment, where one has to watch one’s tounge in order not to offend someone.
The studying environment itself deteriorates if students are unnecessarily called to witness. Finally, an unfounded and extralegal inquiry, which also takes a long time, can be seen as the teacher proper being faced with oppressive special treatment, which in turn leads to further inquiry, and so on. The union representative supports the teachers’ demand that the inquiry be cancelled.
This is a case where the Principal and other officers must show a backbone and a principled behaviour to without hesitation stand on the side of the teacher and of academic freedom. A first step is to immediately abort the inquiry. The alternative would be to succumb to populism and political correctness in a way not flattering for a serious place of learning. The Principal or other officer should further make it clear, preferably in public, that it is sad if a student feels religiously discriminated but that the university is not a “protected workshop” where nobody is ever sad or upset, but that it is a preparation for life – where things are obviously different.
That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing any university should “investigate.” Religion is in fact a social phenomenon, and if you can’t learn about that in a university, then where can you learn it?
Dan Fincke made excellent points in a public post on Facebook sharing a public post by Julia Galef about the Dawkins-NECSS disruption.
1. Dawkins is not just any speaker, he was to be the keynote and he’s got outsized influence in the movement. With greater power comes greater responsibility. Endorsing him to speak is to effectively continue to endorse him as the de facto face of our movement. It is worse when someone of his stature does something like this.
2. Dawkins is also not just any speaker because he is building off his academic stature in gaining his reputation and outsized influence. Standards are different for a professional activist like, say, David Silverman, and a professional. Professionals are expected to police themselves as part of the responsibility that comes with their authority, prestige, and prominence related to their academic titles and institutional affiliations. The idea of tenure is a trust. We trust you to behave professionally and in return you get unrestricted free speech rights. Soft penalties for abusing that authority like being academically shunned or disinvited from speaking opportunities are a relatively a mild form of recourse still left available to chastise someone abusing their professional privileges.
I think he meant a professional academic, or an academic (since professional academic is tautological), rather than just professional. Professional entertainers for instance work under different rules. At any rate, yes, that. Dawkins should police himself as part of the responsibility that comes with his authority, prestige, and prominence related to his academic titles and institutional affiliations – including CFI. He should police himself in order to avoid making CFI look bad by being a bully on Twitter days after the merger was announced.
6. Even after he “took it down” because it was a real person he acted spiteful and petulant in follow up tweets. He started questioning whether she was really harassed (ignoring evidence presented to him) and calling her vile and recommending that this very low totem pole individual who was already disproportionately signaled out for harassment and death threats and mockery be given plenty of more mockery. He’s STILL willing to make a lowly street level activist a target of unrelenting mockery rather than shift the focus to ideas. That’s irresponsible, especially coming from such an extraordinarily powerful person. I agree with those that found her actions in the original video that made her infamous to be repulsively uncivil. But seriously, street level arguments between ideologues are emotional and intense confrontations. They shouldn’t destroy someone’s life. Dawkins and his defenders are constantly bemoaning powerful people being raked through the social media mud over a single comment. But Dawkins is rallying millions of social media followers to redouble their efforts to mock a street level activist for being obnoxious in the heat of an argument? This doesn’t make him unfit to receive continued treatment as the de facto face and voice of our movement? Then this movement is fucked.
That. I couldn’t agree more.
There are seven, they’re all good, you should read them all.
Dawkins’s Twitter is of course full of his retweets of people raging at the “witch hunt” against him. (And yet he goes on pretending to be unaware that many of his 1.34 million followers will harass anyone he targets on Twitter. He remembers them when they’re raging at the witch hunt, but not when they’re harassing Chanty Binx.)
A sample, with account names left off to simplify.
@NECSS Shameful display of intolerance and ignorance on your part, in your treatment of @RichardDawkins. Ridiculous overreaction to satire.
@JackSyit @RichardDawkins I agree. He’s a liberal feminist who abhors racism and sexism. But he’s brutally honest & many hate that.
.@RichardDawkins #cologne rapes and enormous problems of Muslim world but “feminists” and Islamists unite over hatred of cartoons.
I can’t be the only one that see the irony in this situation. @RichardDawkins is more of a feminist than any of those attacking him.
@RichardDawkins Fundamentalist feminists are irony deficient.
@NECSS You people have lost all credibility. Unless you can issue an absolutely rectifying apology to @RichardDawkins . Admit you’re wrong
I’m an atheist. I don’t agree with @RichardDawkins about everything & don’t need him to speak for me, but this Twitter lynch mob is pathetic
@RichardDawkins The regressive left is a new enemy of logic and reason. Stay classy, prof.
@RichardDawkins The regressives have multiplied and have made you their newest target. Stay strong, we have your back.
Feminists turn on @RichardDawkins because he tweeted this amusing video. Humourless harpies. http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/timblair/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/sceptic_faith_disturbed/ …
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ecJUqhm2g08&feature=youtu.be …@ttrwttr @RichardDawkins @NECSS
Don’t always agree with @RichardDawkins but he’s fair & consistent. Same can’t be said about his hysterical detractors.
That’s a tiny, tiny sample. I gave up trying to scroll to the bottom of them.
His own tweets are as horrible as ever, if not worse.
Richard Dawkins @RichardDawkins
‘It’s time feeble feminists started to condemn the misogyny in Islam’
Yes, don’t tell me, I know there’s a paywall http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article4678093.ece …[In response to someone saying the vid is not funny]:
.@ttrwttr @NECSS That’s your opinion. I found it very funny and acute. Maybe not as good as Lehrer or Python but they set a v high standard
Now who will de-platform me for posting this? Come on, why not?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJUhlRoBL8M …
Or this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUspLVStPbk …
Both “offensive”Dear @NECSS, please listen to @StephenFry before you disinvite anyone else for “offending” the offence junkies,
@Ivriniel @CHSommers She most certainly deserved mockery. In spades. She did not deserve violence. Nobody does, not even her.
That one is particularly disgusting. Again he insists that a random powerless ordinary woman “deserved” mockery, and not just that, but “in spades” – deserved extra added mockery. Reasonable people with a nodding acquaintance with basic decency consider that bullying and harassment, while Richard Dawkins thinks it’s just reward for a woman he dislikes. Then he says nobody deserves violence, “not even her,” as if she were so evil she came close to deserving violence.
He’s become the George Galloway of atheism.
Steven Novella has written the blog post he said he would write, explaining the decision to withdraw Dawkins’s invitation to speak at the NECSS conference in May.
NECSS is run by the New York City Skeptics and the New England Skeptical Society, both non-profit organizations. NECSS has its own executive committee, consisting of members of both organizations. There has been much speculation about who is making the decisions for NECSS – it is this committee. I will just say that there were a range of opinions on this matter within the committee, and we came to the best decisions we could, given that range of opinions. When I refer to “we” in this article, I am not speaking for every individual on the committee, just the majority result.
It wasn’t one person, and it wasn’t unanimous.
Richard Dawkins has been a polarizing figure in the skeptical community for several years. On the one hand, many people (myself included) greatly respect the work that Dawkins has done. He is a brilliant science communicator. His books have brought many people to rationalism. He is one of the few “rock stars” of our movement.
For what it’s worth, I still agree with that. On the other hand, sadly, I think he’s done a lot to tarnish even his brilliant science communication now; that’s one of the many reasons I wish he would stop. Now that he’s so firmly established himself as a serial outrage-machine on Twitter, it just really is hard to read his books without that getting in the way. Imagine you found out that, oh, Paul Krugman, say, or Daniel Dennett, is actually the mind behind Milo Yiannopoulos. That would change how you saw him and his books.
I also greatly respect and appreciate the fact that he is an outspoken public atheist. This is tremendously important, and serves to legitimize atheism for many. Dawkins has dedicated much of his career and effort to charitable endeavors, to make the world a better place.
I guess, sort of, but less so than the part about brilliant science communication. Now the “outspoken” quality is all tangled up with the “mean bullying” quality, and I have no idea how to disentangle them.
All of this is why it has been very puzzling to many that his social media activity has often not reflected his reputation as a public intellectual. He has famously made tweets or blog comments that have come off as insensitive or worse. I will not dissect each instance here, which is well trammeled territory already.
Interestingly, Dawkins himself recently tweeted:
“I’m really as polite as my books. Twitter brevity forces you straight to the point, which can sound aggressive.”
Interestingly and horrifyingly. Yes, really – I find it horrifying how completely unable he is to see (or admit?) even that he is frequently rude. I speak as a frequently rude person myself. I make some effort not to be, and doubtless should make more, but for sure I do not go around telling people how especially polite I am. It creeps me out that Dawkins keeps insisting he’s actually a nice guy.
For further background, over the last 5-6 years the skeptical movement has been rocked by intermittent controversy over sexism and racism in the movement. This is a complex topic I am not going to tackle or resolve here. Suffice it to say this controversy has caused many in the movement to form various camps, some championing free speech, others social justice. Others have tried to chart a course down the middle, while still others left the movement.
In the mix, unfortunately, there have been truly vile trolls who have made threats of violence and rape, serving mostly to radicalize the entire issue. Trolls and psychopaths are part of the new social media reality, a new reality to which we are all still adapting.
Some of them, of course, are commenting on Novella’s post.
Given all this, they had to figure out whether or not to invite Dawkins. They had reservations, but decided to go for it anyway.
Unfortunately, within a week of opening registration many of us became concerned that this might not be tenable.
Dawkins retweeted a video (called “Feminists Love Islamists”) depicting an Islamist and an angry feminist (who it turns out is a real person and not just a character) and essentially making the claim that these groups share an ideology. Dawkins tweeted:
“Obviously doesn’t apply to the vast majority of feminists, among whom I count myself. But the minority are pernicious.”
He included a link to the video. This, of course, set off another round of controversy over Dawkins’ social media activity and the attitudes they reflect.
That made things awkward for NECSS.
Since we had just opened registration this created an urgency, because we did not want to “bait and switch” our attendees if we would ultimately decide to reverse our decision to have him at the conference. We felt it was important to make a decision quickly.
You can see how that makes sense. Dawkins’s tweeting seems to be getting progressively more obnoxious, ratcheting down almost every day, so what would he be blurting out in March, let alone April?
He addresses some concerns – why invite him in the first place, why not talk to him first, what about free speech.
People have a right to speech, but they don’t have a right to access a private venue for their speech. In fact, whom we invite or uninvite to our conference is the primary mechanism of our free speech. This was ultimately about the character of NECSS and the statement we wish to make (or not make) to our community. Obviously where one sets the threshold for not inviting, or uninviting, a guest is subjective and there is room for reasonable disagreement here.
I think there should be a much higher threshold for disinviting than there is for not inviting in the first place. I suppose this situation should be a warning for other orgs, even if they don’t already have scruples about inviting Dawkins to speak – they don’t know what he’ll be tweeting next month, and disinviting is a much bigger deal than not inviting in the first place, so think carefully about inviting.
Others have questioned whether or not we condemn all satire, with South Park being brought up as a frequent example. We are not against satire, but this video is no South Park. The video in question, in my opinion, was spiteful and childish and was merely hiding behind satire. That is a judgment call, but making that judgment does not condemn satire as a form.
Satire as a genre is a good thing. It doesn’t follow, and it’s not the case, that all satire is good.
Another frequent point is that we are against any criticism of feminism, as if it is a taboo topic. This is also not true. No topic should be taboo, and we favor open and vigorous discussion of all important issues. In fact, pointed criticism is good for the feminist movement – or for any movement. (This does not mean that NECSS is the proper venue for any particular topic.)
The point, rather, is that this video, and the discussion that surrounded it, was not constructive. It was hateful and divisive.
It was one item in the massive catalogue of hateful garbage the antifeminists have been cranking out for the past several years. It had nothing to do with reasoned criticism.
I want to directly address Dawkins’ last statement:
“The science and skepticism community is too small and too important to let disagreements divide us and divert us from our mission of promoting a more critical and scientifically literate world.”
I completely agree. That is, ironically, the exact reason we were so disturbed by that video and Dawkins spreading of it. I do wish Dawkins would recognize (perhaps he does) his special place within our community and the power that position holds. When he retweets a link to a video, even with a caveat, that has a tremendous impact. It lends legitimacy to the video and the ideas expressed in it.
That is why Dawkins is so polarizing. In my opinion, someone in his position, with his eloquence, knowledge, and intellect, with his academic background should be doing everything he can to elevate the level of discussion. He has the ability to address legitimate criticisms of feminism, or atheism or skepticism, if he thinks he has them. He could be a force that is helping unite our very small and critically important rationalist movement.
Instead, I fear, he is helping to divide us, 140 characters at a time, and helping to lower the level of the discussion.
Precisely. I also do wish Dawkins would recognize his special place within our community and the power that position holds. I told him that when we had the conversation that led to the joint statement in July 2014. He definitely does recognize his special place for some purposes, i.e. when it’s pleasant for him, but he seems not to when it comes to recognizing the harm he does to the random people he targets. He’s doing it now, today – he’s still producing hateful tweets about the woman in the video, still insisting that she deserves all the mockery possible. His special place right now seems to be Bully in Chief.
Racist bullies went on a rampage in Stockholm last night.
Hundreds of masked men marched through Stockholm’s main train station on Friday evening, reportedly beating up refugees and anyone who didn’t appear to be ethnically Swedish.
Wearing all-black balaclavas and armbands, the men “gathered with the purpose of attacking refugee children,” Stockholm police spokesperson Towe Hagg said.
Attacking children – that’s a nice touch. Hundreds of men getting together to attack children; what courage.
Before the attacks, the mob handed out leaflets with the slogan “It is enough now!” which threatened to give “the North African street children who are roaming around” the “punishment they deserve”.
The leaflet refers to the death of social worker Alexandra Mezher, who died after being stabbed at a refugee shelter for unaccompanied children.
So hundreds of men attack random children.
After the attack, the Swedish Resistance Movement, a neo-Nazi group, released a statement claiming the attack had “cleaned up criminal immigrants from North Africa that are housed in the area around the Central Station”.
The statement added: “These criminal immigrants have robbed and molested Swedes for a long time.”
“Police have clearly shown that they lack the means to stave off their rampage, and we now see no other alternative than to ourselves hand out the punishments they deserve.”
I’m so sick of bullies.
The former Dragon’s Den judge Douglas Richard has been found not guilty of child sex charges.
The 57-year-old, who once advised Prime Minister David Cameron, engaged in “sexy chat” with a 13-year-old after meeting her on a ‘sugar daddy’ website and went on to act out his fantasies when she travelled from her home in Norwich to meet him in London.
However, the American millionaire claimed he believed she was an experienced 17-year-old and told jurors he would never “knowingly” have sex with a child.
Those goddam 13-year-old girls are so deceptive.
A government minister has urged Saudi Arabia to do a “better job” of trumpeting its human rights successes during an official visit to the country, less than a month after it carried out the mass execution of 47 people.
Tobias Ellwood, the Foreign Office minister for the Middle East, made the comments on Monday as he and other British delegates addressed Saudi Arabia’s National Society for Human Rights in the capital Riyadh, The Independent understands.
Its what? Trumpeting its what? Trumpeting its what successes? Trumping its human rights what?
Saudi Arabia doesn’t have any fucking human rights “successes.” Saudi Arabia doesn’t believe in human rights, because it thinks human beings are slaves before Allah and Mohammed. Saudi Arabia wants nothing to do with human rights, because it’s run by one extremely rich family who grabbed power a few decades ago and don’t intend to give it up. Saudi Arabia hates human rights, because the house of Saud depends on the Wahhabi clerics in order to keep its stranglehold on power.
How dare a UK government minister give Saudi Arabia advice on how to pretend it gives a fuck about human rights?
During the visit, which was not publicised by the Foreign Office, Mr Ellwood was told that Saudi Arabia had introduced a series of reforms, such as allowing women to vote in municipal elections.
In response, he told his hosts that they needed to improve the way they promoted their human rights successes, according to people present at the meeting.
So the FO sent someone completely ignorant of the Saudi way with human rights to Saudi Arabia? Why?
Accounts of the meeting that appeared in three Saudi media outlets claimed that Mr Ellwood went even further, saying that people in Britain were unaware of the “notable progress” made on human rights by the Saudi regime.
An article in the daily newspaper Al Watan read: “Tobias Ellwood revealed the ignorance of the British to the notable progress in Saudi Arabia in the field of human rights, confirming throughout the visit of a British FCO delegation… that he had expressed his opinion regarding the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia before the British Parliament, and that the notable progress in this area has been obscured.”
Tell that to Raif Badawi. Tell it to Waleed Abulkhair. Tell it to the Sri Lankan domestic servant who was sentenced to stoning to death for having sex outside marriage. Tell it to the entire female population of Saudi Arabia.
Maya Foa, of the human rights organisation Reprieve, added: “These comments are astonishing. The Saudi authorities have a bad reputation on human rights because of their appalling human rights record – not because of bad PR.”
And as long as that’s the case, we don’t want them to improve their PR.
The Independent has reported on Dawkins’s latest excellent adventure.
The evolutionary biologist is a controversial figure. He has been criticised for Islamophobia – a term he has described as a ‘non-word’ – on several occasions and last year sparked outrage by comparing who he described as “clock boy” Ahmed Mohamed with a child soldier forced by Isis to behead victims.
The Independent has approached Dawkins for comment.
He also – often – called Ahmed Mohamed “Hoax Boy” – which is even less friendly than “clock boy.”
The International Business Times also reported.
The atheist movement has been accused of being dominated by men often insensitive to women’s concerns. The NECSS decision to disinvite Dawkins as the keynote speaker is one of the few times an organization supportive of his atheism has taken action against him.
Or, rather, the only time? I don’t know of any other. Correct me if I’m wrong.
More about Richard Dawkins
- Richard Dawkins under fire for comparing ‘clock boy’ Ahmed Mohammed to Isis child executioner
- Richard Dawkins take heed: Even atheists instinctively believe in a creator says study
- Peshawar school massacre: Richard Dawkins says Pakistan Taliban attack exposes evils of religion
- Richard Dawkins Makes ‘Worst Comments Yet’ on Twitter about Down’s Syndrome Babies
- Richard Dawkins on Syllogism: ‘Date Rape is Bad, Stranger Rape at Knifepoint is Worse’
- Sun editor David Dinsmore beats GTA 5 to be crowned ‘Sexist of the Year’ by feminist group
The pride of atheism.
David Futrelle covers the story of Dawkins’s passionate defense of relentlessly mocking people we dislike; he covers it with great thoroughness. I read through Dawkins’s numbingly horrible tweets earlier today and didn’t have the stomach to blog about them.
Earlier this month, antifeminist YouTuber Sargon of Akkad — who makes his living pandering to some of the internet’s worst lady haters — posted an animated videoby another antifeminist YouTuber in which an angry Islamist and an angry feminist sing a song explaining that they pretty much believe all the same things. (For some reason, this nonsensical theory is something that a lot of antifeminists have convinced themselves is true.)
The angry Islamist in the video is a familiar racist stereotype, complete with “funny” accent. [Correction: He’s evidently supposed to be a parody of this guy, known as Dawah Man, a legitimately terrible person you wouldn’t think atheists would have to strawman in order to criticize..]
The angry feminist, meanwhile, isn’t a generic figure; she’s an especially crude caricature of [Chanty] Binx, spouting nonsense that neither Binx nor any other feminist actually believes: the video ends with her encouraging the Islamist to rape her, because it’s not really rape if a Muslim does it, dontchaknow.
It’s a vicious, hateful little cartoon made worse by the fact that these words are being put in the mouth of a real woman who’s been the target of a vast harassment campaign for years.
Yet Dawkins thought it was quality enough and on target enough to share with his 1.34 million followers.
Dawkins, a well-respected scientist-turned-embarrassing-atheist-ideologue, has become notorious for his endless Twitter gaffes. But this is plainly worse than, say, his famously pathetic lament about airport security “dundridges” taking his jar of honey; his Tweet contributed to the demonization of a real woman who’s already the target of harassment and threats.
The awesome Lindy West pointed this out to him in a series of Tweets and linked to one of my posts cataloging some of the abuse Binx got after the video of her went viral.
In a series of eloquent and angry Tweets, she made clear to Dawkins how and why he was misusing his huge platform and contributing to an atmosphere of hate online. Dawkins, alternately indignant and defensive, ultimately took down the offending Tweet, but not before making other Tweets that were nearly as bad. Dawkins can’t even do the right thing without being a dick about it.
Those were the other tweets I saw and couldn’t face blogging. I saw some of them late yesterday, and some this morning. What they tell us is that it’s terrific to mock people, as much as possible, it’s just not cool to threaten them.
Like the one where he tells Lindy, “I think she deserves nothing more than ridicule. I would never shriek “Fuckface” at her. But I would laugh at her. Ridicule.” Futrelle comments,
So there you have it: when informed that a tweet of his will almost certainly worsen the vicious harassment faced by a young woman whose only “crime” was being rude to a couple of MRAs in public, Richard Dawkins, a one-time winner of the American Humanist Association’s Humanist of the Year Award, replies by saying that “she deserves nothing more than ridicule.”
Exactly. It turns my stomach.
Then he decided to take down the tweet, while throwing more shit at Chanty Binx.
“Can’t believe anyone’s as nasty as her.” Says the guy with 1.34 million followers who has just been reminded that his followers tend to harass people whom he attacks. The “humanist.”
There’s more, then Futrelle gets to the tweet I think I hate the most of all (though there will be worse tomorrow, never fear):
Yes, she deserves abundant mockery, the more the merrier. But she doesn’t deserve violent threats. Nobody does.
He simply said a woman he disapproves of deserves all the “mockery” he can incite – which is a massive amount, and is never confined to what reasonable people would consider mockery. I think that’s the tweet that prompted me yesterday to call him a bully. He is a bully, a terrible, unrepentant, gleeful, conscienceless bully.
Hm. I guess some people aren’t very good at predicting highly predictable consequences of actions.
The holdouts at Malheur, for instance.
David Fry said he spoke to an FBI negotiator three times in the last 24 hours. He said the group is prepared to leave peacefully, but fears arrest.
Ah, the group fears arrest. Did they think arrest was an impossible outcome? Did they think they were there legally? Did they not realize that the wildlife refuge was not theirs to grab and take over?
One man, Sean Anderson, had been told there was a federal warrant for his arrest on charges of interfering with federal employees. Fry said FBI negotiators told him the others would be allowed to leave without facing arrest. “As a group, we were willing to leave peacefully,” Fry said. “But they want to arrest Sean, and take Sean out, and put him in jail. We don’t want to leave Sean in that situation, because that feels unfair.”
They must have known there were federal employees of the refuge, and that they were interfering with them. What, exactly, feels unfair?
Aatish Taseer tells us via the NY Times that the right-wingers currently calling the shots in India are going after the universities.
The R.S.S., a Hindu nationalist organization, was founded in 1925 as a muscular alternative to Mahatma Gandhi’s freedom movement. Its founder admired Adolf Hitler, and in 1948 the organization was blamed for indirectly inspiring Gandhi’s assassination. The B.J.P. has not always had an easy relationship with the R.S.S. With its fanciful ideas of Hindu purity and its sweeping range of prejudices, the organization is dangerously out of step with the realities of India’s political landscape. When the B.J.P. wants to win an election, it usually distances itself from the R.S.S.’s cultural agenda.
Mr. Modi’s 2014 election had very little to do with the R.S.S. and everything to do with his personality and promises of development. But the R.S.S. doesn’t see it that way. Like a fairy-tale dwarf, the group has sought to extract its due from the man it helped into power. As payment for the debt, the R.S.S. wants control of education. Specifically, it wants to install its men at the helm of universities where they will wreak vengeance on the traditionally left-wing intellectual establishment that has always held them in contempt.
Sandeep Pandey is one they’ve managed to get thrown out.
This is the background to Mr. Pandey’s dismissal. His new boss, Girish Chandra Tripathi, the vice chancellor, is an R.S.S. man. The Ministry of Education helped push through his appointment after Mr. Modi’s election. One B.H.U. professor, who wished not to be named, described Mr. Tripathi as “an academic thug with no qualifications.” (He was previously a professor of economics.)
The new vice chancellor soon turned on Mr. Pandey. “It was all engineered,” Mr. Pandey said to me. First, the professor said, he was denounced by a student. Then a local news website printed a bogus story accusing him of being part of an armed guerrilla movement. (Mr. Pandey, a Gandhian, opposes all violence.) Soon after, the technical institute’s board of governors decided, on Mr. Tripathi’s recommendation, that he be fired. He is an alumnus of the university and a mechanical engineer with a degree from the University of California, Berkeley. He has won awards for his social work. None of this made a difference. He was given a month to clear out.
I thought I should speak to the vice chancellor. He was out of town, but came on the telephone. The mention of “Sandeep Pandey” was like a trigger. He told me that Mr. Pandey had questioned whether Kashmir was an integral part of India and he had tried to screen the banned documentary “India’s Daughter,” which deals with the infamous gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh, a physiotherapy student in New Delhi in 2012.
Not sufficient cause.
The problem with the vice chancellor is not just that he is right-wing. It is that he is unqualified for his position. This was never more apparent than in his total inability to grasp the value of dissent at an institution of learning.
Mr. Pandey has spent a lifetime working among some of India’s most voiceless people. It was sinister in the extreme that he should be dismissed for being “anti-national.” And that term is being bandied about far too much by the R.S.S. and its allies these days. The R.S.S.’s student wing at the University of Hyderabad recently smeared a 26-year-old doctoral student from a low-caste background as “anti-national” for his activism. The university decided to ban him from all public spaces. Earlier this month he committed suicide.
Unity is not the only value.
The FBI arrested three more of the trespassers yesterday.
The FBI set up a perimeter around theMalheur Wildlife Refuge and established a series of checkpoints earlier in the day, as militia members continued their occupation.
In a statement, the FBI said the containment was to “better ensure the safety of community members.” Only Harney County ranchers who own property in specific areas were allowed to pass after showing IDs.
Since Wednesday morning, a total of 8 people left the refuge, the FBI said. Five of them were released and 3 were arrested.
Duane Ehmer, 45, of Irrigon, Oregon and Dylan Anderson, 34, of Provo, Utah were arrested at 3:30 p.m. Jason Patrick, 43, of Bonaire, Georgia was arrested on probable cause at 7:40 p.m., the FBI said.
From left to right: Jason Patrick, Dylan Anderson and Duane Ehmer were arrested leaving the Malheur Wildlife Refuge, January 27 2016. (MCSO)
Oddly enough, these guys are subject to the same laws we all are.
Brand Thornton, one of Bundy’s supporters, said he left the refuge Monday and wasn’t sure what those remaining would do.
“The entire leadership is gone,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. “I wouldn’t blame any of them for leaving.”
Thornton called the arrests “a dirty trick” by law enforcement.
Bahahahahahaha! Yes, how unfair of them, to arrest people just because they stole a national wildlife refuge and set about destroying it.
Even white guys sometimes get arrested.
So, this is the fruit of the merger between CFI and Dawkins’s foundation: Dawkins gets to use CFI to add a bit of respectability to his statement on NECSS.
That’s good for him, not so good for them. (Remember the good old days when he used to say that his debating William Lane Craig would look good on WLC’s resumé, not so good on his? This is that.) This ties his Twitter persona to CFI. It ties his ridiculous statement to CFI.
I woke up this morning to see a public announcement that my invitation to speak at NECSS 2016 had been withdrawn by the executive committee. I do not write this out of concern about my appearance or non-appearance at NECSS, but I wish there had been a friendly conversation before such unilateral action was taken. It is possible I could have allayed the committee members’ concerns, or, if not, at least we could have talked through their objections to my tweet. If our community is about anything, it is that reasoned discussion is the best way to work through disagreements.
Ok, our community is about [the idea that] reasoned discussion is the best way to work through disagreements. Ok, then why does Dawkins spend so much time having unreasoned discussions on Twitter? If he approves of reasoned discussion, why does he do so much angry blurting on Twitter? If he’s a fan of reasoned discussion, why does he so often find himself having to explain his latest angry blurts on Twitter? If he’s keen on reasoned discussion, why did he approvingly retweet that vulgar, mendacious, ugly video?
I might mention that, before receiving any word from NECSS, I had already deleted the tweet to which they objected. I did it purely because I was told that the video referenced a real woman, who had been threatened on earlier occasions because of YouTube videos in which she appeared to her disadvantage. I have no knowledge of the authenticity of the alleged death and rape threats. But to delete my tweet seemed the safest and most humane course of action. I have always condemned violence and threats of violence, for example in this tweet, which I also posted the day before the NECSS decision.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don’t EVER threaten anyone with violence. We should be free to use comedy/ridicule without fear it may inspire violence
There. That’s it right there. That’s it and he doesn’t even notice that that’s it. No, we shouldn’t be “free” (morally free) to use ridicule of individuals, especially when we’ve got all the power. No, even though we do and should have the legal right to ridicule individuals, doing so is still a morally shit thing to do. No, famous bestselling Richard Dawkins should not be using Twitter to ridicule random women he dislikes. No.
I hate it that Dawkins can now drag CFI down with him.
Holy shit. For once someone actually did the right thing. NECSS has disinvited Dawkins from its upcoming conference because of that horrific video.
A Statement Concerning Richard Dawkins
The Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism has withdrawn its invitation to Richard Dawkins to participate at NECSS 2016. We have taken this action in response to Dr. Dawkins’ approving re-tweet of a highly offensive video.
We believe strongly in freedom of speech and freedom to express unpopular, and even offensive, views. However, unnecessarily divisive, counterproductive, and even hateful speech runs contrary to our mission and the environment we wish to foster at NECSS. The sentiments expressed in the video do not represent the values of NECSS or its sponsoring organizations.
We will issue a full refund to any NECSS attendee who wishes to cancel their registration due to this announcement.
The NECSS Team
Well I’ll be god-damned. There is a too much, finally.
The remaining criminals at Malheur are issuing new threats, which will no doubt be added to the charges once they’re arrested.
As law enforcement surrounded the remaining protesters at an Oregon wildlife refuge Wednesday, an armed occupier urged supporters to join them and to kill any law enforcement officer who tried prevent their entry, according to a livestream that has been broadcasting from the site.
“There are no laws in this United States now! This is a free-for-all Armageddon!” a heavyset man holding a rifle yelled into a camera that was broadcasting a livestream from the refuge Wednesday morning, adding that if “they stop you from getting here, kill them!”
A second man cooed to the camera in a sing-song voice, “What you gonna do, what you gonna do when the militia comes after you, FBI?”
Arrest them. The FBI is gonna arrest them.
The sudden move to arrest ranking protest leaders on a rural stretch of highway Tuesday afternoon was “a very deliberate and measured response” to the armed occupation that had lasted since Jan. 2 with no end in sight, Gregory T. Bretzing, special agent in charge of Portland’s FBI division, said at a Wednesday morning news conference.
“We’ve worked diligently to bring the situation” at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Ore., to “a peaceful end,” Bretzing said.
He added that the FBI and Oregon State Police’s surprise arrests of protesters confronted outside the refuge Tuesday was deliberately carried far from county residents and that agents were cognizant of “removing the threat of danger from anybody who might be present.”
Behold the martyrs:
Booking photos of eight people involved in the occupation of the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Top row from left are Ammon Bundy, Ryan Bundy, Brian Cavalier and Shawna Cox. Bottom row from left are Joseph Donald O’Shaughnessy, Ryan Payne, Jon Eric Ritzheimer and Peter Santilli.
(Multnomah County [Ore.] Sheriff’s Office; Maricopa County [Ariz.] Sheriff’s Office)
And, speaking of the 71st anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz – Iran is holding another “Holocaust cartoons” contest.
Just in time for International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Iranian government has announced that it will be holding another “Holocaust Cartoons Contest,” in which the cartoonist who most viciously mocks the Nazi genocide will be awarded $50,000.
