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I am not sure how much difference any kind of social media protest makes, but I am anti-anti-Semitism and I am not sure that freedom of speech means that anyone can say anything in any situation and not expect chastisement or repercussions. If anyone says anything racist on any of the pages I manage then they are immediately banned. I am not saying they can’t say whatever they like, but they can’t say it anywhere they like.
It’d be a good world if we all felt like that about racism. I think it’s worth making a stand.
Not everyone agrees , that’s cool (but not sure why you want to protect the right to be racist unless you think there’s something in it), but I decided to support the
#NoSafeSpaceForJewHate hashtag and not post anything on Twitter for 48 hours.
Someone tweeted me just before it started saying “Fair enough. But that’s a futile gesture.â€
I replied “So many gestures are. Including your responseâ€
Which was true because it wasn’t going to change anything,.
He replied "My response wasn’t futile. The 48 hour self-imposed twitter ban certainly is.â€
He was definitely wrong about the first part. Complaining about people complaining is at least as futile as complaining and probably more. But I thought I’d show him that his arrogant tweet had indeed been futile, by carrying on with the plan and also blocking him.
He didn’t like it. Or get it.
Lots of stuff doesn’t work of course, but what definitely doesn’t work is doing nothing at all.
Like I say, I am not sure it will make any difference, but think it’s worth making the point. And try not to be more futile than something you consider futile.
It may be healthier to leave social media behind all together and I am glad to take a couple of days away. On the whole Twitter’s been good for me and I feel I need to keep it up for trying out jokes, promotion, as well as for all the fun parts which aren’t ruined by racists or cocky naysayers.
I may be wrong though. It felt good to block a couple of people for just questioning this idea today.
In other news, our kitchen slightly flooded at the weekend and I worked out it was because the drain (you know the grill thing in the road) outside our house is blocked up with detritus. I contacted the council via email to tell them and say it was pretty urgent as we didn’t want to be flooded every time it rained and was impressed that they got almost straight back to me to say “it will be fixed in the next twelve monthsâ€. So just another year of towels propped up against our back door then. Cool.
Was surprisingly chipper for the afternoon's filming, given I'd had less than six hours sleep, but exhaustion hit a bit in the evening. It looked like we might finish on time but the last piece stretched out for almost an hour and it meant I got home at the earliest time yet, but still not til 10pm. This is one of the loveliest jobs I've ever had, though tempers seemed a little shorter by the end of today, and I am not going to complain about it. Even it was horrible, how lucky would I be to be working right now?
I did Dane Baptiste’s Questions Everything Podcast a couple of weeks ago. It went out today.
Here it is.
