Black people don’t really matter but the loss of Charlie Kirk is a tragedy.

[QOrion]

I posted this in response to a short thread on Feminism and Women’s Rights but I want more people to see it. I want to have my say, even if I’m late to the conversation, and even if most people don’t care. I don’t expect many replies but maybe I’ll make some people think about what I’m saying.

I guess none of you are black. It’s the only way you can go out of your way to highlight this man’s ’virtues’. I don’t believe anyone is born bad or is irredeemably bad, I guess that’s my Christian upbringing, but I also don’t understand the deification of this man and the need for many people on this website to paint him in the best possible light. He’s not the first public figure to be shot and killed, even this year. If those deaths were even mentioned on Mumsnet, they certainly weren’t given much attention.

I’d never heard of Charlie Kirk before he was shot and his death had little impact on me. I have serious issues in my own life, people are shot and killed in America every day and there is a lot of suffering going on around the world, a lot of atrocities committed. It didn’t seem to be an incident that affected me in any significant way, even when I discovered his position on transgender ideology. I share essentially the same position on transgender ideology with many people I don’t want to be associated with.

Then I read his comments about black people. I can’t wax lyrical about how Charlie Kirk was ‘decent’ and ‘respectful’. How, ‘Isn’t it nice he gave his political opponents a platform’. And I can’t feel any kind of kinship with people who, knowing what he’s said about black people, still feel compelled to highlight his good qualities.

Let me be clear: I don’t believe he should have been killed. I don’t even support the death penalty in any circumstance, so I can hardly support Charlie Kirk being killed. But I am learning, not for the first time, that Mumsnetters in general, and users of this subforum (FWR) tend to ignore black people and our concerns, until we are useful. Whether that is taking cases to court when much is made of the claimant’s ethnic heritage (why?) or the perennial ‘transgenderism is womanface, it’s offensive like blackface’.

You have no idea and I think it is possible you will never understand just how much slights about my ethnic heritage cut deep. Slights to my womanhood are pretty trivial in comparison. I think this is something white women will never understand. So, you go on singing the virtues of Charlie Kirk. We’ll be here the next time you need to exploit us for your own purposes.

And brains.

I don't think she is saying its an issue which solely affects white women, she is saying it's an issue which also affects white women, in response to the assertion that white women are never the victims of racism.

Women of every colour are victims of racism, sexism and many other 'isms'. Sexism is often silenced in the name of racism - people being called racist for daring to condemn the horrific way women are treated in some cultures, and it then gets allowed to continue as many don't dare speak against it. If we can't stand together then the opinions of people like Charlie Kirk thrive. If we are confident in ourselves and each other his words become empty.

I'm still surprised by what feminists can say and not be accused of bigotry. Well respected feminists too!

I've always wanted to see a man beaten to a shit bloody pulp with a high-heeled shoe stuffed up his mouth, sort of the pig with the apple.

• Andrea Dworkin

Men who are unjustly accused of rape can sometimes gain from the experience.

• Catherine Comins

All men are rapists and that's all they are

• Marilyn French

I feel that 'man-hating' is an honourable and viable political act

• Robin Morgan

The more famous and powerful I get the more power I have to hurt men.

• Sharon Stone

And if the professional rapist is to be separated from the average dominant heterosexual (male), it may be mainly a quantitative difference.

• Susan Griffin

If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.

• Mary Daly

Heterosexual intercourse is the pure, formalized expression of contempt for women's bodies.

• Andrea Dworkin

The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.

• Sandy Miller Gearhart

There remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation, and destroy the male sex.

• Valerie Solanas

Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

• Germaine Greer

Interesting that you are able to describe a situation of powerful men exploiting underprivileged women and use it as an example of racism, just because the men on this occasion were not white.
What would you have called it if the rich powerful men had been white? And why does the same act morph into a different ism simply because of the race of the abusive males?

I'll "reframe" it for you. Why do racist apologists paint this murdered man with nasty views in some sort of good light? He was not a good man. Many other people have been killed. Did you post loads about George Floyd? What about his family?

Women are indeed oppressed, abused and exploited regardless of their race. And there are some characteristics that compound
our oppression. Being white isn't one of them.
Of all the issues white women face, racism isn't something we need to personally fear. So rather than arguing that we too are victims, maybe we should focus on listening to those whomen like the OP who actually do experience it, and how this discourse has made her feel.

People rudely disagreeing with you on the internet is oppression! 😄
Here I was thinking oppression involves actual suffering, like, for example, women in Afghanistan, not the annoyance of armchair warriors on the interwebs when people are rude to them. Oh the drama.

On the George Floyd question, I'm guessing the Kirk apologists on this thread posted in support of the cops, something about one bad apple, not all cops are like that, yada yada.
They are so predictable. Wind up dolls with a set of stock excuses and rationalizations.

Of course you're an innocent and well meaning white person. ⭐
You brought up a black on white crime for totally innocent, well meaning reasons, not to imply that black on white crime is an epidemic and part of the "oppression" of white people and perhaps even "white genocide."
As transparent as it gets.

You sound very angry.

I have never stated that OP's point isn't valid. Her view is based on her experiences and of course is valid.

But some on this thread seem to insist that only 1 perspective/1 person or groups lived experience is valid and all others are incorrect. It's this sort of burying head in sand perspective to refuse to acknowledge that multiple people can experience something which has led to the awful rise of Reform. I absolutely hate everything they stand for and think they would be terrible for this country, but they have grown primarily because a section of society do not feel listened to or heard. Saying 'they are terrible' doesn't acheive anything though, the only thing which will stop them getting in is addressing the root causes of their rise.

Bang on. Love the huffing and puffing, pseudo outrage and protestations that follow 🤣

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck…

Comparing the plight of black women, who are one of the most disenfranchised groups in the UK, to white influencers who choose to travel first class to be shat on for £30,000 is a false equivalence. Is someone forcing the influencers to travel there?

Yep, and the insistence that we ignore what our eyes see, which is that one of the people helping the poor victim was a black man. And if we do point out, we’re ‘the problem’.

‘Free speech’ isn’t applicable to all apparantly. Spout whatever racist, bigoted ignorant nonsense you like but name it for what it is, and that’s suddenly not okay.

If you don’t want to be called a racist, don’t be one. It’s that simple.

We won't address the root cause of disadvantaged people in the UK by blaming it on racism against white people.
Just because some white people believe that POC have been racist towards them doesn't make racism towards white people the cause of generational poverty, inequality of opportunity based on social class and generational wealth.
It doesn't make it the cause of the housing and cost of living crises and the failings of the education and health and social services. Or of the abuse and exploitation of women. It doesn't mean planes flown by black pilots have fallen out of the sky. Where people have argued otherwise, I have repeatedly asked them to provide proof. No one has.
I completely agree we should address the root cause of these views, but the root cause isn't a problem with POC.

Didnt know of Charlie Kirk until he died. What did he say about black people?

He was reported as saying he didn’t believe in empathy, when what he actually said was that he felt sympathy was a more appropriate word to use.

I did see one clip where a college student said his dad said that CK was a racist. CK asked the student to cite support for that & he couldn’t. CK then went on to point out the projects he had worked on to support black people in inner cities and asked what the student’s dad had done.

I can’t get my head around CK as a person other than he appears to have been conservative and religious.

I won't ever accept that people should be happy to take sound bites and form opinions from them. You can scoff all you like but I am correct on this: only good comes from looking deeper into things.

We live in a world of social media clips, and Charlie Kirk was better than most at it.

I think some white people seem to want their version of a perfect utopia where immigrants work in blue collar jobs and pay taxes and nurse and care for the white elderly, but never need to use services like council housing or free healthcare themselves, never commit crimes and stay silent whilst white people exercise free speech, so that immigrants should be seen but not heard.

Just because a man who made his name and living from debate was able to get the better of young people in a setting he controlled, doesn't mean his opinions would hold water if he'd had the courage to pit himself against older wiser people with more life experience and similar debating skills.
There are people on this thread who have demonstrated they would have the ability to shoot that argument down very quickly. Others to form a robust rebuttal given access to relevent evidence.
Rendering a young student without similar experience of quick fire public debate temporarily non plussed does not make CK arguments sound, simply a manipulative individual using stooges to further his agenda.

I agree, context is everything. He was talking about DEI, and said he wanted the best pilot flying the plane, not someone who had been taken on to fulfil a diversity quota. I find it peculiar that people would get upset by that, wouldn't we all want to be flown by the best person for the job?

This is basically what I was trying to say.

I won't be engaging with this thread any longer.

The predictable cries of "racist" have come about as well as name calling and insults of intelligence. (I'm not exactly surprised as this is usually what happens when someone dares to point out holes in the "correct" narrative)

I haven't got a racist bone in my body. But I also will not succumb to the pressure to dare not to raise any questions of the current narrative of CRT as fact or allow the double standards of being allowed to direct slurs and slander at white people as one big homogenous mass.

I won't stay on a thread just to have the disgusting insult of "racist" thrown at me. (This is indeed what has silenced people and led to yet more division) And because of people like this : we will end up with a reform government and it'll only get worse.

I thought about reporting your comments (you know who you are ). But decided it was best to let them stand so that people who are reading are in no doubt what happens when opinions are raised that question the trope or pick apart assumptions.

Before you go, can you tell us how we should describe you when you keep denying that one of the people who helped that poor woman was a black man? What other word would describe your behaviour?

I find it peculiar that people believe the status quo results in the best person for the job. People concerned about supporting under represented groups on to training courses so they can gain qualifications for jobs never seem to question whether wealthy white men are in their roles because they're the best people for the job.
Are you not equally concerned that wealth can purchase an education that masks inate mediocrity? Or that old money/old school tie connections result in jobs for the (white) boys?