Fuck Oxfam

In The Times.

Oxfam criticised over ‘JK Rowling hate figure’ in LGBT cartoon

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f8d03094-0464-11ee-9bf2-8ca4db35d928?shareToken=20d61fbc5fbb1f6cfaeb7a6faf2bfab6

Thank you @TheBiologyStupid and @IwantToRetire I couldn't remember the bit after archive.

The way Maria was treated. She was condemned by people doing exactly what they were accusing her of doing. The hypocrisy!

And if it hasn't already been archived just click on the "Save" button and you'll get access to the article after it has been archived (and so will everyone else).

I thought that MNHQ had indicated that they didn't support archiving so that's why I was being indirect. In the past posts with archive links have been deleted.

So I just indicate how to find the link to avoid having post deleted.

I volunteered for a charity for a couple of years and worked really hard for an 8 hour shift every week.
The CE drifted around arranging inappropriate publicity stunts and somehow managed to get a whole new house out of the charity money. Extraordinary.

The emails

This is a useful thread from twitter detailing the problems with Oxfam. Can't believe it was 2 years ago, and things have only got worse!

https://twitter.com/JamesBarry1789/status/1403481251693035528?t=wJXbnz0ELJ0Dq5CeVWJxdw&s=19

(Have no idea who all these GC online people are but it is nearly always worth checking archive.ph- or one of the other ones - to see if someone has archived an article)

I love that there are armies of GD people keeping receipts and sharing info.

Also quite a lot of chocolate tea pots who would be unemployable in the real world, but get paid a lot to write bids and bring in huge sums using all the pretty buzz words and sit in nice meetings writing nice aspirational documents that use a whole lot of lovely pretty waffle without one discernable action or practical purpose anywhere in sight.

It's a gravy train. Sadly direct personal experience speaking.

And if it hasn't already been archived just click on the "Save" button and you'll get access to the article after it has been archived (and so will everyone else).

@nilsmousehammer That’s my experience too. I’m a middle age bisexual woman from a working class background, I’ve experienced homelessness, domestic violence and childhood trauma and I guess I was a “trans kid” in today’s terms, I certainly wished I was a boy. I used to work in the national charity sector, but I can no longer bear to as it affects my mental health. I have tons of “lived experience” that they pay lip service too constantly, but I seem to have the wrong kind….

I read an article recently about BLM and George Floyd that highlighted the role of poverty in what happened, yet the national voluntary sector solutions aren’t about relieving poverty, but arguing about which words to use in policies and procedures, and giving people DEI and unconscious bias training which research repeatedly shows makes no difference. One funder recently said they’re not able to give out any money at the moment because they’re too busy wringing their hands over their white privilege [my precis]. The article said that the money spent on DEI consultants would be better just given to people living in poverty, and it’s difficult to disagree.

Racist. Women haters. Oh dear me.

These big ‘charities’ eventually corrupt and there’s no coming back.

‘I was hounded out of Oxfam over JK Rowling’A former employee reveals how she was silenced
https://unherd.com/2023/06/i-quit-oxfam-over-jk-rowling/

If you copy the unherd link above and go to https://archive.ph and paste the link into the box you will find someone has archived the article.

(Have no idea who all these GC online people are but it is nearly always worth checking archive.ph - or one of the other ones - to see if someone has archived an article)

There's an archived copy here: https://archive.ph/MjKS7

I have heard exactly this from 3 separate people who either volunteered or worked in admin roles abroad. They apparently spent a huge amount on buying posh cars and big houses for their higher ups.
Unfortunately some charities do attract people who manoeuvre themselves into positions where they can access funds and manipulate board members who are well meaning but naïve. I have seen it happen.

I'm trying to work out why I'm so angry about this. It's because it feels so personal.

For decades I've given to Oxfam, donated thousands of £ of goods, bought endless items, and carefully stocked up on personalised Gift Aid stickers for my donation bags. I've bought fair trade goods and all my Christmas cards there. I've searched out Oxfam bookshops when visiting new towns.

Emotionally, what it feels like is this...

It feels like me giving of myself self-sacrifically for decades to a needy friend, who then turns round and says: 'Well, you're a hateful bigot; you want to kill the people I really care about; you're the problem with the world today', and then runs off with their trendy new group of friends, laughing and pointing back at me, saying to the new friends what a jerk I am, while I stand stunned, choked, with a tear rolling down my cheek, not understanding.

Then when other people ask the needy friend to apologise, they tell their trendy new group of friends they're sorry if they've hurt them by ever associating with me.

I almost never swear. But frankly, Oxfam: fuck you.

Not read the thread, but have read the DM article and came on to say that JKR is amazing. I thank her so much, for putting her head above the parapet. How much more abuse should she have to take.

Two examples I have come across in everyday life. Just mentioning JKR had a gay neighbour, who I normally get on with and who holds a senior Government advisory job, looking like he needed a clove of garlic to ward off the witch. And similarly I was volunteering at UCH on the vaccine programme when I overheard the male supervisor/senior nurse explaining to some other volunteers (who happened not to be English) why JKR was a completely dreadful and bigoted human being. I now really regret not saying something, even though I am sure I would have been sent home.

What is wrong with these men, and their handmaidens. The misogyny, and sheer spitefulness is shocking. Men really hate a successful woman.

I think they will wallow in the feeling that they are now firmly perceived by the Rainbow Community as a full on supporter.

The TRAs are furious with them as well now, because of the 'climb down' apparently their allyship is only performative

As I feared. Thank you for this very articulate description.

re donating to other charities, sorry to say this but please dont bother with the Women's Resource Centre.

It is what is called a 3rd tier organistion and in fact was an artificial creation by funders to save them from having to speak to front line organisations. They have no mandate and as an instrument of the funders did nothing to preserve women only services. And groups who are its "members" are only signed up as the implication is that as far as funders are concerned it shows you know your place.

They have survived on dorect funding for years which could have gone to groups actually helping women, and if there is now a drop in that funding it is because it has served the purpose it was created for - to undermine women's autonomous organising.

It is well worth finding out what groups are local to you, whether a refuge or rape crisis support. And yes some of them do offer services to men, but as separate services and still preserve their women only services.

If you build a relationship with a local group you are more likely to really know what is going on.

And makes it easier say to give money towards children's services at refuges which rarely get money. And it might not seem much, but you could help a child who has never been to the sea side go on a day out, or get a present at christmas. Women dont deserve to lose their homes because of male violence, and neither do their children.

Someone suggested banning JKR's books and the author queried this and asked the speaker to identify how JKR was transphobic. For which she lost her job....

I've not been able to read the Unherd article because I've already used my months allocation of free articles. If I understand correctly, the shops are refusing donations of Harry Potter (or is it all JKRs work) or have I got the wrong end of the stick?

Unfortunately all the big London based charities are like this. You don't need a lot of contact with any of them (and often meetings provide you with the chance to meet them en masse) to realise: they are more cliquey than Margot Leadbetter's golf club.

They will witter endlessly about diversity while very quickly hounding out anyone who gets in who is not 'one of them' and provides anything but the approved middle class groupthink. They are very expensively paid and have a lot of very expensive meetings at which mostly the key aim is furthering political ideological waffly bollocks and their own highly paid jobs and redecorated offices. Direct experience tends to result in ordinary people backing away in horror and determining to give money only to local causes where the grassroots people spend the money and its all about the work as opposed to the politics and enjoyment of a very comfy job chatting to other people doing the same comfy job.

It's also a highly incestuous pool: periodically they all swap jobs, but its essentially the same group of people chair shuffling and chatting with MPs and running committees.

This is utterly disgusting. I could not believe my eyes when I saw this on twitter this morning . Mysogenistic, racist and quite possibly libellous (not sure of the laws bit the image of JKR is so recognisable from the photo image its ridiculous)what are they thinking

When I read about this last night I was in fact so depressed ie beyond age, that I didn't join this thread.

So really appreciated those who challenged them head on and have got it removed. Or rather made over.

I dont think they care at all.

I think they will wallow in the feeling that they are now firmly perceived by the Rainbow Community as a full on supporter.

And, in case no one has seen it, this is the story of one woman's experience of trying to stop Oxfam from banning donations of JKR books to their shops. https://unherd.com/2023/06/i-quit-oxfam-over-jk-rowling/

And agree with those who have already said what is the problem with Oxfam (or whoever) focusing on their core mission ie helping people suffering in other countries. And at the same time running shops that people can donate unwanted items to, and provide a mean of cheap (or should be as donated) goods to those with little money.

When did doing charity work have to be performative?

Although it is clear that it is only Pride, the ultimate Corporate event, that demands this type of overtly supplicant posturing.

The Oxfam ad, with its pillory of 'unintended similarity' to JKR, is now on the front page of the Telegraph online. Dare we hope that the light is now shining into all the dark corners, even the ones in plain sight?