Jussie Smollett’s story shows how intolerant of ‘victims’ we really are

Jussie Smollett’s story shows how intolerant of ‘victims’ we really are | Nesrine Malik

The media reaction to the actor’s alleged fabrication shows how ‘victimhood culture’ is used as a means to attack minorities

One of the many moral panics of our time is that of “victimhood culture”. Apparently, we are too indulgent of those who can claim victim status, a state especially rife among students. The story goes that this has turned us all into eternal babies, coddling us, protecting us from “micro aggressions” and signalling an erosion of individual grit and autonomy in favour of mimsy whining.

In an effort to invert unfair power structures, some claim, victimhood culture has only succeeded in replacing them with different unfair power structures, where those who used to be at the bottom now hold the whip hand over those who used to be at the top. Women terrify men, who are forever fearful an offhand remark will become a harassment lawsuit, and racial minorities secure jobs at the expense of white people the moment their unusual names are spotted on a CV. The writer Lionel Shriver called it “privileging the disadvantaged”. Shriver also told BBC Radio 4 that white men in the UK are on the bottom rung of society, because they are considered to be the most powerful demographic (reader, I can reveal they are). Victimhood culture advocates engage in a lot of doublethink.

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2NqhwvC

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