Another shit thing happened today and tedious as it is documenting every twist and turn of this debacle, it is what I am going to do. I understand it is difficult to have a nuanced conversation on Twitter so I’ll just put my version of events up here. You don’t have to read it.
Last night I found a tweet calling me a ‘vile paki cis cunt’. My initial response was a spike in adrenalin, as always the p word has this kind of effect. I am lucky in that I had my wonderful friends close and so was able to talk through my emotions and recognise them so they didn’t take over. As the rush subsided, I felt like I didn’t want to exist. That’s a common comedown from racial abuse, it’s not something I can do anything about, I can’t paint myself white, I am stuck. When you have complex PTSD these feelings are amplified. Why should I have to feel near suicidal every time a white person controls me in this way? It is control because they KNOW the history of that word. They KNOW they are powerful. They KNOW they can reduce us to an anxious nervous mess because of the history of subjugation that they still maintain today. WE’RE not stupid.
This is serious abuse. Most decent people surely recognise this? So when I tweeted various members of the cis commentariat clan, it was for some recognition that I am subjected to abuse too, especially in light of their ridiculous Twitter silence. It was bitter but rightly so, I cannot understand this double standard they have going on. So imagine my surprise when @Glinner responded “I know! Somehow blame Caitlin Moran!” No acknowledgment of the hateful racism and misogyny, no consideration for what I was actually asking, just another opportunity to prove a point. Firstly, ‘Glinner’, we don’t ‘blame’ Caitlin Moran for things she hasn’t done. It’s not her fault that my bus was late today. However, she does quite often say some horrendous shit that most people of the same generation grew out of before they finished their GCSEs. It’s something I wish ‘comedians’ were more honest about, that somehow saying something outrageous boost the ratings cos they’re so radical and interesting when in fact they are just a bit bigoted. It’s not about being ‘politically correct’. It is treating people with human decency. What puts them above the rest of us?
For an avid supporter of all things Caitlin related and the Twit silence, how we must tackle trolls yadda yadda, I was seriously underwhelmed by his reaction. When I asked for some consistency, this was what I got as a reply.
“I have *nothing* to do with you receiving abuse. Please leave me alone and stop attacking people who are anti-abuse.”
Mate, if you’re so anti-abuse, would it hurt you to condemn the shit I have to deal with every day? Was the sarcasm really necessary? Why is it so difficult for these people to understand what we are demanding? Why is equality such a difficult concept to understand? When white women get death threats, the clan disappear in an arrogant show of white solidarity. I get accused of ‘attacking’ them when they say stupid things.
How is this fair?
Also interesting to note, my white cisters have not responded personally at all. Teh white menz do all of the talking.
Left at the Lights 
I had no access to twitter until yesterday evening and although I could see that something had happened, I just couldn’t be arsed to scroll through 24 hours worth of tweets to find what had happened. This might be too little too late, but I am disgusted anyone said that to you, angry that you got little to no support, and sorry you’re hurt. I hope today was better
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I realise I’m probably pissing in the wind here, but I read the exchange at the time, and I’m afraid I thought your initial tweet to him (“What you gonna do about it?”) came across as aggressive and accusatory. Now I utterly and without qualification condemn the racist abuse you suffered to kick this all off, but I also have little doubt that Linehan would have done likewise, had the first words he ever heard from you not given the impression (rightly or wrongly) that he was somehow to blame for it.
I bear you no ill-will whatsoever, and I swear I’m not writing this to somehow cast blame around; I just can’t shake the impression that the whole business was misunderstanding heaped on more misunderstanding by all parties. If you disagree then so be it; I wish you nothing but the best,
Bob.
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I’m not sure that he would have done. I’ve been trolled and sent rape/death threats since the beginning of this year and none of them have condemned it, not once, in fact it was because of their manipulation of an incident that I was subjected to all of this in the first place. If I am angry way it is because the double standards of the Twitter silence and discussion around trolling is self serving and does not take into account the truly disgusting abuse we too are have to suffer.
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Of course neither of us know for sure what Linehan would have done had things been different; I suppose what I was trying (but failing) to say is that I might have been equally dismissive of someone introducing themselves to me in that manner, while also condemning the abuse behind it. Perhaps not the moral ideal I would like to aspire to, but the flawed, human response of which we are all occasionally guilty.
Regarding the Twitter silence, though, I am puzzled. As I understood it, it was part of a campaign to urge Twitter to provide a mechanism that anyone could use to protect themselves from abuse. Indeed it seems to me that the events that sparked it off revolved around someone (Caroline Criado-Perez) who was (previously) not particularly well known or part of any “clique”, but whose abuse appeared on people’s radar simply due to her banknote campaign, and not because of some built-in privilege. Alas it has always been the case that worthy causes have been woefully neglected until accident of chance propelled them into society’s consciousness.
Again, you have my best wishes,
Bob.
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This urge to stay silent and separate from abuse is what is wrong with our world. We should all be quick to jump up and say that calling you the P word was wrong.Despite all I have learned and seen I am still shocked when I learn of hate. That racist’s twitter account should be deleted. There should be some consequence to their actions. I am sorry that someone made you feel bad. I would never want you to feel like you should paint your skin white. What an ugly world it would be if we all looked the same. Your twitter friends should have been there with condolences and outrage, not annoyance that you were vocal about your hurt.
I have to speak up not just because it is wrong, but it is embarrassing. Despite how mixed I am, on the outside I am white and I DO NOT want to be associated with racism.
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I am so sorry for all the many ways you were disrespected and hurt in this situation. From the initial breathtakingly racist and vile insult to the unbelievably ignorant and mean spirited reply from @Glinner to the lack of support and even the commenter who kind of said you brought it on yourself. Sorry for it all. I randomly came across this post when another article linked to a past post and figured I’d check your work out. Glad I did. The work you do is important and needed and you do it well. Thank you.
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Hello, as someone who has been on the receiving end of the ‘p’ word many a time, thanks for “It is control because they KNOW the history of that word. They KNOW they are powerful. They KNOW they can reduce us to an anxious nervous mess because of the history of subjugation that they still maintain today”…. something I have felt myself but never been able to properly put into words.
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have you ever looked into NLP? once you remove the taboo surrounding the word Paki from your mind it will loose its power to debilitate you in the manner you describe.
Let me break it down like this. Your mind is the most powerful computer ever designed,capable of a billion calculations a second regulating a central nervous system that maintains wellbeing. Now if you owned a computer like that would you leave a password lying around that anyone with malicious intent could guess that could instantaneously wreak havoc on all those meticulous checks and balances?
Well thats what happens when someone tries to burst your taboo,that little self regulated firewall that came in the box is bypassed and the cpu takes a hit.
what you have to do and it may take some time to break your conditioning is to change your defence, when someone calls you a paki laugh at them, there is nothing racists hate more than ridicule,laugh because you know what they are trying to do and that you are strong enough to resist.
i’ll leave you with a Lennie Bruce quote, that helped me break my taboos
“e there any niggers here tonight? Could you turn on the house lights, please, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving, just for a second? And turn off this spot. Now what did he say? “Are there any niggers here tonight?” I know there’s one nigger, because I see him back there working. Let’s see, there’s two niggers. And between those two niggers sits a kyke. And there’s another kyke— that’s two kykes and three niggers. And there’s a spic. Right? Hmm? There’s another spic. Ooh, there’s a wop; there’s a polack; and, oh, a couple of greaseballs. And there’s three lace-curtain Irish micks. And there’s one, hip, thick, hunky, funky, boogie. Boogie boogie. Mm-hmm. I got three kykes here, do I hear five kykes? I got five kykes, do I hear six spics, I got six spics, do I hear seven niggers? I got seven niggers. Sold American. I pass with seven niggers, six spics, five micks, four kykes, three guineas, and one wop. Well, I was just trying to make a point, and that is that it’s the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. Dig: if President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, “I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet,” and if he’d just say “nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger” to every nigger he saw, “boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie,” “nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger” ’til nigger didn’t mean anything anymore, then you could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school.”
peace out
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So I can deal with the word and let it wash over me? Been there, did that for almost half of my life and then remembered the others who don’t have the privilege of ever escaping the words and the oppression they face. Suddenly got very angry about it again, especially since the word has become powerful again. I think it works for you and that’s fine but for me, it feels kind of selfish.
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