1/ A key reason that my book doesn’t name names is that English political discourse is obsessed with gossip and sensationalism, with he-did-this and she-did-that, which deflects from the vital conversation about structures.
https://twitter.com/Okwonga/status/1460923738434805765
2/ Just look at the current political discourse. I’m not saying we shouldn’t name names, just that certain people who are used to being in the spotlight are experts at making the conversation all about them: instead of about the society that produces and enables them.
3/ Can I also say this: it’s easy to get caught up in the minutiae of the lives of people harming society rather than looking at the lives of people suffering that harm, which can end up in a form of sympathy for those who are doing the hurtful stuff.
4/ If we focus too much on the lives of people doing cruel things in the public eye then we risk building their myths and turning them into rock stars. It’s a genuine problem. Look how much fun they’re having. We have to make the work that makes them look uneasily in the mirror.
5/ At the risk of being pompous: I have relatives who grew up under leaders who everyone laughed at across their middle-class dinner tables, and they kept laughing till there was nothing left of democracy, and the democracy hasn’t been back since. That’s why this matters to me. /
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