Do it to her
But…
But Joanne Harris is herself white middle-class. She’s also female, which I assume “vulnerable” is code for. She’s playing the Karen card, because……………I have no idea why she’s doing that.
Tip Jar
But…
But Joanne Harris is herself white middle-class. She’s also female, which I assume “vulnerable” is code for. She’s playing the Karen card, because……………I have no idea why she’s doing that.
I think citations are needed for the claim that they are believed. This is counter to the experience of many white, middle-class, traditional, vulnerable, tearful girls/women. Only in the movies are they believed. In the real world, the defense attorney will find ways to make a nun’s habit or a burqua look like ‘asking for it’.
I suspect that her point might be that non-poor, white, conventionally attractive, cishetero presenting people get away with shit that others who aren’t don’t? That someone less attractive might be suspected sooner, or receive harsher punishment? That people who do evil things don’t look “evil,” that they don’t have horns growing out of their heads or wear shirts that conveniently advertise their evilness to all and sundry?
I thought of this while writing the above. I don’t know if I’m right or not, but given Harris’s apparent flippance concerning threats to JK Rowling, I think I might be on to something.
Perhaps her point is that because pretty, white, etc. people shouldn’t automatically be considered “innocent,” some of them, like JK Rowling, actually deserve to be considered evil to start with? That Harris’s “indecies of innocence” should instead be considered markers of guilt and malevolence? That we should reflexively not take Rowling’s side when she points out targeted harassment and threats from trans activists because she is not innocent and desrves them, and that we should instead believe and support the trans activists because they are not (or, like Harris don’t “identify” as) white, middle-class, traditional, vulnerable, and tearful? In choosing the “face of innocence,” we’re supposed to go with Karen White or Barbie Kardashian, rather than JKR or Rosie Duffield? Or something? That’s the only reason I can see for Harris making such a statement while desperately trying to distance herself from those awful, horrible characteristics of middle-class whiteness and such that she herself shares or embodies. It feels like a sideways move in a longer game, with a whole lot of subtext thrown in for good measure.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and wonder if Joanne Harris’ comments are in response to many, many warnings about Letby being ignored. Including from a dark-skinned doctor of Indian origin, Dr Ravi Jayaram.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12422845/If-want-call-cover-thats-cover-Doctor-raised-alarm-Lucy-Letby-accuses-NHS-trust-engineering-narrative-avoid-police-action-TV-doctor-Dr-Ravi-Jayaram-says-ordered-apologise-monster.html
Weirdly I just picked up this book yesterday, and am looking forward to reading it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56645944-credible
“I’m such a sinner! Look at how I’m doing the virtuous thing and publicly announcing that people like me are even worse sinners! Look upon my humility, ye progressive, and admire!”
That about sums it up, I should think.
I shall simply say that I think she has a point, and is not ‘virtue signalling’, which is one of those ready tropes people resort to simply, I suspect, because making accusations of that sort is easy & does not require thought. There is a great fuss kicked up over the term ‘white privilege’, by those who, I suppose, think success is in every case due to ‘merit’. I have certainly benefitted from this privilege, and am perfectly willing to admit it. After leaving school at 17, I worked on farms, on building sites and in factories, as well as a barman in London, before marrying a Japanese pianist and coming to Japan. Japan has been very good to me, and has given me opportunities that I should not have had in Britain, opportunities that would almost certainly not have been so readily available had I been a Black Briton, or non-white in any way. No doubt my getting these opportunities has to do with my competence in some respects (I can be very incompetent in others), but it has also a great deal to do with my ethnicity and with sheer luck.
I recommend to those who want to consider seriously the question of ‘merit’, the American philosopher Michael J. Sandel’s thoughtful & thought-provoking book ‘The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good’.
I agree that she has a point in the broad sense, but it becomes less of a point because she’s the one making it, because she has quite a history of bullying women who reject trans ideology, arguably leveraging her white middle-class vulnerability to do it.
I hadn’t known of her history, but I’m glad you agree she has a point (albeit one which is certainly not so important as she supposes). Gaby Hinsliff in today’s Guardian puts it rather better:
‘If Letby escaped detection for so long partly because she didn’t look like most people’s idea of a serial killer – so “beige” and “vanilla”, as one detective put it, with her Zumba classes and Ibiza holidays and bedroom decorated with soft toys – it’s perhaps equally significant that she did look like many people’s idea of a victim.’