Wednesday, May 04, 2016

Peak Guardian

I was trying to think of a clever way to introduce this, by Gary Younge, on Gerry Adams's use of the word "nigger" on Twitter. But I can't.
To judge Adams, who has a life’s work of internationalism and antiracist solidarity, by a single tweet borders on the grotesque. People should be assessed on the body of their work, not just on a single off-colour statement. That doesn’t mean the statement should be ignored. But to fetishise it above a person’s record does a disservice not just to the person but to the issue.
"The body of their work". Nope, words fail.

Danny Finkelstein reminds me (in a piece that references an article that was the subject of almost the first Reptile blogpost all those years ago) that Michael Gove's nickname for the Guardian was the Prada-Meinhof Gang. It is, I suppose, comforting to see that the paper hasn't lost its terrorist sympathies despite Seumas's absence.