Every couple of months, I get asked to debate Douglas ‘conditions for Muslims in Europe must be made harder across the board’ Murray.
Sometimes I’ve said yes, but it’s not gone ahead for a diff reason, sometimes I’ve said no. Every time, the framing has been pretty sus.
Sometimes I’ve said yes, but it’s not gone ahead for a diff reason, sometimes I’ve said no. Every time, the framing has been pretty sus.
I screenshotted the above example back in October because it serves as a decent reminder of how bias is built into the framing of discussions by supposedly 'impartial' bodies.
Panel discussions, particularly when they're on so-called 'identity politics', are something of a paint by numbers game. Because it doesn't matter what my views are, or that I've been highly critical of 'privilege' discourse.
It doesn't matter what I actually have to say. As a young, leftist, and Muslim woman, I'm cast in the role of thin-skinned millennial culture warrior. I'm asked to go on these panels because, on some level, producers think I'm the living proof of Douglas Murray's thesis.
I've asked producers directly whether they'd similarly book someone who held views like Douglas Murray's but towards other religious minorities. The answer I got? "His book is controversial but some people out there agree with him."
I mean, some people agree with David Irving, but that doesn't mean he should go on Radio 4.
People who work in the media would do well to stop claiming to outsource their thinking to the wisdom of imagined crowds. Because I don't believe it for a second, and I'm utterly sick of being cannon-fodder in someone else's culture war.
