the brilliantly leaping gazelle

If it wasn’t for the fact that there’s the suicide involved, the whole Jason Arday affair would be a grotesquely comic morality tale. But it does, and the reaction to that tragedy  serves only to highlight the rank hypocrisy that has been a constant throughout this appalling farrago. And where there is rank hypocrisy, its almost certain that shameless opportunism is sure to be involved. 

I’m not going to dwell upon the many inconsistencies, fabrications and outright lies that brought about his very public humiliation and eventual suicide. I’m not concerned about that. We’ve all lied about our pasts, have massively exaggerated our accomplishments or taken credit for unearned triumphs. Most of us do it to impress potential sexual partners, occasionally to amuse our friends, and always on our CV’s. He just took it to absurd level thats all.

But it is precisely because many of his claims were so absurd, so preposterous and so risible that one wonders why so many otherwise intelligent people believed them. They were almost so overt as to be covert. But people believed what they wanted to believe. That’s why he got the job as Cambridge University. They wanted to insulate themselves against any accusations of being institutionally racist by appointing him as their youngest professor of sociology.

This is where rank hypocrisy comes in. Because in wanting to prove that they weren’t institutionally racist, they proved that they were. And other than the the colour of his skin, he also possessed a few other characteristics that protected him from deeper scrutiny. He was neurodiverse. He’d recovered from cancer, childhood autism and two brain tumours. A narrative quickly embedded itself around the fact here was a vulnerable man. Accordingly, any expressions of doubt as to his claims, let alone criticism or demands for his sacking, would have had unforeseen consequences. And therefore anyone expressing those doubts would then be responsible for these unforeseen consequences.  

But then I think of J.K. Rowling. She has been subjected to a sustained campaign of death threats, obscene vilification and social media hatred for years. But no-one is the slightest bit concerned as to what effect this might have on her mental health. I also think of Graham Lineman. He too has been subjected to a similar campaign of demonstration. His marriage has ended. Most of his friends have abandoned him. His career is in tatters. A lesser man might succumb to the pressure. But no-one is too concerned about that.

There were two vigil’s to mourn Jason Ardays death. One took place in Cambridge, was organised by his academic colleagues and was attended by a few hundred. By contrast, the one in London and organised by Stand up to Racism (SUTR), attracted over 30,000 people. This is where the shameless opportunism appears. I don’t doubt their individual imagining of themselves as being all kinds of right. But as a collective, they are exactly the sort of people, who would post, share and amplify the kind of hate the Rowling and Linehan are regularly subjected to.

And to simply view any criticism of Arday as evidence of racism is itself racist, because it suggests a lesser level of scrutiny be applied to him based on his skin colour. That by dint of that fact, coupled with the additional factors the deemed him vulnerable, that he should’ve been left alone with his fantasies. If that dangerous nostrum becomes widely accepted reality – that the less white and more vulnerable one was, then the more one was shielded from press scrutiny – it would inexorably create yet another hierarchy of privilege. The kind of privilege that SUTR and the 30,000 at the vigil would be theoretically opposed to. 

Theoretically.