To make the campus that little bit more tolerant and friendly for everyone
The guy who dumped soup on a woman yesterday because he doesn’t like her opinions is…you’ll never guess…in the Equality & Diversity trade. I guess it’s the “but not for you” kind of equality & diversity.
A recent Southampton Solent graduate, I have remained at the university as their first Student Equality & Diversity associate – in short it’s my job to engage with students about their experiences of university and hopefully help to make the campus that little bit more tolerant and friendly for everyone.
Unless they’re feminist women, in which case he’ll assault them. That little bit more tolerant and friendly for everyone.
In my personal life I am a working stand-up comic, amateur journalist and committed social justice activist – all passions which feed into the work I am currently lucky enough to be doing.
It’s amazing to me how glibly this goon trots out the Platitudes of Virtue while priding himself on not letting women speak up to defend our rights.
He has a BA in comedy writing and performance.
And he is clearly going on to do postgraduate work in pathos: which arguably should qualify him as a patheic clown. (Sorry, clowns, for that insult.)
As a matter of principle, being a White male, he should have refused this position, or at least have had the decency to claim to be a woman before accepting it. Though it does sound like he might have talked the university into creating the job for him.
If he was a successfull “working stand-up comic,” he wouldn’t have “remained at the university”. A BA in comedy writing and performance* is no guarantee that you yourself can or will be funny. I’m sure his journalism is indeed “amateur,” and it looks like his social justice activism is a convenient cover for his misogyny. If he really believed in what he was doing, he wouldn’t have masked himself or run away. He would have stayed to face the consequences. The fact that he did both those things suggests that the assault, rather than any political stance, was the point of the operation. He was just being a cowardly, woman-hating thug. He could have chanted, or handed out leaflets. He could have explained why he was opposed to the event.** But no, he decided that a physical attack was the correct course of action, or the most personally satisfying.
So he did talk his way into his university job! Let’s hope the university sees fit to relieve him of it. He can fall back on his comedy. That will give the world a chance to see just how funny he can be.
* I can’t help but think of this Python bit, “The History of the Joke”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWBkGgZO1ns
**Hell, there could be some on his own supposed “side” who will claim that he was a plant designed to gain sympathy for Posie Parker by staging the attack, since such actions do so little to promote the cause of trans “rights.” But then again, this was intended as punishment, bullying, and intimidation, not any sort of debate, argument, or discussion. Explanation is not on the menu, it’s just attacking a political opponent in order to silence her and scare others into silence as well. (That it backfired, drawing attention to the exact point that Parker is making, and the inability of trans activists to respond with anything other than violence, is his misreading of the room. If the can of soup has become a badge of honour, then using it becomes counterproductive. In future, other assault-minded “activists” might feel the need to escalate. I hope it doesn’t happen, but I wouldn’t put it past them. I’m not going to count on the prudence and rationality of a bunch of delusional ideologues.)
So terrorism, rather than debate. Carry on. With his BA, he could claim it was “all a joke” or part of some performance piece, choosing to pour soup on someone else rather than dump urine all over himself. Different fluid, same amount of persuasive power.
Just noticed something from the video footage from the “Potage” post:
The police must have let him put his mask back on. When he was running away, and when he was bare-headed, as he was when he was stopped by the police. You can’t tell if he’s wearing it while being handcuffed (he does put his hooded coat aside, though his face isn’t in the shot), but when the police walk him to the van and load him in, it’s back on his head.
Is that sort of thing normal or usual?
Huh. You’re right.
It may be normal? I think? I think I’ve seen footage of suspects holding things in front of their faces and similar when under arrest. They’re suspects, not yet convicted.
Someone asks “Why on EARTH was his face covered?”
https://x.com/cyberfrontier/status/1837629606624424369
Seems to me that comedy writing and performance may be the ideal degree for being in charge of Diversity and Equality. So much of what they are doing these days is a joke, I’m surprised they hire anyone with a different degree.
Isn’t that always the kind they mean?
Diversity: composed of Us.
Inclusion: excluding You.
Equity: what was Yours is Ours.
I wonder if there’s practical module to the Comedy degree, so that the class of degree you get depends on how much you made people laugh, if at all.