Everyone except…
The Famous Artis Birdy Rose spots a contradiction that is all too pervasive in these Inclusive No Not You times.
Yesterday I read online a statement on the Leigh Folk Festival Facebook page, which read:
“Leigh Folk Festival is, and always has been, an inclusive environment where everyone should feel welcome and comfortable, from artistes, to attendees, volunteers and crew”
The statement went on to say that a member of an act due to perform at this year’s festival has “made remarks online that are not in keeping with Leigh Folk Art’s values. As soon as we were made aware, the act’s performance was pulled from the line up”
Genius, isn’t it? “Incloosiv environment. Everyone should feel welcome and comfy. An act has said things we don’t like, so we kicked them out.”
You can’t have everything you know. You can’t boast of being incloosiv and in the very next breath brag about kicking people out because you don’t like their thinking. You have to pick one.
That’s why I for one never boast of being incloosiv, because it depends. A promise to inclood everyone and everything is a promise impossible to fulfill, so just don’t bother.
As Birdy puts it:
I also think it is owed to the public that we know what these “values” are, as it now appears very clear this festival is NOT an “inclusive environment where everyone should feel welcome and comfortable” because there is an elusive, unspoken set of “values” that we apparently must all “align” ourselves with.
So it should be “we’re inclusive provided you adhere to this list of values, see Appendix pp 1 through 785.”
And another thing. What kind of message does this send to people who want to attend or perform at the Leigh Folk Festival?
Additionally, no consideration has been made of the possibility that other artists, staff, volunteers or attendees and members of the public might feel worry, anxiety or distress now that they are aware that they’re going to be potentially judged and/or publicly shamed and/or punished for their thoughts and opinions, even in their own personal lives.
I want to know if there’s anything in the contract or “festival values” at Leigh Folk Arts/Festival which specifically states that despite Leigh Folk Festival only occurring once per year, all artists, musicians, staff, volunteers and attendees *must* “align” their “values” with the “Festival values” all year round, outside of the festival, in their own lives, including on their personal social media accounts
Seems just a tiny bit exigent, doesn’t it.
H/t tigger_the_wing
Trans activists and their "allies" are so used to having things both ways that they figure that's how things work. Gender identity is innate and fixed and it’s fluid and transient. Everyone has a gender identity, and some people are a-gender or non-binary. A man who passes as a woman through wardrobe and surgical body modification is a woman, and a man who does nothing at all is a woman if he says so. Nobody would ever pretend to be trans to gain access to female spaces, and the men that do that aren’t really trans.Trans people are frightened and vulnerable, and they’ll harass and assault you if you disagree.
So no, clarity and consistency aren’t exactly hallmarks of this movements and its acolytes.
In the past, I have submitted plays to the Bechdel Festival competition. This year, as I read the rules, they stated all plays (1) must be maximally diverse and (2) must be inclusive.
If I had decided to write something to fit those guidelines, I would have been told (1) you are not black, why are you writing black characters? (or gay or trans or whatever). (2) You are not trans; you don’t have their lived experience. How dare you appropriate others’ lives?
I didn’t submit this year. I will unsubscribe to their emails. The message they are ultimately sending is that white women are not welcome to write plays, because (1) white (2) woman and (3) shut up TERF.
Have people who tout “inclusivity” ever studied the paradoxes of set theory?
But full inclusion – no one is turned away no matter what – makes people uncomfortable and unwelcome, because then you’re welcoming the vulnerable and those who prey on them. The idea that “everyone is welcome and safe” only works if all people are safe, and that’s just not true. After all, “everyone” includes the worst of the worst, Dahmer, Hitler, Stalin.
We’re just supposed to read things like “inclusive and welcoming for everyone”, and know, without being told, who doesn’t even count as “everyone”. And they think they’re just excluding Hitler, so obvious it doesn’t need saying, but they’re also excluding Birdy Rose, Fred Sargeant, me, and you. We don’t count, and it’s not worth mentioning.
Here is Julie Bindel’s brief interview with the horribly offensive offender, whose offense we are not allowed to know.
Iknklast, I’m sure if you grovelled deeply and abjectly enough they might let you submit a play.