The online pile-on which Carla Lockhart has been subjected to for years, has now spread to the streets. It is not about political vindication, but personal vilification. The vitriol vat has been so cooked up, it both steams and stinks. Stieg Larsson could have found in her experience inspiration for the title of one of his Lisbeth Salander novels.
I am not in any way enamoured to the politics of Carla Lockhart. One quick glance at the barricade and she will be positioned on the wrong side of it, shoulder to shoulder with obscurantism and holding the line against empathy. Her appearance alongside masked men - always at the ready to tear the veil from Muslim women as a signal of their virtuous opposition to mask wearing - at the Scarva genocide rally was unpardonable. Her role as chief cheerleader for the Drumcree dinosaurs not much better. Her views on abortion, immigration, the Irish language, religion, gay rights, and just about everything else run counter to my own. DUP to her oxters, there is little about the woman to warm to, politically. She deserves every salvo of polemical and political flak fired her way.
What she does not deserve is the chemical weapon of poisonous personal abuse online or off. That toxicity should be out of bounds, off limits. And despite hard hitting calls from Michelle O'Neill last year for the "disgraceful and unacceptable" abuse to cease, it has re-emerged with venom in recent days. Whatever about Drumcree, or a phalanx of masked men supporting Israel's continued breach of international law, the pernicious personal abuse directed against Ms Lockhart is hateful, the desire to trample over her face as objectionable as the determination to trample over Garvaghy Road.
What propels a female public representative to stand with masked supporters of genocide might be perplexing. Not so opaque is the type of hurt that propels the same woman to stand before the media to explain her situation in the face of a barrage of abuse not about what she thinks or says but about how the abusers scream she looks.
I see the online keyboard warriors have been dusting off their dictionaries and thesauruses to abuse me online, based solely on how they think I look.
It takes quite some courage for any woman to stand in front of a camera and be descriptively candid about the abuse she is taking in the sure knowledge that she has to open up about what hurts, exposing the wound to hyenas salivating at the prospect of another bite.
No woman should be subject to toxic abuse for how others claim she looks. It is not free speech being sought after here but a licence to bully. And bullying is always designed to smother free speech by recourse to intimidating people out of the public square. Bullying is never banter. It is the call sign of the malignant.
Carla Lockhart can be justly criticised for who she appears alongside, not for how she appears. To her son she is a beautiful mother, to her parents a beautiful daughter, to her husband a beautiful wife, to her siblings a beautiful sister. They are the people who count in this, no one else.
She has the courage to stand up and argue her case, unlike many who hide behind fake names to abuse her. It might be a case we find repugnant. If so, focus on her case, not her face. We have no business going there.
As for the way she looks, I wish I looked as slim. I would be much healthier for it.
It is entirely legitimate to have a go at Carla Lockhart, but with political intellect, not personal insult. Get off her back. Leave her alone.
Well said, Anthony. Dislike of the other's politics is no excuse for loss of basic decency and humanity.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I'd add is that bringing any person's appearance into it is out of order, and a sign that the person doing so has lost the argument.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Barry and Brandon
ReplyDeleteIt is totally gratuitous.
Without doubt. Opposing political views are one thing but attacking appearance that’s pond life behaviour.
ReplyDeleteVile, Gary. A cheap, easy way to bully a woman. A much as I abhor her politics, I admire her refusal to be cowed down by the trolls and screamers.
DeleteA reminder to commenters - any personal abuse directed at Carla Lockhart will be redirected to Bates and Wilkes Central where it can wallow in the muck with the rest of the insanities and inanities that find their way there.
ReplyDeleteNo exceptions.
Simon comments
ReplyDeleteCarla Lockhart said "I don't want the situation where we have this all the time on Drumcree". There hasn't been a "situation" on Drumcree for 28 years. The Orange Order in Portadown and their cheerleaders including Lockhart and Bryson are baffling in their ignorance of how their cleverly timed judicial review would be received by the Garvaghy Road residents. If not a lack of understanding then it's complicity in creating this dangerous and divisive situation.
The personal venom spat at Carla Lockhart is unacceptable. It is this type of vitriol that is mostly aimed at women. Lockhart is certainly brave standing up and speaking out. Although she is wrong in doing so and in making these arguments that are fanning the flames of division, those hurling abuse don't represent any type of politics but that of the patriarchy.
We should fight sexism and bullying in the same spirit as we fight attempts to drag society back 30 years. I guess dragging us back to 1998 isn't as bad as dragging us back to 1690 or as some racists flying the Knights of the Crusade flag on the Sydenham bypass want, to the 13th Century and Christians at war with Islam.
Atavistic politics should be rejected but in a generous spirit that wins over the unaligned and doesn't perpetuate nastiness.
Simon,
Deletecourage certainly does not make people right. Throughout history courage has been driving wrong causes.
While I grasp the sentiment. I don't necessarily agree that we should be generous to Carla Lockhart. I think we should be robust, uncompromising and assertive in refuting her political positions. But as most here seem to agree there are no grounds for seeking to humiliate her for how some thinks she appears. We should be as uncompromising in our refusal to insult her as we are uncompromising towards her political beliefs.
What child should grow up hearing that said about its mother? It simply annoys me when it happens.