To Kill A Wellington Mockingbird
Is no one else going to say something about this?
No one?
Wellington musician Tafara Mutingwende speaks out on false rape accusations, defamation
A former up-and-coming Wellington musician accused in a social media storm of sexual assault has spoken out about the toll the defamatory claims took on his life and career.
One man was found guilty of defamation and a woman has now agreed to apologise publicly for her unsubstantiated claims against him, but the damage has already been done for Tafara Mutingwende, also known as Theo Outlandish.
Mutingwende was one of a handful of people named on social media and accused of sexual offending. The people he accused of defaming him started posting allegations about him and others online, then reposting messages they had received on Instagram, creating a whirlwind of social media activity and real-life backlash.
The problem with B-E-L-I-E-V-E ALL women that ALL men are rapists is that the new evidential threshold is the same as the Salem Witch Trials and whatever anyone says on Twitter is an immediate fact.
Due process becomes heteronormative cis male privilege.
Every allegation needs to be taken seriously, not believed.
‘Believe all’ is problematic because it basses it moral capital on the belief that no women would lie about sexual assault where as every male will always lie.
For true believers, Tafara Mutingwende being falsely smeared is fine because it’s far better that 9 innocent men go to prison rather than allow 1 guilty man go free.
Compare the media feeding frenzy when the ‘Wellington Musician’ story first broke compared to the near silence that has been greeted by him being found innocent.
It’s almost as if ‘To Kill a Mockingbird‘ was never written.
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This is one of those myths that sits alongside “defund the police”. It’s a slogan, and it probably is better for chanting than something like “let’s take allegations of sexual harassment/abuse/rape seriously and not patronisingly dismiss them or blame the victim like we used to do in the past.” Just like defund the police means “let’s take their army style toys off them and put some of the money into mental health, so that people who are having some sort of mental health incident aren’t pumped full of lead by US police who mistake a toy truck for a gun.” You can’t chant that particularly well either.
“Jude Doyle, writing for Elle, argues that the phrase means “don’t assume women as a gender are especially deceptive or vindictive, and recognize that false allegations are less common than real ones.”
As a slogan fine, but the problem is, and will always be with emotive based slogans – people take from them a wayward truth. As this case so rightly points out.
It’s the wacky weird world of woke, soon to fall out of the galaxy. What next? Reality?
Why is the Bullshit apology from the women allowed to stand? Specifically, posting “Man who was outed on social media found guilty of rape” straight after such a shallow insincere apology. This person has no shame, nor remorse for their actions.
Combine sexual fixation plus addiction to idle gossip in a values-free, unkindly person and what you observe smells badly.