Why Are We Allowing This To Happen?

[VikVal81]

Why is there so much silence on this topic?
Why arent we making more of an effort to deal with this?
How many girls and women are we letting down by saying nothing?

A woman who was sexually abused by Pakistani grooming gang members is now receiving racist abuse from “far-left groups” for speaking out online.

Speaking under the pseudonym “Ella”, the woman revealed that she was called “a white sg, a white c, a white whore, a white bh and a f** gori which is their name for a white person” by her abusers, who raped her more than 100 times in Yorkshire, Northern England.

“We need to understand racially and religiously aggravated crime if we are going to prevent it and protect people from it and if we are going to prosecute correctly for it,” she told YorkshireLive.

“Prevention, protection and prosecution — all of them are being hindered because we are neglecting to properly address the religious and racist aspects of grooming gang crimes.

“It’s telling them that it’s OK to hate white people.”

Police, prosecutors, and judges have indeed actively resisted treating grooming gang crimes — perpetrated overwhelmingly by Muslim, usually South Asian origin men, against non-Muslim, usually white working-class girls — as racist, and have even backed handing harsher punishments to people who have abused Asian girls and explained that the “shame” they experience makes victimising them more serious than victimising white girls.

www.examinerlive.co.uk/news/local-news/i-raped-rotherham-grooming-gang-18121059

That's a depressing read. I guess it's not surprising that Twitter doesn't regard really offensive racially-motivated comments directed at white girls as breaking their rules. We know they have no interest in protecting girls or women from abuse.

I think it's a visceral expression of how the progressive concept of privilege and intersectionality makes no allowances (and cannot make allowances) for the circumstances of the individual.

I think it is a prime example of the blindspots created when race and sex intersect; the original subject of the concept of ‘intersectionality’.

When institutions such as the police and the media allow concerns over racism to trump concerns about sexism (which is entirely absent), white girls are allowed to be relentlessly abused.

Racialised men rank higher than white girls, especially working class white girls.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I do believe that the areas where this happened were all Labour areas...

My hometown has this issue. We are a safe Labour seat. Our MP is very much "no debate" on the situation.

A clear example of The Labour Party ditching class politics in favour of identity politics.

They aren’t leftwing any more, they just identify that way. We should re-label them as “Lxft wing”.

I think it's a visceral expression of how the progressive concept of privilege and intersectionality makes no allowances (and cannot make allowances) for the circumstances of the individual

In terms of why this hasn't been addressed by authorities, yes.

But isn't there a sense too where there is a real psychological deficit? When there is a strong sense of races or ethnicities being opposed on in competition, isn't it inevitable that it will affect the ability of all the people involved to empathise with those they see as belonging to the other group? Or to put it more simply, hate each other - and that is not going to apply just to the people supposedly higher in the social hierarchy. In this case there is a sex divide, but I think the identity politics angle would still be completely toxic if that wasn't a factor.

I know it's important to know history and how people have been disadvantaged, but I can't help but think that a constant emphasis on it in schools and the media has created a mental division that is at least as powerful as the concrete ones. In this case they are talking about a sort of religious radicalisation, but then I'm not sure most of these men are really religiously focused. It may be a sort of radicalisation, but I wonder if it doesn't come from being informed by everyone constantly that they are different and separate, both by people who are racists and also by people who are supposedly anti-racist. It must forge a strong sense of group membership.

But isn't there a sense too where there is a real psychological deficit? When there is a strong sense of races or ethnicities being opposed on in competition, isn't it inevitable that it will affect the ability of all the people involved to empathise with those they see as belonging to the other group?

I may be misunderstanding but I wouldn't be surprised if at least a sizeable portion (or even all) of those hurling abuse online were white. I disagree that sex played a factor in the online abuse in terms of limiting ability to empathise. Although I'm sure invoking his name will provoke some very heavy eye rolling and I disagree with a lot of what he says, Jordan Peterson, in my opinion, characterised this behaviour perfectly as 'ideological possession'. That is, the online abusers weren't even thinking in terms of forming opinions about their target but rather in terms of trying to say the most 'correct' things according to their ideology. I don't think they lack empathy, I think the hierarchy of oppression and privilege has utterly supplanted it for them; at least as far as their online personas go.

It may be a sort of radicalisation, but I wonder if it doesn't come from being informed by everyone constantly that they are different and separate, both by people who are racists and also by people who are supposedly anti-racist. It must forge a strong sense of group membership.

In terms of her sexual abusers, I think it's twofold: their culture taught them that she was a worthless Kafir (based upon the harrowing interviews I've read); identity politics telling them that they would still be viewed as greater victims than her empowered them to act. In terms of her online abusers, they definitely gain a form of shared identity through their actions and I would say that it's akin to a deep religious identity for them.

This has been a huge huge problem in liberal left politics for a long time. It's why we we end up with Brexit, Boris and Trump.

I may be misunderstanding but I wouldn't be surprised if at least a sizeable portion (or even all) of those hurling abuse online were white.

The abuse described wasn't from online commenters, but from her abusers.

A clear example of The Labour Party ditching class politics in favour of identity politics. They aren’t leftwing any more, they just identify that way. We should re-label them as “Lxft wing”.

I found it interesting that she includes radical feminists among her attackers. Obviously, the assumption here is that this would be the case, but it is what she says.

I think Posie very briefly mentioned in a video a few days ago, that one radical feminist talking about victim blaming wouldn’t touch it. Hopefully that means it was just one person, and not large numbers of radical feminists.

In spite of the complexities involved, we shouldn’t shy away from having conversations around safeguarding.

The abuse described wasn't from online commenters, but from her abusers.

Yes, this is more what I meant. As far as the men abusing these girls, yes, there is a problem where certain types of analysis just see them as lower in the hierarchy than some imaginary white male (I guess) but then don't really consider that disadvantaged white girls might have even less power. And I would also say that there are all kinds of individual personal reasons people may become powerful in spite of being a member of an oppressed group.

But I also think that it's really not all about power relations. Groups of people and individuals have all kinds of psychological factors around how they think of themselves and others. If you constantly emphasise to someone that this other group of people is separate and that there is a bad history etc, they are not going to easily grow into a person who is well disposed to those others, who sees them as fellow humans. Even if the people telling you are saying - this is unfair, you've been hard done by because we are all worthwhile, it will have an effect.

That's not to say I think we should not talk about history, but man, when I see what goes on in schools for example, or listen to the morning radio, or read a newspaper, you really can't escape identity politics. It's constant.

There is a problem with generally calling "racism" when it is against white people by other ethnic groups. Although that is what it is, in dictionary definition terms, it has become to be more politicised to the point where it can only be called racism if it's against a minority group, or rather a group that has less power than the other.

So as white people generally have the power, the logic goes that any abuse against them based on the colour of their skin cannot be racism, as they are the oppressors, not the oppressed.

The power imbalance between a group of Muslim men and young white girls doesn't count, it seems, because female. It's sexual abuse (of course!!) but racism - no, because "white" trumps everything else.

I'm not saying this is right but it's what I've come to expect and understand in the last several years.

I think that's what I was trying to write, Thumb, but you did it so much more eloquently than I could.

I imagine it's very hard for a young white victim of this type of crime to listen to explanations of intersectionality, structures/axis of power and history of racism.

It's interesting that she picks out radfems. I'd like to know more about that. My guess is that it must be a broader left/right politics conflict or similar rather than a specifically radfem position.

Quick look at her timeline suggests Jess Taylor is one of the radfems in her sights. Not sure who else yet. She mentions 3 people. Her feed is....interesting.

I appreciate all the replies and agree with what's being said, but what exactly is being done about it? Whose fighting for these girls? Where are the so called feminist groups bringing this to mainstream? Where are the protests? Where is anything? It just seems it's a case of oh well shrug shoulders let's just keep having a go about what it's safe to have a go about. I mean, this is not a feminist movement I can relate to! All girls and women need to be protected!!

There is a problem with generally calling "racism" when it is against white people by other ethnic groups. Although that is what it is, in dictionary definition terms, it has become to be more politicised to the point where it can only be called racism if it's against a minority group, or rather a group that has less power than the other*

So as white people generally have the power, the logic goes that any abuse against them based on the colour of their skin cannot be racism, as they are the oppressors, not the oppressed

The idea that white people cannot be victims of racism is nonsense. It's an idea however that has gained considerable traction on MN including FWR.

The cynic in me does not believe for a second that this has been ignored and still is for "fear to be branded as racists". It's just a handy excuse , to hide the real problem while we're busy pointing fingers at eachother.

The real problem being that women and girls (particularly those of a certain socio-economic makeup) are disposable.

They hide their "I don't give a fuck" behind "I'm so woke and accepting".

There was an article in the Times magazine a couple of weeks ago about Nafir Azal, the former chief prosecutor who brought the Rochdale gangs to trial and how he believes authorities are risk averse and the abuse he had had in his own community for prosecuting this. He has a book out about it.

Protests aren't whats needed to fix the problem, this is a wide spread, deep rooted issue - women and girls are expendable, men can rape without much fear of prosecution.

The work needed to tackle this is happening at a political level not street level, and has been quietly going on for years whether you noticed or not.

The Home Office was preparing to make an announcement about a new strategy to tackle CSA and grooming, and to punish offenders, before the Corona virus pandemic. No official statement has been made since February and its probably been put on hold.

If the intent of the "you can't call that racism" comments was just to preserve that word for the specific purpose of describing prejudice plus a set of power relations then a different word could be suggested and the discussion could continue. The fact that this is not what happens suggests that the intent is to prevent the discussion from happening.

I have been called out on MN for pointing out racism against a specific group of white people. My cousin also lived for a while in an area of London where white people were a minority and got some very blatant racism in her workplace (not aggressive but comments like ‘white people have no culture’).

It is part of this victimhood culture that prevents people seeing Anyone other that particular groups as capable of being oppressed. As we see with the trans debate.

Dido - it's definitely NOT just on MN.
It's all over social media as well.
And yes, a lot of it is among the more "woke" groups.

Probably the majority of racism world wide does not involve white people at all and in some cases have been devastating eg Rwanda.