Almost three years ago, a feminist activist committed what many not-so-impartial observers apparently see as an unpardonable sin: she was less than polite to a small squad of Men’s Rights activists at a demonstration in Toronto. At least one of these gentlemen caught her outburst on video, and uploaded it to YouTube.
You know the rest: the video went viral, and the activist, a red-headed woman known as Chanty Binx (or “Big Red,” to the douchebag army), found herself suddenly transformed into “The Posterchild of Everything Wrong with Feminism,” as one of her haters put it. Her face has become ubiquitous in antifeminist memes, and she’s endured nearly three years of harassment.
Earlier this month, antifeminist YouTuber Sargon of Akkad — who makes his living pandering to some of the internet’s worst lady haters — posted an animated video by another antifeminist YouTuber in which an angry Islamist and an angry feminist sing a song explaining that they pretty much believe all the same things. (For some reason, this nonsensical theory is something that a lot of antifeminists have convinced themselves is true.)
The angry Islamist in the video is a familiar racist stereotype, complete with “funny” accent. [Correction: He’s evidently supposed to be a parody of this guy, known as Dawah Man, a legitimately terrible person you wouldn’t think atheists would have to strawman in order to criticize..]
The angry feminist, meanwhile, isn’t a generic figure; she’s an especially crude caricature of Binx, spouting nonsense that neither Binx nor any other feminist actually believes: the video ends with her encouraging the Islamist to rape her, because it’s not really rape if a Muslim does it, dontchaknow.
It’s a vicious, hateful little cartoon made worse by the fact that these words are being put in the mouth of a real woman who’s been the target of a vast harassment campaign for years.
Yesterday, Richard Dawkins, apparently seeing this horrendous video as a clever takedown of some brand of feminism that he must think actually exists, shared it with his 1.3 million Twitter followers:
Dawkins, a well-respected scientist-turned-embarrassing-atheist-ideologue, has become notorious for his endless Twitter gaffes. But this is plainly worse than, say, his famously pathetic lament about airport security “dundridges” taking his jar of honey; his Tweet contributed to the demonization of a real woman who’s already the target of harassment and threats.
The awesome Lindy West pointed this out to him in a series of Tweets and linked to one of my posts cataloging some of the abuse Binx got after the video of her went viral.
In a series of eloquent and angry Tweets, she made clear to Dawkins how and why he was misusing his huge platform and contributing to an atmosphere of hate online. Dawkins, alternately indignant and defensive, ultimately took down the offending Tweet, but not before making other Tweets that were nearly as bad. Dawkins can’t even do the right thing without being a dick about it.
Let’s watch Lindy at work:
After what was apparently an unsatisfactory response from Dawkins — I couldn’t find his Tweet, if there was one — West repeated and expanded upon her basic points. [EDIT: The unsastisfactory respose, West tells me, was that Dawkins posted a link to one of the videos of Chanty Binx at the Toronto demonstration.]
Well, that got his attention:
So there you have it: when informed that a tweet of his will almost certainly worsen the vicious harassment faced by a young woman whose only “crime” was being rude to a couple of MRAs in public, Richard Dawkins, a one-time winner of the American Humanist Association’s Humanist of the Year Award, replies by saying that “she deserves nothing more than ridicule.”
West replied:
Dawkins then decided to suggest that perhaps Binx was, you know, crazy:
Dawkins ultimately agreed to take down his Tweet linking to the execrable video. But he offered no apology. And he went on to suggest that just maybe Binx had … threatened herself.
We’ve seen this, er, argument before.
Does Dawkins have any conception of just how much abuse women like Chanty Binx get? If she were sending herself all the threatening and harassing messages she gets, she wouldn’t have time to eat or sleep.
And I wonder if Dawkins thinks she drew the caricature of herself that was used in the video he retweeted.
Thoughtful as ever, Dawkins made sure to remind his 1.3 million followers that Binx still deserved all the mockery they could deliver. Just not the death threats please!
And he begged his readers to think about the real victims here — those people, like him, who might have to curtail their mockery somewhat because their terrible, terrible fans might be inspired to hurt someone.
RIP, Richard Dawkins’ comedy career.
Is Dawkins actually unaware that by punching down at a woman who’s already been the target of a three year harassment campaign he almost certainly is contributing to the threats he claims to deplore? It’s hard for me to believe that he could be so naive. But the alternative explanation — that he knows full well that he’s encouraging the harassers — is even more disquieting.
One good thing has come out of this ugly episode today: The Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism has un-invited Dawkins from its event this year. A post on the group’s website today explains:
The Northeast Conference on Science & Skepticism has withdrawn its invitation to Richard Dawkins to participate at NECSS 2016. We have taken this action in response to Dr. Dawkins’ approving re-tweet of a highly offensive video.
We believe strongly in freedom of speech and freedom to express unpopular, and even offensive, views. However, unnecessarily divisive, counterproductive, and even hateful speech runs contrary to our mission and the environment we wish to foster at NECSS. The sentiments expressed in the video do not represent the values of NECSS or its sponsoring organizations.
We will issue a full refund to any NECSS attendee who wishes to cancel their registration due to this announcement.
The NECSS Team
Good for them. The atheist movement needs to stand up to the haters and harassers in its midst, including those like Dawkins, who may not directly harass or threaten but who use their huge platforms to amplify and embolden this hatred and harassment.
It would be nice if Dawkins were to actually learn something — a little humanity, a little humility? — from this incident, but when it comes to the subject of feminism Dawkins seems incapable of taking in new information, much less learning anything from it.
EDITED TO ADD: And now, as if to prov what I just said in that previous paragraph, Dawkins is now second-guessing his decision to take down his tweet linking to the video, because GamerGaters are telling him that Chanty and I made up the evidence of the abuse she got.
NOTE: Lindy West has a book coming out soon. Pre-order it below!
CORRECTION: I added a bit noting that the Islamist in the cartoon video is supposed to be a parody of a real person.
EDIT: I added a line about Dawkins tweeting a link to a video of Chanty Binx at the Toronto demonstration.
thanks Alan.
But what about the licence conditions about him not talking about the muslim prophet mohammed or the police in speaking engagements? does that make any sense to you?
And the issue of the mortgage that was already paid back to the mortgage company 8 years before he was arrested. does that not mean that the police were searching for something to nail him for?
Tommy owned 7 rental properties and a tanning shop and a plumbing business. The house in question belonged to his brother in law and Tommy said he only lent him the 20 grand deposit and signed off on the false info that his brother in law wrote on the form. Does that sound right or could he be lying ? Tommy said he pleaded guilty because he was threatened with having his brother in law and his wife arrested in connection of this and was afraid of his wifes photograph becoming public because he has worked very hard not to have her likeness known. He says he never even goes out in public with her in case she gets known as his wife and becomes under threat like he is.
He says they were searching hard to find fraud or money laundering in his businesses but couldn’t come up with anything so started looking into his family.
no i dont think prison officers were horrible to him because he doesn’t like muslims, he has spoke well of the prison officers he has dealt with except he claims the higher ups were putting him in danger on purpose. He gave examples in the interview of prison officers who saved his life and even when he bashes the higher ups in the police he sticks up for the police who arrested him. I have read his book and seen many interviews of his and he often says the cops who arrest him even for bullshit reasons were just doing their job and following orders from the higher ups.
If its normal for someone to be put in prison for an 8 day period with the worst of the worst serving 25+years for gruesome murders than that is just really sad, I think that should never happen no matter who it is
but still, buying, fixing up and then selling a house 8 years ago and then paying off the mortgage 18 months later and then being prosecuted 8 years later and been forced to pay 125 grand to the government, even if that was his own house and he technically broke the law in lying in his mortgage application even though the mortgage company never lost any money, how would that even come about unless they were looking for anything to nail him? and thats if it was even his own house, it wasn’t, it was his brother in law, all he did was pay the 20 grand deposit and sign off on the false info his bro in law provided on the form. Thats if he is telling the truth, does this sound like he could be lying?
He had 7 houses and at least two businesses that he owned but they couldn’t get any dirt on that so they went to some 8 year old property transaction that nobody lost money one and the company that was supposed to be a victim was paid in full and profited. that really sounds like they were looking to nail him don’t you think?
Fraud gets prosecuted when it gets discovered, not when it happens, and it doesn’t become legal because it doesn’t happen to harm the defrauded party in that instance. If someone knowingly files false paperwork in a financial transaction it’s probably because they don’t think the other side would give them the same terms if they knew the truth and there’s probably a reason the other side doesn’t want to.
They would have discovered the fraud because they went looking for it because they had some reason to suspect they’d find something. And they did.
OTD IS STILL TEAL DEERING IN THIS THREAD!?
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Ha. Completely unrelated, but the Brazilian Portuguese literal translation “mijando fora da bacia” is an old ugly way to say someone has been having gay sex.
HAHAHAHA in what universe do you live?!
I am fairly white passing. I was stopped three times by immigration in Munich. I had to show personal pictures to prove I really was going to be with my boyfriend. I had all documents they asked and MORE, but I didn’t have much money, nor do I look rich. And I am a young Latina, so they were certain I was going to prostitute and he was pimping me. I almost got sent home and forbid to visit Germany for 3 years without doing anything. Imagine if I had fake documents!
Must be nice to be a white male western who thinks 10 months is harsh for a fake passport.
@Arash Tango
http://i.imgur.com/3bgXTFJ.gif
I wasn’t talking about what happened to him in America but when he came back to the UK. Its nothing to do with being a white male either. Jamilia Henry is a black muslim woman who stole her sisters passport and used it to try and travel to ISIS terrority.She was stopped by Turkish police when trying to travel into Syria to rejoin ISIS and was sent back and she only got a 12 month suspended prison sentence.` That is one of the examples Tommy used to show he was treated harshly as he went to New York for one weekend to give a speech at a 9/11 remembrance event and came back and was given 10 months in prison in England. But Jamilia stole a passport to join a mass murdering extremist group and was not jailed. She was already part of ISIS anyway, she had already been there and married an ISIS fighter and came back and police and MI5 knew this, and then she tried to go back again on her sisters passport to rejoin him.
Alan has said that Tommys treatment in that case was not unusual. But doesn’t that mean that Jamilia was being treated far more lenient than usual? It was also two crimes, one using someone elses passport and the other travelling abroad for the purpose of joining a terrorist group.
http://i.imgur.com/n2l7xwZ.gif
@SFHC:
I like that gif reel, but somehow, it will always seem heartrendingly incomplete without the finest moment of Roosh’s life included.
@WWTH:
Well, at least OTD might get the thread to 1000 posts all on his own.
Rabid Rabbit,
I guess I should be careful what I wish for, huh? I feel this is all my fault.
http://i.123g.us/c/gen_sorry/card/318856.gif
But his brother in law who did the fraud by lying about his income on a mortgage form in 2006 was not prosecuted so they were not interested in prosecuting the fraud just looking to nail him.
its not that they suspected they would find something, they wanted to find something. They have also lied about him to bring false charges. The time when he was tried for assaulting police when some muslim extremists were burning poppies and british flags in a protest and he jumped a barricade and snatched a flag from one of them and was immediately jumped on by the police. The police claimed he punched them and they were not aware of there being a video of what really happened. When his lawyer produced the video in court the case was dismissed but if he didn’t have that video then it would be another conviction that his haters would be talking about. After this bogus charge being kicked out he was arrested again for causing alarm and distress to these protesters and given a fine.
Also what do you think of the situation of a man being put in prison for 8 days for a non violent crime but being housed in a maximum category prison, in a prison wing full of men serving 20+ years for gruesome murders?
Alan has said how this can happen to anybody due to previous behavior and shortage of space which I think is horrible and should never happen to anybody, no matter who they are they should not be locked up with murderers doing life if they are only doing 8 days.
But especially if its a widely hated public figure doesn’t that seem like the prison failed in its duty of care? especially if they refused his request to be in solitary? Tommy was only given solitary after a Somali gangster serving a 28 year sentence tried to murder him on his second day. But what did they expect to happen? The man was paid to do that by muslim extremists in the prison and was paid with weed!
Tommy believes that the government wanted him to be murdered in prison and doesn’t that seem believable?
Tommy has been violently attacked at least 3 times while being filmed by film crews, you can see the videos on youtube. So why weren’t the men arrested? These men knew they could violently attack him while being filmed and get away with it because of who he is. its not that he didn’t press charges he has provided the proof of wanting to have these men arrested but they didn’t want to do that. If Tommy walked up and punched someone while being filmed by film crews he would be arrested, you know he would, if he even dropped a bit of litter in front of police he would be arrested, so why weren’t these men arrested? one was Sayful Islam, a well known muslim extremist, not just an everyday normal muslim, while Tommy was being filmed by a documentary crew and stuck in traffic in the muslim area of Luton, the guy walks up and punched Tommy in the face while he was sitting in the car.
Nobody is reading this shit. You’re begging to get banned.
what difference does it make to you anyway? i’m not disrupting a thread and nobody was posting on this comment thread until I replied to two replies directed at me, and then you saw there were new comments due to that little side box so you went and posted that, why? it just makes you angry that people you dont like post replies to people replying to them on old threads that you weren’t reading anyway? how does that make sense?
This is a world famous, popular website but barely anybody comments here except for a handful of regulars, why do you think that is? Its obvious why, because of the regulars on this comment board. I even saw one of the regulars say that the other day. Rugbyrobi or something like that.
if you don;t want to read it, don’t read it. It wasn’t for you or anybody else apart from the people leaving those replies to me
Can we ban him now?
Police in the US do this approximately all the time so no one here is going to find this sort of thing shocking.
That said, police reform is a very worthy cause, you should go somewhere else and work on that.
Seriously, move along. The internet is pretty large, there has to be more appropriate places for your endlessly hand wringing over the many tragedies befalling your favorite racist soccer hooligan.
so why did you come onto this comment thread? You saw I was posting replies on a thread you weren’t reading anyway right? so why do you care?
Why did you come to this blog if you just wanted to write endless screeds on how racists are being oppressed? Shoo! Go somewhere else with this shit.
Yes, I will give up commenting here after this thread. The people here are part of the regressive left. Dave Rubin said that the regressives are the lefts tea party and I agree with him.
Its interesting how even on the thread on roosh people here said doxxing against him is morally wrong.But they are okay with a man being sent to prison for 8 days for a non violent crime but being housed with murderers and terrorists doing 20+ years who want to kill him and being refused his request for solitary. Yes that is when you know they are on the regressive left.
Yes the punishment for having an opinion on Islam you don’t like should be the prison service willfully neglecting their duty of care and knowingly putting you at risk of being killed.
Nobody is asking how the fuck could a man being locked for 8 days for a non violent crime who is also despised by muslims for being an activist against islam be locked up in a prison wing with muslim terrorists and murders doing 20+ year sentences and being refused his request of solitary. He was only given solitary after a muslim serving a 28 year sentence tried to murder him on his second day, which is what the government wanted to happen except they wanted him completely dead, that is undeniable.
Tommy is not a racist, Islam is not a race. Even if you want to say he uses Islam or Muslim as a code word for non whites that is also bullshit. I follow him on twitter and he often posts photographs of him and his friends on nights out, holidays and weddings and he has plenty of non white friends.
You can look up the first media interview the EDL did when it was I think still a local group in Luton, a very multiracial town, most of the guys were black. its the one where they all wore masks and burnt a swastika flag. He also has many Sikh and Hindu supporters and friends. His recent planned speaking engagement at a Hindu event with some of the Hindu leadership, they cancelled him being there because of the regressive left, it wasn’t that the regressives informing them of who he was because they obviously knew that already, it was because they didn’t want to deal with a bunch of bullshit from the regressives and have the UAF (violent leftists) protesting their event etc
Fuck off, you racist little troll.
he is not a racist, you think he is racist because you are part of the regressive left. You think if anybody speaks against Islam then they are racist. How absurd.
So, we’ve achieved worldwide fame for being ebil meanie pants feminists? Victory!
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I am racist for saying someone else is not racist right? I’d bet Tommy has more non white friends and family members then you.
What have I said that is racist? seriously? what does racist mean?
Seriously though. I’m really quite baffled that an MRA right wing racist Islamophobic reactionary is surprised he wasn’t welcomed with open arms.
Saddest troll ever.
Who’s more of an entitled asshole while pretending to be polite, sweet, and civil? OTD or Michelle Tanner?
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Just look at the evil lurking in that facial expression!