Comment on Racism Pushed Jason Arday to the Top of the News Agenda
tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 3 weeks agoCan you give me examples of another academic who has suffered similar levels of witch hunt by the British media? Or are there really no other academics who do stuff like this? You know as well as I do why the witch hunt was as relentless as it was.
Even when Arday resigned his post, the witch hunt continued. I’ve heard that there journalists talked about Arday killing himself long before he did. The focus should be on the process of Arday’s appointment. It wasn’t Arday’s alleged plaigarism or alleged fantasisings that caused the media witch hunt: it was because he was lauded for being young, autistic and black. Racists can’t stand stuff like.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Can you give me another academic that’s such a Walter Mitty? His bizarre extreme claimed lifestory played a big part in the media coverage - it is silly season after all - and I can’t think of an academic like that but you may remember the case a few years ago of Nicholas Rossi, the American fugitive rapist found on a Covid ward in Scotland who fought extradition by claiming he was Irishman Arthur Knight, never even visited the US. The outlandish claims and behaviour magnified coverage of that case much as it magnified the Arday affair.
And yeah, race was a factor in the Arday case, the Heil and Telegraph can’t help themselves, but there are more sober issues which should be discussed openly - why were Arday’s colleagues, who had serious concerns - unwilling to come forward with complaints lest they be labelled as racist? Why did it take vile racists to actually get the institution to look into the matter? Isn’t something broken here?
tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Maybe not Walter Mitty (Gosh! An autistic man doesn’t manage his fantasies in the same way as neurotypicals! What a crime!) but I can give you many, many accounts of senior UK academics involved in plagiarism, falsification of data and a survey of UK academics in which one in seven admitted to plagiarism. I can also give you names of academics who have encouraged the rape of children, sexually assaulted students, theft and other forms of real criminal behaviour… I don’t doubt you could name any of these because the mainstream media didn’t whip up such a lynch mob against them. Because they were all white I suspect. And really you can’t name these because you’re hung up on Arday being a black man as well. For you and the rest of the baying mob, that’s Arday’s true crime: he’s black, autistic and was taking the seat of a privately-educated white man.
It’ll be interesting to see which of Arday’s colleagues actually come forward. My suspicion is that the none of the allegations of academic malpractice will be upheld and Arday’s autistic “fantasising” (for want of a better term) will certainly not recognised as criminality. What WILL be revealed is the extent of the lobbying done by the Race Science Network.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
So you assume that the only issue people could have with him is his identity? Thats some very dangerous pedestal building there.
tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
We’ll see. The smears against Arday are already coming undone and Cofnas has been suspended from his post. The actual dangerous aspect is that people like you pretend to be moderate while enabling racists to engage in witch hunts like this. Maybe you need to do some reflection - but my suspicion is that you actually agree with them.