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Grace Blakeley Profile picture
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Sep 20 • 3 tweets • 1 min read
I can’t help but feel like holding up a literal princess as an icon of feminism and anti-racism isn’t a *great* look for socialists.
I get that we all feel bad for Megan because of how badly she’s been treated, and people are right to call out the double standards, but the challenges she’s facing are literally a million miles away from those of the vast majority of women.

#girlboss feminism is not the one.
How about we centre the struggles of the women working for these women - often with terrible pay and conditions - instead? bigissue.com/news/employmen…

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More from @graceblakeley

Grace Blakeley Profile picture
Sep 20
I only just saw this* - my initial point was about how it’s weird for socialists to tie themselves up in knots defending those who don’t share their views.

But I understand why some people think my upbringing invalidates my writing/commentary and I’m ok with them criticising me.
But I also think it’s ok for people who have been brought up with privilege - like myself - to take part in socialist struggle.

Some of my favourite socialists - notably Toby Benn - have been posh too (not that I’m saying I’m an aristocrat lol).
So yeah, I get why some people are mad at me!

But if your issue is ‘she takes up some of my space’ you should try reaching out - I’m actually quite nice IRL and try to use my platform to promote other voices (esp young socialist women) and cool campaigns when I can.
Read 4 tweets
Grace Blakeley Profile picture
Apr 18
Seeing as this clip has resurfaced I thought I’d share some thoughts on how I might have handled it differently.

I was 25 at the time - only 3 years ago, but I’ve learned a lot about messaging and communication since then, both from practice and @NEON_UK training.

A thread 🧵
First, I prepped for a long time before QT - and I had a lot of help.

This sounds obvious, but when I first started to get confident about appearing in the media I stopped preparing - and my interviews were always worse.

All you need is three lines per issue, it’s worth it.
Second, I knew my role and the audience.

I was the a lefty policy wonk. I was expected to be boring. I had to figure out ways of expressing my ideas in a simple and interesting way.

I also knew the audience would be hostile - though I didn’t realise how much they’d love JRM.
Read 9 tweets
Grace Blakeley Profile picture
Feb 28
🧵This is probably a bit lame to post, but I was inspired by people sharing their stories, so here goes.

I never thought I’d be able to do either of these things - give up drinking or meditate every day - even though I always knew that I needed to just to feel ‘normal’.
I always knew my already poor mental health was being worsened by some of the things I was doing (and not doing) to my mind and body, but reasoned that others were in the same boat and they seemed to be coping.

My ADHD diagnosis was the trigger I needed to make some big changes.
I knew that drugs wouldn’t fix everything, and could make my anxiety worse, so I figured I would start by changing the things in my power.

As well as daily meditation, I started going to the gym, journaling, sleeping more - and this gave me the foundation to go sober.
Read 7 tweets
Grace Blakeley Profile picture
Jan 3
Finally got the chance to read @profitratedown’s Smart Machines and Service Work - a really enjoyable read and one of the most important new books in Marxist political economy I’ve read in a while.

Quick thread 🧵
@profitratedown His central thesis is that the rich worlds productivity problem can be explained by the growing proportion of labour power devoted to ‘unproductive’ (in Marxist terms) supervisory or circulatory activities.
@profitratedown The fact that this isn’t being picked up by mainstream economists is an (insoluble) problem of measurement - mainstream economics just can’t measure value and therefore productivity in the way that Marxists do - so they’ll keep chasing their tails trying to understand stagnation.
Read 10 tweets
Grace Blakeley Profile picture
Sep 22, 2020
It's depressing that the opposition doesn't realise that by repeating your opponent's frame (nationalism, family values etc), you don't steal their votes, you just strengthen their narrative.

If voters go into the polling booth thinking 'Britain first' and they'll vote Tory.
Worth reading @anatosaurus's detailed research on this: communitychange.org/wp-content/upl…
"Too often, politicians and advocates craft and test for
language in order to please the greatest number of
people, no matter their ideology. This has left us, at best,
unable to fire up the people who we need to act as the
vanguards of change and, at worst, disempowers them."
Read 4 tweets
Grace Blakeley Profile picture
Sep 17, 2020
This article is incredible - one thing that stuck out to me:

State-funded vehicles offering home insurance policies in areas where private insurers aren't providing coverage due to climate risks seem to me like today's Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac nytimes.com/interactive/20…
"Hurricane Andrew reduced parts of cities to landfill and cost insurers nearly $16 billion in payouts. Many insurance companies, recognizing the likelihood that it would happen again, declined to renew policies and left the state...
... So the Florida Legislature created a state-run company to insure properties itself, preventing both an exodus and an economic collapse by essentially pretending that the climate vulnerabilities didn’t exist."
Read 10 tweets

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