And I take your point but prefer to keep the word "racist" as I feel it upends smug people who think they have the upper hand on the concept of racism! Both the old and new schools pick on people according to race.
Hey “Rarely”, I appreciate the like on my comment elsewhere. Skimming your oeuvre I like your perspective. Perhaps we shall chamge the world together for the truer, the saner, and the sweeter.
And the https://www.technollama.co.uk/ commented, "Masks slip off" moment on bsky, really reminds me of the platonic elitism with copyright, especially with copyright maximilism. (I'm still getting flashbacks)
Quite apart from anything directly related to Arday, the Good Law Project has behaved pretty badly on this. Maugham’s post distances the GLP from the open letter, saying they ‘carried’ it but someone has been actively managing it, notably changing its text after people had already signed (an extraordinarily unethical thing to do) - Google ‘good law stealth edit’ - as well as deleting some signatories, presumably at their request. It is still up, attracting obviously mocking fake names like ‘clown show’ and suchlike.
If this is just a way of generating traffic for their web site it’s pretty shoddy - and exploits Arday’s misery.
The GLP is in panic mode and I sense that its questionable handling of things so far is using up a fair amount of the story's oxygen. They deserve the mockery and it reinforces my sense that Arday could use better friends right now. Thanks for drawing my attention to the stealth editing.
You're welcome. It does strike me as an astonishing thing to do. You just cannot ask people to sign up to a statement, then change it after they signed. OK, in this case I can see the main effect of the change was to make that statement marginally less embarrassing for the signatories. But the principle of the thing seems to me utterly wrong. No mention of this in Maugham's post but it seems pretty serious bad practice to me.
Maugham speedily deleted his self-serving defence quoted above. If you click on the link you get Post Not Found. It was spectacularly oleaginous and self-congratulatory even for the Foxkiller in a Kimono. I penned a disparaging reply and I suspect he anticipated more to come
Hi Jack, thanks for letting me know. I'll edit the piece to say that his post is now deleted. Fair play to Maugham if he had second thoughts about it. I'm sure he's used to taking heat for his comments under normal circumstances, so perhaps this is a case of a good faith reassessment of what he'd said. I'd like to think that it might be that.
EDIT: hi again Jack - I think Maugham may just have blocked you because I can still see the quote and the whole post, including if I refresh my browser. No edit required in my piece then. Also, no need for my adjusted charitable view that he realised how awful was his justification for continuing to 'back' Arday in the wrong way.
I think you underestimate the damage this has done to other black people. This is just another farce that conforms the growing suspicion of a two-tier Britain in which the major demographic, the white working classes, are being held back and overtly discriminated against. How many black people are waking up today thinking of how they are going to have to defend their own achievements in the light of this farce.
I think this is more a distinction between our old school kind of ‘colour blind’ liberalism on race and the very much conscious of skin colour progressive ideology. I’ve gone off branding that as ‘racist’ but I totally get where you’re coming from.
And I take your point but prefer to keep the word "racist" as I feel it upends smug people who think they have the upper hand on the concept of racism! Both the old and new schools pick on people according to race.
Hey “Rarely”, I appreciate the like on my comment elsewhere. Skimming your oeuvre I like your perspective. Perhaps we shall chamge the world together for the truer, the saner, and the sweeter.
Thanks ! We can only keep on refusing the frames determined by others' self interest. Even just 2 of us is a start.
"Good luck to Jason Arday in rebuilding his life." Sadly, this won't be happening.
Wow, even being a sociology lover, what a mess.
And the https://www.technollama.co.uk/ commented, "Masks slip off" moment on bsky, really reminds me of the platonic elitism with copyright, especially with copyright maximilism. (I'm still getting flashbacks)
Haha !
Quite apart from anything directly related to Arday, the Good Law Project has behaved pretty badly on this. Maugham’s post distances the GLP from the open letter, saying they ‘carried’ it but someone has been actively managing it, notably changing its text after people had already signed (an extraordinarily unethical thing to do) - Google ‘good law stealth edit’ - as well as deleting some signatories, presumably at their request. It is still up, attracting obviously mocking fake names like ‘clown show’ and suchlike.
If this is just a way of generating traffic for their web site it’s pretty shoddy - and exploits Arday’s misery.
The GLP is in panic mode and I sense that its questionable handling of things so far is using up a fair amount of the story's oxygen. They deserve the mockery and it reinforces my sense that Arday could use better friends right now. Thanks for drawing my attention to the stealth editing.
You're welcome. It does strike me as an astonishing thing to do. You just cannot ask people to sign up to a statement, then change it after they signed. OK, in this case I can see the main effect of the change was to make that statement marginally less embarrassing for the signatories. But the principle of the thing seems to me utterly wrong. No mention of this in Maugham's post but it seems pretty serious bad practice to me.
Maugham speedily deleted his self-serving defence quoted above. If you click on the link you get Post Not Found. It was spectacularly oleaginous and self-congratulatory even for the Foxkiller in a Kimono. I penned a disparaging reply and I suspect he anticipated more to come
Hi Jack, thanks for letting me know. I'll edit the piece to say that his post is now deleted. Fair play to Maugham if he had second thoughts about it. I'm sure he's used to taking heat for his comments under normal circumstances, so perhaps this is a case of a good faith reassessment of what he'd said. I'd like to think that it might be that.
EDIT: hi again Jack - I think Maugham may just have blocked you because I can still see the quote and the whole post, including if I refresh my browser. No edit required in my piece then. Also, no need for my adjusted charitable view that he realised how awful was his justification for continuing to 'back' Arday in the wrong way.
I think you underestimate the damage this has done to other black people. This is just another farce that conforms the growing suspicion of a two-tier Britain in which the major demographic, the white working classes, are being held back and overtly discriminated against. How many black people are waking up today thinking of how they are going to have to defend their own achievements in the light of this farce.
I make the collateral damage point twice in the piece.
In fact, how racist were Cambridge in the first place, patronising and fêteing a silly man just because he was black!
I think this is more a distinction between our old school kind of ‘colour blind’ liberalism on race and the very much conscious of skin colour progressive ideology. I’ve gone off branding that as ‘racist’ but I totally get where you’re coming from.
Just looked up the GLP and noted it also espoused Misan Harriman, who is utterly odious compared with wretched Jason Arday