The life-cycle of a blog

The point about a blog, as I see it, is that it is a bulletin about thoughts and works in progress. It is not ill-considered but it is 'occasional' in the strict sense of the word, reacting to events as they happen, a 'reporting in'. Hence the idea that they can be done late at night, as you might do a diary.

It is then very strange when a blog becomes an article in a print newspaper, especially -- as has happened in the last few days -- under headlines, referring to my last post, such as 'Mary Beard raps zealots in Oxford Rhodes row', going on to say 'Classicist and TV historian Mary Beard has railed against zealots at Oxford University who want to tear down two memorials to Cecil Rhodes but ���go on using his cash���'. Now to be fair to the Daily Mail, and other papers, this was in the public domain anyway (and sometimes I am very pleased to have my blog story taken up more widely, as in the case of Norfolk archaeology); and to be fair again to the Mail, they did make it clear that my comments came from a blog not an interview (that distinction gets blurred more often than not).

All the same, somehow the whole genre and the nuance of reflective immediacy (or, to put it another way, temporary sounding off) of the original is lost under what begins to look like a consistent campaign, whether the headline is 'Mary Beard raps zealots..' or 'Rhodes scholar branded hypocrite for leading campaign to have Rhodes' statue removed criticised by Mary Beard'. Beard never actually 'rapped' anyone!

And, of course, the fact that I think (and said) that the academy has a case to answer on racism, and that I rather admire the feistiness of some of the protagonists such Ntokozo Qwabe, doesn't get much of a look in. My objection is to the removal of the statue, and to the idea that it helps anyone to efface the flawed ancestors whose money (which allows us to do many things we value) was -- to put it at its mildest -- 'tainted'. I want us to face the nasty side of our history, not to take it away from public view, and I want to empower those exploited to walk past the statues of Rhodes and others with a sense of (as I put it) 'unbatterability'.

But that is where social media and Twitter kick in to the story.

 

Again, I dont blame the tweeters; they are reacting to the newspaper reports which are some way from what I actually wrote, or at least selective quotations from it. But as soon as a little Twitter storm erupts, the limitations of the medium and its 140 characters, for good discussion becomes glaringly apparent. One person is soon saying that I am 'out of my depth', a current synonym for 'I dont agree with you', with added moral superiority (there is no in or out of depth on this issue -- any responsible citizen should be thinking or speaking about Rhodes and racism). Another is attacking me for citing in my blog only two white males (they happened to have been the articles I read in the papers that day), and goes on to imply without actually saying that I, white Cambridge woman classicist, have never talked about this issue with any people of colour (wrong, but I dont see why I should name my black friends, as a category). Another accuses me of disparaging Ntokozo Qwabe (which a quick check on Twitter would easily have shown was not the case, even though the 'criticism' gets picked up and repeated in Cherwell). And the language of non-negotiable obligation is everywhere. 'But you must understand that given the current situation, the preservation of Rhodes statue is deeply traumatic?' (my italics). And so is the language of false analogy: 'would you say the same about a statue of a notorious serial rapist of white women?'.

As I said, none of these committed people are much to blame. They have simply taken selective reports at face value. They have fallen victim to the crudifying power of 140 characters. And perhaps they have forgotten that people can share ends, but disagree about the means. There are many of us who think there is a big job to do in countering racism in the academy (as much as everywhere else), but who fundamentally reject the removal of the statue -- and our reasons  are not conservative racism. The fact that I disagree with that aspect of Rhodes Must Fall does not mean that I am 'out of my depth'.

Don't think of this as too much of a complaint.  Noone has done worse (me included, no doubt) than be a bit sloppy. But it is a microcosm of the chinese whispers that so easily becomes our 'news'.