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Shaun Lawson

@shaunjlawson

2 Jan

An extraordinary story of the most mindblowing strength and courage, with many vivid echoes of my grandmother, my two great-aunts and my great-grandmother. They shared many of the same experiences as these women.

bbc.com/news/stories-5…

- Like these women, they were deported in 1944

- Like these women, they were at Ravensbruck: which my grandmother described as the worst of all.

On her arrival there, the first thing she saw was someone so desperate, so bereft, so dehumanised, they were eating human faeces.

- Like these women, they were brutalised at a labour camp: Frankfurt am Main in their case, Leipzig in these heroes' cases.

At Frankfurt, in freezing conditions, they'd be wearing next to nothing while officers would beat them whenever they stopped to catch their breath.

Read 17 tweets

Shaun Lawson

@shaunjlawson

1 Jan

https://twitter.com/johnpavlovitz/status/1477129179896455177

1. Never give someone a piece of advice which if you're wrong, could screw their life up.

https://twitter.com/johnpavlovitz/status/1477129179896455177

2. Empathy does NOT mean "well I wouldn't do that in their position!"

You don't know what you'd do in their position, because you are not them, with all the complex forces which made and shaped them. Walking a mile in their shoes MEANS that - or at least trying to.

3. I would never be part of any club which would have me as a member.

4. Life is not just a series of milestones or achievements in which you progress upwards. It's much more like snakes and ladders.

Read 51 tweets

Shaun Lawson

@shaunjlawson

31 Dec 21

Roll up, roll up, it's Shaun's End of Year Awards time!

First, thanks to each and every one of you for keeping me (cyber)company over the last year. You are all AMAZING. 🙏

In 2022, I'll keep pissing you off and you'll keep putting me right. The natural order of things. 😳

There's a lot of new followers I've only (cyber)met this year. I've learnt an awful lot from all of you... and I still have a huge amount to learn too.

It says something for all of you that I've been so brutally honest about myself over the last week or so.

@MarinaHyde

I'd never have done that on here if I didn't feel comfortable enough to do so.

But for once, this thread isn't about me. Let's crack on with the awards:

Best journalist: @MarinaHyde, by a very long way. A national treasure, force of nature and an absolute genius.

Read 32 tweets

Shaun Lawson

@shaunjlawson

31 Dec 21

It's still early days and a lot of the data analysis I've seen is conflicting.

But on this last day of 2021, maybe we can at least *hope* that the pandemic is just starting its journey to becoming endemic. Weakening, losing its lethality in most cases.

Meanwhile: GET BOOSTED!🙏

Note: hope. I'm no scientist - please, whatever you do, take good care of you and yours.

But thanks to nurses, doctors, volunteers, front line workers, the brilliant vaccines, and time, I think there's light at the end of a long, dark tunnel now.

And it isn't an oncoming train.

And just in case you still doubt the vaccines, then unless you have conditions meaning you can't be vaccinated, here's the reality.

No, vaccines do not stop the spread. They don't stop you getting Covid. But they DO, demonstrably, massively reduce hospitalisation and death.

Read 7 tweets

Shaun Lawson

@shaunjlawson

31 Dec 21

Yesterday, I asked the following:

"You'd never lie and have never lied to anyone you care about under any circumstances? You've never humoured a work colleague, a loved one or child - you've always given it to them straight?"

I was very struck by how many lied in their answers.

By 'lied', I mean: took an absolutely impossible to maintain black and white position in ALL circumstances. Not some. All.

It's a thing on here. Not reading the question, but being offended by it. Then asserting moral superiority without thinking about what's even been asked.

That was their choice. To take such an obviously ridiculous "I have never lied or couched my responses diplomatically about anything ever" position, then be offended when it's challenged.

How do I know that many people were lying?

Read 42 tweets

Shaun Lawson

@shaunjlawson

30 Dec 21

THREAD: On 'politeness', whatever it may or may not mean to you.

This is Twitter. The business model does not encourage listening to or being kind to each other. It does encourage conflict... about pretty much everything. And the most dogmatic viewpoints get the most shares.

Online, I think *everyone* is more dogmatic than offline. And more tribal as well. "You're with us or against us".

And on all sorts of issues, I've seen tons of people taken down for the crime not of disagreeing, but of not agreeing *enough* about one thing or another.

"Traitor! There's a traitor in our midst! Burn them! Pile on them! Make them see the error of their ways!"

It's so bad at times that what's actually being discussed is literally drowned out in a whole hail of rage. Because the absolute worst must be thought of someone, or else.

Read 58 tweets

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