😅 Good God! How on earth do you have the temerity to use the word "gaslit" in a sentence so disingenuous as to be completely unhinged?! I favour teenage racist tweeters?! I don't favour 5-year-old children?! Are you kidding me with this nonsense?

By the first, I presume you’re referring to Emma Sarley. First of all, she didn’t tweet anything, isn’t a teenager and didn’t claim “victim status” (despite being doxxed and fired, she hasn’t said a word about victimhood). But quibbles about basic accuracy aside, I don’t "favour" her. I have zero interest in her. She’s a random woman who got into a brief, stupid argument with a random man. This is so commonplace and unremarkable as to be completely unworthy of comment.

But the reason I did comment on it, the reason it became international news, is that Frederick Joseph then went out of his way to ruin her life over this non-event, because he wrapped himself in victimhood that wouldn't have been normalised in any other circumstances. This man claimed he was traumatised by a brief, non-violent interaction, which he prolonged, with a woman half his size. I don't believe for a second that you don't see the problem with this.

As for the 5-year-old kids, I'm genuinely at a loss. The idea that I've ever accused children of playing the victim, or indeed that the welfare of black children isn't a central concern in much of my writing, is so dumb that I'm not even mad. You're arguing with your own imagination here.

And Verbiann's comment, I agree with it completely. Because she literally couldn't have "defined the lines" any more clearly. You even quoted her! The people she's referring to are "the people who would imprison us within the aggrieved walls of victimhood." I think she's absolutely right that "this creates poverty of spirit and erodes our agency." (no need for the "blah, blah, blah, that's all she says.) She's absolutely right that we should call this out.

She's talking about people who normalise the idea, not that black people face obstacles due to racism (this is simply the truth), but who treat racism as the univariate cause for everything black people experience. People who argue that rational thinking or showing up on time or children who can sit still in class is "white supremacy". People who act as if every interaction between a black person and a white person is rooted in racism. Or that a cross word from a white person's lips wounds us in unique, irreparable ways that echo 400 years into the past.

Yes, this kind of thinking erodes our agency. Yes, it creates poverty of spirit. And more importantly, it limits our ability to solve the genuine problems that black people face. Nobody with half a brain denies the realities of systemic racism. Nobody with half a brain claims that the playing field is always level. Nobody at all is blaming 5-year-olds for their poverty. But you making me refute nonsense like this robs us of the opportunity to have a meaningful, good-faith conversation about the "actual, real, happening-right-now victimisation," in which I suspect we'd find a lot of common ground. Instead, you're busy making ridiculous, bad-faith attacks.

This, in fact, is a microcosm of the problem the article points to.