An unpleasant, but in the grand scheme of things quite minor, incident occurred at a local school yesterday. Two lads entered the premises looking for another kid they wanted to assault. The school followed protocols and was locked down until the situation was resolved. Grim enough in and of itself, but not exactly a massive piece of news.
Except, of course, on local Facebook pages, where a cast of many hang around visibly thirsting for events like this.
This isn't a post about them, however. There is something desperately sad about a million posts on the same subject, everyone breathlessly recycling the same story without checking whether it might have already been covered. It speaks to an unfulfilled existence.
Nor is this a post about Facebook and it's local pages, though they are a weird and interesting ecosystem. Were it not for running the pub, my Meta presence would be minimal, I need to be on there for work, and stuff like this is a necessary accoutrement.
No, what depressed the hell out of me was that the comments were a seething mass of assumptions that the two intruders were immigrants. There was nothing to suggest that they were, indeed, on balance of probabilities it was almost ludicrously unlikely. It didn't stop the ever-vigilant keyboard warriors of the Ormskirk Facebook Comminity Group from jumping to that conclusion though. Pictures of rafts full of migrants were shared, branded "get them all out" ( grimly hilariously, one from a bloke who lives in Thailand).
I'm writing this as news starts to filter on about the appalling attack in Manchester, and I'm seeing the same things said immediately. I saw it after that knobhead drove in to some people at the Liverpool victory parade (notable how quickly the press referred to him as a "businessman" and a "father" when he turned out to be white). We all know what happened after the horrors of Southport.
What has happened that has turned such a chunk of humanity into seething bigots? Has this always been there and we can only see it now? What the fuck is wrong with people that this rabid xenophobia is confident to stand up and be heard?
The answer is, I imagine, too complex for me to unravel here, a toxic brew of social media, thwarted lives, entitlement, a cost of living crisid, disappointment and a billionaire controlled media which is all too willing to pin the blame on brown people. Some will take their cues from the ugly rise of white evangelical ethno-nationalism over the water. I suspect, too, a lot of people's unwillingness to admit that they Brexit they voted for has been the total disaster that all us smug lefties said it would be and casting around for someone else to blame.
Plus of course, some people are just twats.
But whatever the reason may be, it feels like we are entering a darker time, like things have taken a turn for the uglier, like people are being forced to pick sides in a fight that only a few dickheads wanted, but they're dragging a shit-tonne of people in their wake.
It is incumbent upon us all, now more than ever, to remember our humanity, and remember that the people we share this eccentric, multi-ethnic, multi-faith island with are also human. It's time to remember that most people are alright, but that those who aren't should be guarded against. It's time to get the dickheads to pipe the fuck down, and make the racists afraid again.
Personally, I've fucking had it.
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