Sunday 7 April 2013

Wanted: only the ' right kind' of young people

Here's one for 'Divine Mercy Sunday.' 
The British airwaves and newspapers are full of the story of the 'young person' appointed to be the first youth police crime commissioner who has been forced into making a tearful public apology (that is, serious self-abasement in a media interview) for a series of 'thoughtless and offensive remarks' made - this is the twenty-first century - on the vapid stream-of-consciousness platform known appropriately as Twitter [here].  And, wait for it, these were comments made before her appointment and unrelated to it.
Be careful, those of you growing up who want a career in public life: everything you've ever written is out there for good.
This is an example of the kind of pompous denunciation her remarks have generated:
".... Keith Vaz, [my link] the chairman of the Commons Home Affairs Select Committee said she should be removed from the post immediately.
He said: “I am deeply shocked by these disclosures. This individual must be removed from their post immediately. Public money should never be given to anyone who refers to violence, sex drunkenness and other anti-social behaviour in this offensive manner...”
Paris Brown seems to have behaved - and written - much as many typical seventeen-year-olds in our society tend to do. [But see the comment below - the comments were it seems made three years ago]  The 'opinions' (angry adolescent reactions, really)  she 'twittered,' while  stupidly vulgar and rather unpleasant to those of us not  'down with da yoof,'  were actually rather mild in comparison to some of the comments our celebrity darlings routinely post about those who dare to be out of step with them on matters of politics, (mandatory lack of) religion, and sexual behaviour.

We may have wondered whether we needed the post of a 'youth police crime commissioner ' in the first place, but we were assured that, in our atomised and tribalised society (it wasn't explained quite like that) only the young can relate to the young and are capable of relaying their needs and their fears to the rest of us. Judging from her reported remarks, Miss Brown seems well-attuned to her target demographic, surely a qualification for the job, if the job be necessary.

Well, up to point; as she is now finding out, to her cost, nice middle class liberals only want 'young people' who will mouth back to them the anodyne platitudes with which they constantly regale the rest of us. 
She has discovered - the hard way - that this is a culture which now prides itself on its 'tolerance' and its elevation of equality as the supreme good. Basic human mercy and understanding - the Divine version having been written out of the script some time ago - is not one of its attributes.


1 comment:

  1. I understand that she was 14 years old when she posted the comments.

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