So I understand that Slumflower has replied to my article about intersectional Thatcherism:

“Keep writing about me whilst I update my shopping carts with lovely top tier essentials and self care goodies that white people’s money have paid for.”

I rest my case.
A few notes:

1) What Slumflower is seeking is restitution, not reparations. If her allegation that Florence Given has infringed her IP is as strong as she says it is, I imagine any lawyer would jump at the chance to represent her no win, no fee. So why isn't that happening?
2) It is legitimate and fine to want to be paid for your work, and that includes being an influencer. But that's not the same as reparatory justice. White people paying for your luxury goods is not a means of addressing the lasting impacts of colonialism and chattel slavery.
and finally, 3) I think this speaks to the damage that influencer culture does to the people it most benefits. Slumflower and Florence Given are both talented, smart young women. But being encouraged to live your life through posting, and assigning voice of a generation status...
to someone who's very much still on their political journey can be very warping. Where is the space to learn, to grow, to take a step back? It's like living in a pressure cooker! And I think that ultimately, it doesn't facilitate people to produce their best work.

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More from @AyoCaesar

18 Jan
Staying well out of this beef, but I've spent the last 48 hours in hysterics since I learned that an influencer has been getting fans to give her money by calling it "individual reparations."

That's the joke line I use when I want one of my white mates to get a round in!
I get how this dynamic emerges. Social media blurs the distinction between influencer and activist. Individuals are seen as totemic of a wider political struggle, so you want to see them succeed. And of course, supporting people's work is meaningful.

But it's not reparations.
Reparations isn't an individual white person giving money to an individual black or brown person (apart from when I'm broke and want a cocktail, in which case it's very much that).

It's about recognising that

a) colonialism and slavery have had a lasting economic impact
Read 10 tweets
11 Jan
Talk of imposing a one hour exercise rule, or being able to exercise with one person from another household, is just theatre. It's not about suppressing transmission - it's about keeping the focus away from the fact that what we're seeing is the result of failed policy.
The hospitalisations and deaths we're seeing are from infections which predate the national lockdown.

It's a legacy from a time when the government insisted schools were safe to open, when households were mixing for Christmas, when the flawed Tier system was still in operation.
We've also known since September that self-isolation rates are woefully low. According to SAGE than 20% of people in England self-isolate when told to do so. According to the Department of Health, the proportion might even be as low as 11%.
Read 8 tweets
10 Jan
I don't think saying 'Labour is the party of family' is necessarily an anti-single parent or homophobic dogwhistle, but it's so devoid of content that it lends itself well to reactionary signalling unless you're clear that you mean something different by it.
What would Labour being pro-family mean (beyond an acceptance that yes, humans do reproduce as mammals and that Keir Starmer's cool with it)?
Labour could say they'll introduce a Finland style 'baby box' for expectant parents.

Or they could frame a 4 day working week in terms of achieving a proper work-life balance, so people can spend more time with their loved ones.
Read 4 tweets
4 Dec 20
The situation in India is increasingly dangerous and authoritarian: the governing BJP party in Uttar Pradesh enacted a law which gives the state unconscionable powers to prevent and punish inter-faith marriages.

Why? Because they back a conspiracy theory known as 'love jihad'.
This conspiracy theory, that there's a nefarious scheme to force the conversion of Hindu girls to Islam through marriage is patently absurd. For as long as India has been a multifaith country, there have been mixed marriages and conversions - my own family amongst them!
My grandmother (Hindu, now Muslim) married my grandfather (Muslim), my mother (Muslim) married my father (Hindu). No forced conversions, no jihad, just people enjoying their freedom to love - and subsequently divorce - who they like.
Read 7 tweets
20 Oct 20
Putting aside the fact that they’re engines of class inequality, private boarding schools are just intensely fucked up places to send your children. It is just so intensely damaging.
I never met people who went to boarding school until uni, and it was honesty mad hearing what went on. All the things that made their parents mistrust the state system (bullying, violence, substance abuse) were not only endemic at these boarding schools, they were inescapable.
You’re sending your kid into that environment when they’re like 11, and putting them into the care of people who - no matter how well intentioned - don’t love them. What kind of message does that send to your child about how you feel about them?
Read 6 tweets
10 Aug 20
Keir Starmer is weak on tackling institutional racism, imo, because he’s scared to further alienate voters who felt Corbyn was weak on law and order. The gamble is that BAME voters don’t have anywhere else to go on Election Day.

The problem is, we can always stay home.
Starmer doesn’t have to stop being who he is to get better at this stuff.

All that “I’m a sir and a QC, I’m not scruffy, I’ve met the Queen” thing could actually make him a decent broker between two bits of the Labour coalition who have very different experiences of policing.
You can talk about policing both in terms of injustice and ineffectiveness when it comes to addressing the root causes of violent crime. You can talk about the recommended criminal justice reforms in the Lammy report. Talk about fairness and equality before the law.
Read 4 tweets

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