By @PennyRed 'Too many grown adults can’t tell the difference between feeling bad because someone hurt them and feeling bad because they hurt someone else. They can’t handle it. They will do anything to evade that shame: deny, dismiss, destroy.
For an idiotically long time, I believed that if people only knew how much pain they were causing, they’d change course.
I couldn’t understand, even when I was small, why bullies didn’t stop when you were crying or clearly injured - it just made them worse. It made them double down. The prospect of being seen doing something cruel sent them into a wild, weird defensive rage.
But seeing adults behave the same way, as an adult myself, I’ve got a better idea of why that happens.

It’s about shame.
It’s all about shame. It’s the panicked, defensive reflex of children raised in cultures that talk loudly about sin and rarely about redemption and weaponise both to produce compliance.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve watched people on the left justify treating one another with casual cruelty on the basis that we can’t afford to be kind, or someone will take advantage of us.
I’ve met so many men who are fully aware that they have treated women badly, but who feel they ‘cannot’ stop- because they are in a defensive crouch, terrified to begin the work of change by looking at their own behavior. They know they have no framework for healthy remorse.
They fear they would not psychologically survive the shame of it.
In exactly the same way, fully grown, educated white people can be reduced to panicked infants by the suggestion that whiteness is a structure of oppression, because what they hear is ‘my whiteness makes me a bad person. I should feel shame.’ @PennyRed
lauriepenny.substack.com/p/cancelling-c…

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More from @SamanthaAsumadu

Mar 18
Around mid-morning yesterday I finally got the package I had been waiting for that contained the kettle lead to my speakers. I brought my speakers with me for my month stay in Glasgow. I'm in a detached 4 bedroom house, all on my own. The PERFECT time to crank up Arctic Monkeys.
Shortly after I put some tunes on, I got an email from my energy provider.
Read 6 tweets
Mar 17
I know they have gone up! Lobby the government so they go down don't individualise this and make it my problem! I don't care how independent and caring and green you want to make yourself look, you lot are RAKING it in!!
Absolutely nonsense. I am not a middle class liberal willing to 'share the pain'. I am a black, 42 year old journalist, former foreign correspondent, documemntary filmmaker, current crisis campaigner and radical organiser who won't be fooled.
Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who
cc @OctopusEnergy
Read 15 tweets
Mar 17
So agent who I'm talking to who I like very much& who I was intro'd to by someone I trust & have similar backgrounds (his books are repped by them) is busy until London book fair, but am wondering shouldn't my book be presented there for bids? I don't want to wait till next year
Oh right yeah I have 4 publishers who are interested. One I turned down already. 2 of the other 3 have my proposal. Have met one publisher they came to see me a couple of weeks ago. Oh and met another publisher but haven't sent proposal yet as wanted to have an agent.
The other publisher has my old proposal. There are significant changes now for example @garyyounge intro quote and Madani Younis chapter where I interviewed him. I am so confused right now and have so much other work to do! It's hard to concentrate on this...
Read 6 tweets
Mar 17
Yet Leroy Douglas is in for stealing a mobile phone 17 years ago? @Parole_Board #JusticeForIPPs will be seeking comment immediately
I am not surprised the spokesperson for @Parole_Board has an out of office email on. No doubt he is tired of answering my questions. Have forwarded it on to deputy plus general comms #JusticeForIPPs
Reply:
Hi Sam,

We are not able to comment on the specifics of any of the cases that you have listed I’m afraid. We do produce summaries which give more information about why each decision (whether a release decision or a knockback, has been made) –
Read 9 tweets
Mar 16
Netflix
BBC IPlayer
BFI player (I forgot to cancel the trial now figure I need to get my moneys worth. Watched 30 mins of La Haine so far)
AMAZON Prime
BRITBOX (currently on 14 day free trial so I can watch Red Riding again, pls god let me remember to cancel it 🙏🏾)
And I am staying in a house without Internet for a month 😏
Does have a jacuzzi tho 🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿
Finally getting round to watching Red Riding before my Brit Box subscription runs out 🙌🏿🙌🏿🙌🏿
(I downloaded it in the Glasgow Modern Art gallery library on Tuesday) ImageImage
Read 8 tweets
Mar 16
Oh. Am waiting for the apology. Whatever timezone you happen to be in you didn't mind disturbing me when it was the middle of YOUR night.
To tell ME that I am a bad activist @ShareefaEnergy. 🤔
The fucking alternative narrative people will create when they want to school a black woman is INCREDIBLE.
Read 7 tweets

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