JKR receiving death threats for supporting Salman Rushdie

[WandaWomblesaurus]

news.sky.com/story/jk-rowling-working-with-police-over-death-threat-after-voicing-support-for-salman-rushdie-12672229

How fucking predictable.

I certainly do not share politics with JKR (I vote Tory), but I support freedom of speech and it is a pity Labour /Democrats moved from liberal left to woke left in the UK and US as that has made it harder for those of us who support free speech as we don't even have the left on our side very often.

Stabbing Rushdie is a crime. Expressing anti women or anti men or anti trans views should not be.

You cant.
That is why the ACLU (the old version) when into court to fight for the KKK as a civil rights issue.

They can’t. They can only keep wittering on about how they support free speech and condemn all threatening and ‘unprofessional’ behaviour, while conflating speaking about your beliefs with ‘unprofessional’ behaviour (if you are GC).

They would be advised to make a very clear statement of how GC belief and speech is protected under both the EA and Article 10, and they will defend that against any challenge. They (rightly) will not defend abusive behaviour. Done.

Oh yes I'd forgotten about that. Can't imagine that happening today.

What did the ACLU defend with regards to the KKK? (Can’t believe I have to write that.)

Caroline Criado Perez tweeted this:
mobile.twitter.com/CCriadoPerez/status/1559595934190804995

I find it hugely troubling that anyone finds it difficult to simply say without caveat that they condemn the threats against @ jk_rowling And a statement to that effect from the Society of Authors is overdue. You either defend our right as writers to free speech or you’re no use. [1st]
When I was being inundated with rape and death threats from misogynist men for daring to have opinions about female representation I also had to endure attempts to minimise the threats of violence. I deserved it for being gobby or I was too privileged to be threatened. [2nd]
And other tweets about the abuse she got/gets.

She has not seen Society of Authors tweeted, JH has a number if options.
Ignore something which was not directly addressed to her.
Be a SoA rep and just do a FYI to the statement (hard to do while it circulates the reply tweets too)
Make it personal by ignoring that she is not the SoA.
The choice:
I have. Many times. But it's never enough, is it? You just keep repeating the same unfounded accusations.

At this stage she would be better served if she stopped the attack is the best form of defence strategy. It is not working.

That’s the thing isn’t it? Leaving everything aside, JH is behaving massively inappropriately in their role as chair. The chairs role amongst other thing is to follow the agreed organisational line. The SoA has put out a statement, JH should just refer to that or just not respond

its utterly unprofessional

Now she’s gloating that the open letter (I hate open letters) in support of her has more signatures than Julie Bindel’s letter contesting her suitability for her role.

Ms Harris: this is because writers no longer feel they have free speech.

Why did Pullman (otherwise awful) resign? Because he couldn’t exercise his right to free speech and continue to be affiliated to the SoA. That’s a problem, isn’t it?

"Cancel Culture is good, actually."

www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html

That’s really appalling.

Quite. Sunlight is pouring in.

twitter.com/blablafishcakes/status/1559805005200297985?t=2KUivQbYZlghokw3cCLYqA&s=19

Cancel Culture is good, actually

Christ on a bike 🤦‍♀️

The trouble is that publishing has always presented an impeccably woke veneer - it is an emblem of its role of representing society, analysing social structures and giving voice to the marginalised. There have always been certain head-prefect, teacher's pet types who have been at the forefront of that, vocally signalling their own flawless virtue, pointing the finger at those who are less pious. Joanne Harris is one of those.

Their mistake is that they assume that everyone else shares their view. They simply don't understand (in the way that fish don't understand they're wet) that the relative silence in the ranks is not because people agree, but because they are scared to state that they absolutely don't, precisely because there is only one acceptable viewpoint and those who don't share it will be punished, overtly or covertly.

And from that we can conclude that the organisation that represents authors and the publishing industry does not support free speech, and Joanne Harris is a very big part of the problem.

Someone says ‘Look at the faces of all the people who have signed. Goodness shines out of them.’

Goodness. Sainthood. Infallibility.

These things are not prerequisite to free speech. Complete arseholes have that right as well.

Stalinists used to tell Shostakovich and Solzhenitsyn that their views were outdated and unwanted. That's why their works went unperformed or they spent every night waiting for the secret police to come for them. Was that like cancelling the milk? She's so glib about serious issues. I think gender ideology is regressive and sexist. Would it be ok for me to harass her publisher into dropping her? (It wouldn't even cross my mind.)

Glibness is a refuge, isn’t it? When you’ve done something wrong, it’s easiest to make jokes.

JH is a bit muddled isn't she? On the one hand she says that "cancel isn't a dirty word" and that we should not worry about things getting cancelled that "we no longer want", but on the other hand she has stated that there is a campaign to get her removed from the SoA and complains about the tactics used by JKR's followers to achieve this. Can't she see the irony here? This "tactic", that she has always failed to call out, has been used on multiple authors who have lost contracts / work / livelihoods / reputations, has now been turned upon her and she has the gall to complain about it. How are these people's heads so deeply buried in the sand.

And then obviously, when you’ve spent the last several years demonising women for their very ordinary opinions, the other refuge is to start saying “we must avoid a culture war at all costs!”

They’re the biggest keyboard warrior bullies in town, who have spent years waging her war, but now they’re beginning to lose (or, in their parlance, to be ‘held accountable’) they don’t want a culture war after all.

Who would have thought?

To add to that.
Please don't insult the reader by pretending that the main reason for that letter was an attempt to distract from the original free speech letter.

Still Harris: ‘The misogyny of the campaign against me runs deep. The belief that, instead of trying to represent the rights of all authors, I should favour gender critical women...’

This might be the third or fourth time I’ve seen her refer only to “GC women”. Lots of people are GC, including plenty of men. The fact that people tend to only bully women for it is where the misogyny lies.

mobile.twitter.com/sarahditum/status/1559877138731393025?cxt=HHwWgoCztcf_5aUrAAAA

More #bekind

But she acknowledges that it would be illegal for the SoA to discriminate against an author for being GC. Right, so when JKR put out her tweet pointing out that people shouldn’t be losing their jobs for being GC, and she got a swathe of abuse, death threats and rape threats, isn’t it odd that the SoA sat silently by? Isn’t it odd that Harris, instead of saying “JKR has said nothing wrong and the law on belief discrimination would suggest she is correct”, actually said, “We cancel the milk. Meh.”

Nobody has said she should favour anyone - the problem is that she HAS been favouring certain people/viewpoints when she should be representing everyone.

She can't be this stupid, can she?

@ScreamingMeMe

I’m starting to think it’s not an intellect issue.