Steve QJ
2 min readOct 9, 2021

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Well, consider the possiblilty that this failure might be due to a lack of imagination on your part. And perhaps a lack of reading comprehension.

The first four examples were absolutely examples of racism. That's why they're there. To demonstrate that this kind of thing isn't simply black people whining over nothing.

But the others, the children's author who was dropped for an argument about classical literature, was clearly not racist. As you say, the girl fired because of the morons stealing meals was clearly not racist. I “threw in” those examples because just like the other women, they also lost their jobs. But in these cases, it was totally unjust. And while I can see where there's room for disagreement, I don't think Sarley was being racist either.

But even if you do disagree (I'm guessing you do) it's hard to argue that this wasn't, at most, one degree above absolute zero on the "spectrum of racism". So, as I said, if he decided to waste some time trading insults with her or whatever, I certainly wouldn't have wasted time writing about it. But the man spent hours trying to ruin her life! Not just by getting her fired, but by doxxing her to hundreds of thousands of people. Wherever you stand on this, you can't possibly claim that's justified.

This, as I also say in the article, is my problem. The normalisation of this idea that black people are spiteful weaklings. Calling out racism is a good thing. You'll not find a word I've ever written that suggests it's not. But pretending that everything is racism makes that harder to do. We need to shake the idea that we should uncritically jump to the defence of every person who cries "racism". It doesn't help us.

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Steve QJ
Steve QJ

Written by Steve QJ

Race. Politics. Culture. Sometimes other things. Almost always polite. Find more at https://steveqj.substack.com

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