Making the Monster
I’m writing this here because the discourse around this online is messy and would rather not be publicly doing PR work for a despicable human being. As always, let me know if you think I’m talking nonsense.
Priti Patel is an interesting figure in British politics. She seems to be the most adept MP at a particular politic emerging in the British right which plays upon identity reductionism to perpetuate violences against the most vulnerable and then hide behind their identities when criticised. As Françoise Vergès puts it, “Racialised women have been accepted into the ranks of civilisational feminists on the condition that they adhere to a western interpretation of women’s rights.” While this is in the context of feminism it can quite easily be transposed to Priti Patel’s role in broader British politics.
One thing which is relatively unique to Patel is her brazen willingness to perform cruelty as theatre. An example of this is her batshit potential plans for turning the tide to push asylum seekers (aka refugees) away and/or putting them on an offshore island. Many people were rightfully outraged about this, but the problem was that many didn’t reflect on how the UK (as part of the EU) has been cosigning that approach for yeats. Refugee boats are constantly sinking in the Mediterranean. The EU has been paying money to African/Middle Eastern governments to turn them into holding centres to stop immigration. Sure there’s less science fiction bullshit, but the end result is still functionally the same - Black and Brown bodies sinking to the ocean floor.
People are more upset over the theatrics than the material harm she does because then they would have to also take a stance against the violence of borders writ large - and that largely isn’t happening. That’s part of the construction of a monster right? It creates a visible evil which we can focus on rather than having to process the cruelty of the everyday.
A large part of the reason why the Tories’ cynical identity reductionism works is because it is so easy to bait white liberals/leftists into saying something racist. You can see this with the weird leftists of #SocialistSunday twitter whose favourite hobbies of late are #overusing #hash #tags and #doxxing #Black #women to the point where they’re sent pictures of lynchings to their emails. Even leftists who don’t have the specific brain rot of Rachel Swindon acolytes tend not to have a functional understanding of how racism (and other bigotries) operate as systems of power. So they end up falling into incredibly easy traps set by bad faith actors which could be avoided by having a clear insight into how race and gender are co-substantial with class. Instead of analysing their own place in this system, racism is instead regarded as an affliction which creates distinct monsters, rather than understanding it as a technology which is used to socially order and oppress.
Since they see themselves as people (as opposed to monsters) on the right side of the racist/non-racist binary, the unconscious racial biases of the white liberals/left frequently jumps out when they talk about Patel. I’m not talking about Howard Beckett here, who said that she should be deported. While I think that using deportation as a moral consequence is shitty regardless, and a white man doing that is incredibly crass, it feels like he would have said the same thing to any other head of the Home Office. Beyond that though, a lot of the ways in which she can be seen as more ‘brash’ or ‘abrasive’ are very racialised, I just don’t comment on it publicly cos she’s a piece of shit and there are better uses of my time and energy than defending her against racism.
The actual problem is that those feelings aren’t confined to the ‘monster’. They don’t just go away when non-evil women of colour enter the picture - as you could see above with the doxxing and online harrasment largely being aimed at Black women. It can also be seen with the persistent and violent abuse endured by Diane Abbott in her 34 years as an MP, much of which came from people who were (nominally) on the left.
Creating the monster means you don’t have to deal with the system at hand. This represents the Tory approach to model minority. They take these amoral and ruthless people of colour, use them to perform acts of racialised violence and then pin the blame on them when it comes under scrutiny.
It is easier to say Priti Patel is the dastardly exception than to admit that you have ignored the gradually escalating violence of the border policies over the last two decades and the parallel advancements in the police power which skyrocketed since the War on Terror began and have never meaningfully receded.
That you advocated for an institution which left desperate people to die in the Mediterranean.
That your neigbours and family members defend bombs being rained on innocent people just by virtue of them being Muslim (or racialised as such).
That this country exercises violence after violence after violence which you directly benefit from.
At the stake our monster grins in its deeply twisted cruelty - and when we burn it we can say that all our sins blew away with its ashes.
As always you can hit me up @naijaprince21 on Twitter if you have any thoughts and feelings about this! Always appreciate your support whether that’s verbal, financial or whatever else.