Tuesday 27 March 2012

Oh, Look! CiF Does Advertising Now!

I am not in a position to say what happened that night in Thornton Heath, or what the sequence of events was that led to Townsend's death.
“But, by god, I’m going to use this CiF article to imply that women are never to blame for their own bad decisions in life, oh no, there’s always some bloody man at the bottom of it!”

I’m paraphrasing here, but not by much.
Tonight, the BBC's programme My Murder will tackle the "honey trap" case, in which teenager Shakilus Townsend was lured to his death three years ago. What I will be looking out for when I watch it will be whether this tragic death has been responsibly set within a narrative that takes into account the pervasive violence that characterises all of these young people's lives, and which often distorts, beyond recognition, the characters of the girls and young women trying to be part of this violent male world.
Ahhh, yes.

Because Dinah Senior is street, Dinah Senior is down wiv da yoof, and she knows what’s really goin’ down, out there on the mean streets.

Even if she’s about as street as Vanilla Ice.

But tell us, Dinah, what’s really goin’ on out there?
… what I hear on the frontline is that girls are not out there "doing it for themselves". In fact, it is quite the opposite: they are submitted to a violent male culture in which they struggle to define a role for themselves, often and inevitably by whatever means necessary.
*sigh*

But Dinah’s not the standard issue feminist nutjob, using her space in CiF to push the same old tropes. Oh, no indeed. Dinah is a Senior Partner for Coreplan UK.

Dinah makes a tidy living as ‘a practitioner and consultant in the serious youth violence sector with an interest in the effects of violence on children and young people’ who has ‘developed psychosocial programmes for girls and young women drawn into violent and gang-related lifestyles’.

Which is no doubt why she ‘really hopes that’…
…My Murder will give a full and fair representation of all the characters involved in this tragedy, and genuinely explore how and why it is possible that so many of our young people put themselves and others at such serious risk of harm in their efforts to be safe.
Because, for her, it’s a payday.

4 comments:

Jiks said...

"our young people put themselves and others at such serious risk of harm in their efforts to be safe."

Oddly enough my "efforts to be safe" have never required me to lure someone to a place where they can convienently be killed for no readily apparent reason.

Do the people that write this sort of drivel really believe their own words? Hard to credit TBH.

In short, totally with you on this one, Julia.

Tattyfalarr said...

"our young people put themselves and others at such serious risk of harm in their efforts to be safe."

Due to a lack of consequences/medication/imprisonment for any kind of antisocial behaviour...from toddlers battering each other in nursery school to pissed-up drug addicts stamping people to death in broad daylight on the street and everything in-between...it's come right to a simple choice:

"kill or be killed".

Where do I collect my fee ?

Anonymous said...

Be fair, she's only advertising the Guardian's own broadcasting arm, the BBC.

JuliaM said...

"Do the people that write this sort of drivel really believe their own words?"

I doubt it. But they certainly believe in a healthy bank balance.

"...a lack of consequences/medication/imprisonment for any kind of antisocial behaviour.."

Spot on!