Fantastic innit.✨ I unsubscribed from The Free Press yesterday because of their grooming gangs “cover-up” piece — and another recent story about safe access zones outside abortion clinics in Scotland which was reported from someone who seemed to have never been there. Their coverage of the UK is, well, stunningly off and would never get published there.
Also, I love how you went from alllll that, and cut to the feeling to go straight into Carly Rae Jepsen.
In Selling The City (honestly, it’s really odd, like it’s made with AI), one character utters this immortal line: “I was born with one kidney… and two uteri.” Incredible!
For a UK perspective, I have written on what we need to do to regain public trust in institutions after the Wokist Era https://open.substack.com/pub/redcentrist/p/restoring-public-trust-after-wokism?r=9e6fk&utm_medium=ios. Particular to that, we must not repeat the censorship of the Wokists, and contrary to what Sarah is saying, the anti-Woke coalition has plenty from the Left and Right whose commitment to free speech is not in doubt.
It is also worth noting that the current furore over the Pakistani rape gangs started from a recent case in Oxford; the point is that despite the previous (claimed and actual) achievements of feminists and lawyers, the scandal has not gone away and public patience is completely exhausted. Musk did bring more publicity to the matter, but it was a very live issue anyway.
"despite the previous (claimed and actual) achievements of feminists and lawyers, the scandal has not gone away" - you are implying that feminists and lawyers (Andrew Norfolk is neither of these so unsure where his extensive work fits your thesis) failed if they didn't end sexual exploitation in totality? Or do you only mean sexual exploitation by Pakistani men? Why would the scandal "go away"? Wherever power structures enable it, and authorities condone it, predatory men will commit sexual abuse..
"Musk did bring more publicity to the matter" - Musk has pushed inflammatory misinformation about every aspect of these cases, and there is no reason to be delicate about that unless you somehow think his misinformation is benign.
It's great that you know people on the right and left committed to free speech. Me too. But can I suggest that anyone who identifies themselves as primarily "anti-woke" (rather than, idk, "pro-civil society" or whatever) is by definition unhealthily committed to tribalism.
Also I just read your post and you think "wokism" BEGAN in 2020? M8 some of us were cancelled six years before that. Maya Forstater got sacked in 2019! Why on earth would a phenomenon you think was inaugurated by a flashpoint in US racial politics be ended by a UK review into child transition? This is incoherent. What you mean is that you NOTICED it in 2020 and haven't bothered to look into it beyond that.
I appreciate the fury of those who have been fighting sexual exploitation for a long time, but they’re beginning to sound like the Corbynites who could never bring themselves to condemn antisemitism, they had to correct us every time that it was about “all racism”. To those who point out it wasn’t all white girls, and there were white gangs too, I would say:
• Would you say partner violence instead of domestic violence then, because some victims are men?
• There were fewer white gangs, they didn’t deliberately target victims in other ethnic communities, they formed a far smaller percentage of their communities, and they were mainly online. The crimes of the street gangs were far more widespread and worse.
The piecemeal approaches previously weren’t working enough, they are why we need a national approach to combat systemic malaise. And the reluctance to address the ethnicity of the main rapists made tackling any of the gangs ineffectual.
There is nothing wrong with working in coalitions to address particular problems, you don’t all need to have other common objectives to fight corruption in public life, or Wokism. I’m an SDP member who has made common cause with all sorts on this issue.
You must have missed the point in my piece - no offence, I’m a crap writer - but I did specifically mention Jo Rowling’s tweet about the Forstater case, and explained that I was dating the Wokist Era from their large scale suborning of our institutions.
Yes you called JK Rowling's tweet an "early" salvo in the terf wars. Tell that to someone like Julie Bindel, who got blacklisted in 2003. Or the women of Vancouver Rape Relief. Or Mitchfest.
Nothing in my reply to you suggests I would ignore the intersections (because yes, you are talking about an intersectional approach here) of race, class and sex in sexual abuse.
What I absolutely reject is the idea that sexual abuse can be successfully dealt with by treating it as the sole preserve of one ethnic or religious group. All that does is instrumentalise rape for racism.
Some great examples there, I might reread Dr Em and update my piece. Though I’m more inclined to do more on the Gaza grifters joining the fray.
Are you familiar with the phrase “the best is the enemy of the good”? If we can’t tackle the Pakistani rape gangs without fixing all sexual abuse in the country, how does that work?
I am familiar, and it is not relevant at all to what I'm saying here. You cannot fix sexual abuse by approaching it through an exclusively racial/cultural frame. Obviously. Because it is a sexual crime.
What do you mean by a “significant proportion”? A significant proportion of what - all sexual offending? Trafficking? Grooming? Afaik there is no data on the demographic characteristics of victim and perpetrator, though I'd be very grateful if you could point me to it.
Your framing creates a racial hierarchy of victims and perpetrator, in which Asian perpetrators against white victims would be more aggressively prosecuted. That is not just self-evidently racist, it's stupid: one of the huge missed opportunities in the grooming scandal is that the abusers assaults on Asian women and girls (often their own family members) did not receive criminal justice attention. Potentially, many if these crimes could have been prevented had Asian victims been attended to.
It's important to remember as well that the victims were not only targeted on the basis of race but also on the basis of class — on the basis of being the kind of girl authorities would find it easy to dismiss. They were white working class girls. If you only want to talk about race, you are doing very little to protect similarly vulnerable girls from being exploited in future.
Fantastic innit.✨ I unsubscribed from The Free Press yesterday because of their grooming gangs “cover-up” piece — and another recent story about safe access zones outside abortion clinics in Scotland which was reported from someone who seemed to have never been there. Their coverage of the UK is, well, stunningly off and would never get published there.
Also, I love how you went from alllll that, and cut to the feeling to go straight into Carly Rae Jepsen.
Can you do Selling The City next, pls. Thanks!
That Free Press article made me feel, incredibly, grateful for the NYT's coverage of the UK. I will investigate Selling the City!
In Selling The City (honestly, it’s really odd, like it’s made with AI), one character utters this immortal line: “I was born with one kidney… and two uteri.” Incredible!
Goddamnit I'm IN
For a UK perspective, I have written on what we need to do to regain public trust in institutions after the Wokist Era https://open.substack.com/pub/redcentrist/p/restoring-public-trust-after-wokism?r=9e6fk&utm_medium=ios. Particular to that, we must not repeat the censorship of the Wokists, and contrary to what Sarah is saying, the anti-Woke coalition has plenty from the Left and Right whose commitment to free speech is not in doubt.
It is also worth noting that the current furore over the Pakistani rape gangs started from a recent case in Oxford; the point is that despite the previous (claimed and actual) achievements of feminists and lawyers, the scandal has not gone away and public patience is completely exhausted. Musk did bring more publicity to the matter, but it was a very live issue anyway.
Two points:
"despite the previous (claimed and actual) achievements of feminists and lawyers, the scandal has not gone away" - you are implying that feminists and lawyers (Andrew Norfolk is neither of these so unsure where his extensive work fits your thesis) failed if they didn't end sexual exploitation in totality? Or do you only mean sexual exploitation by Pakistani men? Why would the scandal "go away"? Wherever power structures enable it, and authorities condone it, predatory men will commit sexual abuse..
"Musk did bring more publicity to the matter" - Musk has pushed inflammatory misinformation about every aspect of these cases, and there is no reason to be delicate about that unless you somehow think his misinformation is benign.
It's great that you know people on the right and left committed to free speech. Me too. But can I suggest that anyone who identifies themselves as primarily "anti-woke" (rather than, idk, "pro-civil society" or whatever) is by definition unhealthily committed to tribalism.
Also I just read your post and you think "wokism" BEGAN in 2020? M8 some of us were cancelled six years before that. Maya Forstater got sacked in 2019! Why on earth would a phenomenon you think was inaugurated by a flashpoint in US racial politics be ended by a UK review into child transition? This is incoherent. What you mean is that you NOTICED it in 2020 and haven't bothered to look into it beyond that.
Thanks for your replies, I am honoured.
I appreciate the fury of those who have been fighting sexual exploitation for a long time, but they’re beginning to sound like the Corbynites who could never bring themselves to condemn antisemitism, they had to correct us every time that it was about “all racism”. To those who point out it wasn’t all white girls, and there were white gangs too, I would say:
• Would you say partner violence instead of domestic violence then, because some victims are men?
• There were fewer white gangs, they didn’t deliberately target victims in other ethnic communities, they formed a far smaller percentage of their communities, and they were mainly online. The crimes of the street gangs were far more widespread and worse.
The piecemeal approaches previously weren’t working enough, they are why we need a national approach to combat systemic malaise. And the reluctance to address the ethnicity of the main rapists made tackling any of the gangs ineffectual.
There is nothing wrong with working in coalitions to address particular problems, you don’t all need to have other common objectives to fight corruption in public life, or Wokism. I’m an SDP member who has made common cause with all sorts on this issue.
You must have missed the point in my piece - no offence, I’m a crap writer - but I did specifically mention Jo Rowling’s tweet about the Forstater case, and explained that I was dating the Wokist Era from their large scale suborning of our institutions.
Yes you called JK Rowling's tweet an "early" salvo in the terf wars. Tell that to someone like Julie Bindel, who got blacklisted in 2003. Or the women of Vancouver Rape Relief. Or Mitchfest.
Nothing in my reply to you suggests I would ignore the intersections (because yes, you are talking about an intersectional approach here) of race, class and sex in sexual abuse.
What I absolutely reject is the idea that sexual abuse can be successfully dealt with by treating it as the sole preserve of one ethnic or religious group. All that does is instrumentalise rape for racism.
Some great examples there, I might reread Dr Em and update my piece. Though I’m more inclined to do more on the Gaza grifters joining the fray.
Are you familiar with the phrase “the best is the enemy of the good”? If we can’t tackle the Pakistani rape gangs without fixing all sexual abuse in the country, how does that work?
I am familiar, and it is not relevant at all to what I'm saying here. You cannot fix sexual abuse by approaching it through an exclusively racial/cultural frame. Obviously. Because it is a sexual crime.
You cannot fix it all, but a significant portion of it has an anti-white motivation. Getting shot of that will help matters tremendously.
What do you mean by a “significant proportion”? A significant proportion of what - all sexual offending? Trafficking? Grooming? Afaik there is no data on the demographic characteristics of victim and perpetrator, though I'd be very grateful if you could point me to it.
Your framing creates a racial hierarchy of victims and perpetrator, in which Asian perpetrators against white victims would be more aggressively prosecuted. That is not just self-evidently racist, it's stupid: one of the huge missed opportunities in the grooming scandal is that the abusers assaults on Asian women and girls (often their own family members) did not receive criminal justice attention. Potentially, many if these crimes could have been prevented had Asian victims been attended to.
It's important to remember as well that the victims were not only targeted on the basis of race but also on the basis of class — on the basis of being the kind of girl authorities would find it easy to dismiss. They were white working class girls. If you only want to talk about race, you are doing very little to protect similarly vulnerable girls from being exploited in future.