paul mckenna
This is a really important part of the issue in my opinion.
If a private citizen is being accused of rapey stuff by the people around him, then it’s a good idea to respect and maintain the anonymity of that citizen especially beyond the parameters of the place in which those allegations are happening. It’s then incumbent on the people with authority to examine and explore those allegations, to see if charges should be laid.
So if a teacher is the target of the allegations, suspend the teacher and investigate but don’t broadcast the allegations. If it’s untrue, it gives them a chance to get back to a normal life.
But if the person is in the public eye, has influence and and audience, those allegations need to be aired more widely. Because if a public person has allegations like this laid against them by people outside their immediate circle, it’s always in the context of their public persona, their public behaviour. As such, silencing the rumours shades into collusion.
The silence around this stuff perpetuates the issue, and further supports rape culture.
This is obviously problematic though. What if a public person gets a bad rep or bad press because they‘re non-conforming or a bit left field. The idiocy about drag artists reading in libraries for instance.
What I’m saying is that RB doesn’t get to claim victim status here. There’s enough noise to support the idea that he’s creepy and inappropriate and problematic and therefore needs to be under scrutiny. He’s not a private person, he’s very public, and as such his behaviour is part of the public domain and needs to be kept under observation. Regardless of anything that results from the current furore.
He’s a whole field of red flags.
Red flags don’t condemn the individual, they alert the people who might be in their sphere of influence.
