The news about a journalist being sent a letter by a law firm basically telling him to leave Arday alone also made this a “juicy” tale and propelled it further.
I think the cover up, including the UK police once again swooping in to suppress the freedom of speech and the press, also lent the story greater salience.
I think that's right. At the end of the day a small number of people made the decision to publish between them hundreds of articles on Arday, for reasons that seem as, James outlines, partly racist- adjacent. The just solution wouldseem to be for their names to be made well known, and for them to be subject to the same shaming as they attempted to hand out to someone else. Maybe next time , they would then reflect on whether they would again choose to feed the public's unhealthy appetites.
An excellent and well-balanced piece, unlike many published both before and after Arday's tragic death, though the Guardian has also been excellent, pointing out the excesses of some on the right while robustly defending its decision to investigate Arday. It clearly felt it had to do that since those now strongly pushing a narrative that Arday was killed by the racist right wing press have had to confront the inconvenient fact that the Guardian's own investigation was pivotal, largely because it did not fit that narrative.
In this context it is interesting and somewhat alarming to see how the discourse around Arday has changed since his death. At exactly the point when many - from the PM downwards - have suggested that we pause and reflect, commentators have doubled down and retreated into typically tribalist positions. In particular, some on the left now appear to be arguing not only that Arday received more scrutiny than white equivalents (arguably true) but that all scrutiny of him was unjust and racist, that he has been "lynched" by the press, and that Katharine Viner is as culpable as e.g. Camilla Long. This is not only a preposterous position to adopt (and one which is arguably itself racist, since it denies Arday all agency) but it is likely to have exactly the opposite effect to what is intended, and enable racist commentators to claim that they were right all along about academics of colour being held to different standards
On his appointment to Cambridge the publicity carried the tale of non-verbal until 11 and illiterate until 18 and I thought that's preposterous and wouldn't end well.
For him to actually be in Education research and no one around to be curious about this is at least notable.
The news about a journalist being sent a letter by a law firm basically telling him to leave Arday alone also made this a “juicy” tale and propelled it further.
I think the cover up, including the UK police once again swooping in to suppress the freedom of speech and the press, also lent the story greater salience.
With respect to subscript 2, rather unfortunately people do this all of the bloody time.
Certain sectors have really pushed the "personal accountability is a fad pushed by billionaires to escape scrutiny" line.
I think that's right. At the end of the day a small number of people made the decision to publish between them hundreds of articles on Arday, for reasons that seem as, James outlines, partly racist- adjacent. The just solution wouldseem to be for their names to be made well known, and for them to be subject to the same shaming as they attempted to hand out to someone else. Maybe next time , they would then reflect on whether they would again choose to feed the public's unhealthy appetites.
An excellent and well-balanced piece, unlike many published both before and after Arday's tragic death, though the Guardian has also been excellent, pointing out the excesses of some on the right while robustly defending its decision to investigate Arday. It clearly felt it had to do that since those now strongly pushing a narrative that Arday was killed by the racist right wing press have had to confront the inconvenient fact that the Guardian's own investigation was pivotal, largely because it did not fit that narrative.
In this context it is interesting and somewhat alarming to see how the discourse around Arday has changed since his death. At exactly the point when many - from the PM downwards - have suggested that we pause and reflect, commentators have doubled down and retreated into typically tribalist positions. In particular, some on the left now appear to be arguing not only that Arday received more scrutiny than white equivalents (arguably true) but that all scrutiny of him was unjust and racist, that he has been "lynched" by the press, and that Katharine Viner is as culpable as e.g. Camilla Long. This is not only a preposterous position to adopt (and one which is arguably itself racist, since it denies Arday all agency) but it is likely to have exactly the opposite effect to what is intended, and enable racist commentators to claim that they were right all along about academics of colour being held to different standards
On his appointment to Cambridge the publicity carried the tale of non-verbal until 11 and illiterate until 18 and I thought that's preposterous and wouldn't end well.
For him to actually be in Education research and no one around to be curious about this is at least notable.