Adulting - #74 Racism, Cancel Culture & Police Abolition with Chanté Joseph

Episode Date: July 19, 2020

Hey Podulters, in this episode I speak to journalist, presenter and soon to be author Chanté Joseph. We discuss her recent appearance on ITV's 'Has Britain Changed', what cancel culture really is and why police abolition isn't that radical. I hope you enjoy, as always please do rate, review and subscribe! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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and also itv's has britain changed which was on thursday i think if you haven't watched that i would also maybe recommend watching it before you listen as a lot of the conversation is centered around that panel talk because it was very interesting to watch it in light of recent protests and conversations how the media sort of frames these issues so we spoke about cancel culture we spoke about the abolition of the police and we also spoke about how black women are framed in the media and shantae's personal experience with trolling and abuse online. I really hope you enjoy the episode. I think it's amazing. And as always, please do rate, review and subscribe. Bye. Hello and welcome to Adulting. Today I'm joined by Shantae Joseph.

Hey. How are you doing? I am doing okay on this really grey Saturday morning. I know, I thought it was meant to be really hot today. I was so excited. It looks crap. I wish it was sunny as well. I just feel so swindled by the weather. I know, I was planning for like a big weekend and now tomorrow it's meant to be raining. This is just bullshit. But at least I get to chat to you, so thank you for joining me. So for people who don't know who you are and your work, could you give us a little introduction to you and what you do? So, yeah, I'm Shonda, as you already said. And I do a lot of things.

I wear quite a few hats. Mainly, I do a lot of writing, a lot of journalism on a range of topics. It could be anything from, you know, Love Island through to Black Lives Matter, through to race and identity, to music. So I just love writing. I love interviewing people. I love speaking to people. And that's like a large chunk of what I do. But I do actually have a normal job and I work at an agency and I do social content for their clients. And I also do a little bit of like presenting so I did a short series of channel four called how not to be racist um and I've done a few other bits as well and I'm also writing a book about the black British power movement with uh Jacaranda the publisher and they are publishing um a couple of black British authors first ever uh debut non-fiction pieces so yeah I'm like I I do

all the things but a lot of it tends to be you know around the the realms of like race identity feminism activism um kind of all in that space basically that is so exciting about your book I definitely cannot wait to read that I'm sure it'll be amazing but we've as you said we've seen you on our screens so much I absolutely loved your like mini series you did with channel four and I've just watched has Britain changed the panel that you were on for ITV and you were amazing was it presenting something you've always wanted to go into because you seem so natural at it um yes definitely like I I really do enjoy it. I really love speaking. I love debating. I love all of that stuff. And if I could do more of it, I'd honestly be so happy. Yeah, something I've done for a long time, like when I was in school, I used to do youth parliament. And so because of that, I used to do a lot of like media appearances, particularly around when we did campaigns like votes at 16 and kind of all of that jazz. So it's very much like a comfortable space for me. Yeah, that makes so much sense because you did look so comfortable.

And I really want to talk about that show, actually, because I was watching it and I was like, I'm a white woman, it's not even my place to get annoyed. And I was like, oh my God, I don't know how you are staying so calm. So for people who don't know, could you give us a little explanation of what that was and what it was about and and how did you feel that it it went um so has britain changed was basically a program to get people to reflect on the 27 um years since steven lawrence's death and essentially it was about saying has society changed you know since the mcpherson report into you know police corruption and institutional racism in the police and, you know, all of these different bits of like inquiries and legislation, have things actually changed? So they brought together a panel, really interesting

panel. You had, you know, John Barnes, who was like, I think the first black England player who faced a lot of racism. Sean Bailey, who is the mayoral candidate for the Conservative Party, he's also black. Then you have David Olashoga, who is a black historian. And you had Stephen Lawrence's brother as well, and as well as randomly John Humphreys. And it was just a conversation about, you know, do we feel like things have changed? And they got some, they commissioned some data, basically surveying people's views about racism in the UK. And honestly, all of the data was so bleak. Most people felt like racism had either stagnated or increased.

Nobody felt like overall it had gotten better. And they spoke so much about racism in education, racism in sport, in media. And it was quite, yeah, it was quite a damning piece of data. And essentially, we were the ones to discuss that. So I felt like everyone on the panel, aside from John Humphries, and the woman from the head of the Met Police, or I can't remember what her position was, was pretty much au fait and understanding like that data that had been collated. And I think anyone that's of a generation that's a Twitter user on social media, who's engaging with this conversation, would have not like been shocked by that. But I think anyone that's of a generation that's a Twitter user on social media who's engaging with this conversation would have not been shocked by that.

But I think what happens when these conversations get distilled in mainstream media is it goes straight back to this really basic argument of whether or not there even is institutionalized racism. And it's really frustrating to watch after what's been going on to see that like even in the mainstream like that hasn't got better that conversation was amazing that it happened but it still wasn't at the level that we've been talking about like so many more people than normal have been talking about for a long time were you expecting it to be slightly more elevated in terms of like the actual level of understanding that people had or were you not shocked that it kind of is still a bit stuck? That's the thing I think discussions around racism in Britain the whole discourse around race is is so basic we're still very much stuck on does racism exist and because of that when we saw

everything that happened with George Floyd and we saw people talking about institutional racism in Britain you know a lot of people were shocked by it because they still didn't really understand that this even existed and I think that that really slow sort of like very basic discourse was also carried on to the show and I think for me anyway I was so much more interested in I have known racism existed in this country forever and I'm beyond explaining and proving it to people. And I'm now in the business of solutions. I'm now in the business of getting uncomfortable, getting our hands dirty and actually figuring out how we deal with this, as opposed to trying to convince people that I, you know, have experienced

this and convince people of my humanity. And one of the things that people kept talking about on the show, particularly Sean Bailey and John Humphries was, you know, we need to get people to, to, we need to change the perception of black people in this country. And we need to be at the higher echelons of society and we need to be representative and in all of these different organizations and as much as yes representation is important representation is not going to save us do you know what I mean like representation in a lot of problematic institutions doesn't actually do anything to to stop racism happening and um that is kind of one of the biggest generational disconnects I think between maybe my generation and Sean Bailey and John Barnes's generation. And I also feel like, I wouldn't say that I'm radical, but I'm so much

more forward thinking and imaginative around how I not only talk about racism, but talk about its solutions. And for a lot of people, if you're only just learning that racism exists, when you hear people talking about this is what needs to happen, these institutions need to no longer resist, or this legislation needs to be passed, that is such an intimidating thing, because you're still at step one. And I do feel like the media has such a huge role to play in helping to push that discourse. It's not enough for us to debate our identity and humanity anymore and our experiences. But let's actually start actually start you know to put the fire under the feet of people who hold power and and make real change yeah and and to the point you said because at one point Sean Bailey said oh I think it's really like problem not problematic but it's like

unhelpful when we talk about white privilege and you were quite rightly like no we have to radicalize our language like evidently the issue here is that white people aren't listening and and changing and how how does that feel in the I mean it must be very difficult when you have another black person kind of saying something which is at odds to what you think is going to bring the movement forward because we know and we see it in more extreme cases someone like Candace Owens in America that when we you have a black spokesperson that's perhaps saying similar things to what is going to make white people feel more comfortable, I can imagine that can be a really tricky thing to navigate because you're on the same page and then you're suddenly not.

Yeah, this is the thing. I think this is what a lot of media programs do. Even last week when I was on Sunday Morning Live and they had me and then they had another black woman who was, you know, head president of the Free Speech Union. And it's like, this is what they do in order to derail our very real experiences and concerns and push for change. They get somebody else who's black to be like, actually, I don't identify with that at all.

Like, that's not real. We should be able to say what we want. And it's like, it's quite sad actually, because it's part of the reason why the, like the discourse is so behind, because we constantly have people planted in different industries and areas to constantly derail the conversation.

And yeah, it is quite upsetting and it is quite annoying because a lot of people are just fed up and tired and they don't really want to do what about me anymore they just want to get on with things and it just feels so frustrating when you know I've had these lived experiences my friends have had these lived experiences and I want to use the platform that I have or the any platform that I'm given to really speak about that and really push for change and then I have somebody who looks just like me saying the exact opposite of what I want to say. And it really is frustrating and it's done on

purpose and it's quite sad. But for me, I just think I need to keep on using my platform to speak my truth and the truth of others around me. But yeah, it really does get frustrating. I think you handled the whole thing so well though because it was very on purpose like provocative some of the things like John Humphrey was saying it was just so frustratingly ignorant that it makes you want to like scream because it's kind of like I mean you you get those things sometimes where you're like you almost lose all sense of being able to argue when you know that the person on the other end is just going to keep going they're not really listening they want to be he said something like oh my god he was like oh my children um I thought

he was going to say that my children have never experienced racial prejudice that's what it sounded like he was about to say but he went on to say my children have never been racist and it's like you it's he I don't know why he was on that festival like he's evidently he's too old and he's white like he's just not going to get it. But even the woman from the Met Police, she was like, she was doing like politician speak, kind of evading the question and going back to this whole thing of like, she was also kind of, but she didn't say it,

but it sounded like she was saying like black on black violence without saying it. That's what she was. Yeah. Did you think that? A hundred percent. And this is one thing that frustrates me about these shows, right?

You have seven people on a panel who all have, you know, strong voices. They're all high profile in their own right. And somebody says something that is slightly off. And it's like, you don't want to, you don't want to leave the conversation too much, but you do want to address it. But it's so hard to actually address it

because it's like oh like now we have to go down this whole route and I've only got about you know one minute to get my point across properly because we're going to go into an ad break or we're going to go into more data and it's like oh that really frustrated me especially because that whole black on black crime thing is like a huge thing that comes up to derail a lot of the conversations around things like police brutality yesterday um there was a video that kind of went viral of a met police officer kneeling on a black man's neck this was here in the uk that video obviously went viral the officer was um suspended and put on like administrative leave or whatever but when i tweeted about it a lot of people were

saying things like well he shouldn't have been carrying a knife and black people shouldn't be doing this stuff to each other and blah blah blah and these rhetorics are always used to kind of justify an excessive amount of force used against us and like when you even think about things like like black on black crime even though that's literally like not a thing like you have to think about where people are if you live in a predominantly black neighborhood and the the proximity or the the the likelihood of black on black crime is going to be so much higher than you live in if you live in an integrated or if you live in a predominantly white neighborhood also like policing in communities in black communities are like it is done so excessively that of course you're going to have people who are overrepresented in things like

criminal justice system and all that kind of jazz so it's like all of these things are larger structural issues and when people say well you know why should we care about the police killing you if you guys kill each other it's like i can't believe this is the rhetoric that is coming out of people's mouths now. And one thing I really wish I was able to get across on that show is the fact that, like, liberation for Black people is liberation for all people. We are not free until we are all free. And the same systems with which the state will, you know,

subjugate Black bodies and, you know, ruin our communities and underinvest in us is the same way they will do it to everybody else. And I think that is the one thing that I wanted people to take home. It's like, you can't separate the issue of racism from your own life, because if this is how the state thinks it's acceptable to treat a group of people and it works, what's to say that you won't be next do you know what i mean i i think people really need to understand that and they need to stop separating themselves from the issue of racism or saying oh it's a black on black crime thing or blah blah

finding ways to justify you know really awful police activity because honestly anybody can be subject to it we all live under the same state so why would it make sense for someone to be treated one way and and you not so it is it is really it's really interesting and there's just so much I wish I could say but that black on black crime point like it really jarred me but the quickness with which these conversations happen everybody has a one-line zinger you have a one moment to make a salient point but actually when it comes to discussing racism like we need spaces where we can talk about this in much more detail like we can't just you know have catchy phrases or you know sound bites like that is not

gonna solve things and it's also not giving the public the opportunity to learn more and be educated so yeah it's just it's so frustrating I completely agree and I thought that when I was watching it I was like shit I wouldn't I'm not very good at not talking so I think I would have found it really hard to condense my point um I got quite convoluted with stuff and it takes me ages to get to my point but what I also thought was really damaging is that even though she never said like black on black you know that what she was saying is that and what's problematic about that you're on a show that's supposed to be talking about changing and she was like feeding in this these ideas that we already have and probably that show is going to go

out to an audience of people that aren't educated on this issue and so it's just reinforcing their ideas and as you say you then don't have the chance so whilst it seems progressive you don't have any opportunity to like kind of delve into what she's saying and be like do you realize that even what you're saying right now is an example of institutionalized racism um and it was another point that was coming up as well again it shouldn't really talk give him so much air time classic taking up space but john hamphrey's like oh it's improved so much as if that's fine as if it's to be like well we're not being doing like beating you up anymore so you much, as if that's fine, as if it's to be like, well, we're not being,

doing, like, beating you up anymore, so are you not happy that that's, like, that's not happening? I just couldn't believe that he, like, he'd gone, well, it's not as bad as it was, and the last thing, because I want to hear more from you, but back to the crime thing, like, we know that men disproportionately commit the most crime, and there's never something called man-on-man crime. Right, right. It really is, it is really frustrating, and there's never something called man-on-man crime right right it really is it is really frustrating and it's annoying as well because even having john john humphries there as a voice like when they told me that they were having him on i was like why this is literally a conversation about has britain changed for black people and you've got this like okay i know he's

not a random white guy i know he's like you know a big a big deal but at the same time he didn't need to be there and it's annoying because it constantly feeds into this idea that like black people can only have discussions that are valued if there is a white person there do you know what i mean like it's and it just kind of feels like in the films you watch there always has to be a white savior there always has to be a white protagonist and the black characters are just back back up dancers basically and that's literally what it felt like in this case it's like he did not have to contribute to that conversation all he did was derail derail derail when we were talking about education being a way

through which people can unlearn like their racist socialization he was saying things like well white white working class boys are the most disadvantaged when it comes to education. And it's like, yes, that is a true point. But that's absolutely not what we're talking about today. And I don't want to derail our very valid conversation. And that's literally what so many white people do in these debates. They just derail, derail, derail. And it's really frustrating because it's an important conversation that we need to have that as much as I may not have agreed with people like, you know,

John Barnes or Sean Bailey, it was an intergenerational conversation between Black people that we really needed to have. And we really needed to show the generational disconnect. And we needed people from the older generation to understand the younger generation. We needed people from the younger generation to understand the younger generation we needed people from the younger generation to understand the older generation and that was happening so well and then you just had like John Humphreys who just contributed nothing to the conversation it was like it was beyond frustrating. And to the point about young white men not being educated that's a conversation around class so when they're talking about austerity or when we're talking about voting talk about it then which they don't either it's just centering whiteness at a point to kind of

as you say like derail the conversation I want to try and not talk about him because it's so annoying that even now he's fucking taking up space so the one thing that I've massively been educating myself on is this idea of police abolition because I remember watching 13th years ago but I'd never really like tied into really really like conceptualize the fact that as you spoke about so eloquently the police is literally designed to oppress black people I wonder if you could speak on that with a bit more clarity and explain it because I think it's a really crucial part of the argument that's getting pushed aside as if it's so radical when actually once it's broken

down it makes complete sense that's the thing like like police abolition for me as well was something that I think deep down I always knew that needed to happen but I didn't have the language the knowledge and most importantly the imagination to conceptualize a society that didn't have police police is like we live in a police society we live in a surveillance society we have police in our films we have police in our media police as a staple part of how we kind of function is so embedded in us that the moment that i heard that we could live in a society without police i literally tweeted about it was like seeing a new color i was like oh my god like it makes sense because when i used to complain about you know police brutality and people would be like well what's the solutions what's the solutions and I was like oh maybe we need more black police

officers or maybe they need like training but realistically those things have been happening and nothing has changed so the only thing we can do is actually tackle the reason why we need police in the first place and that's because of crime and crime is so much like people talk about crime as if it's random but crime is not random it is a result of like deprivation it is a result of you know grooming it's like it's a it's something that builds up in people over time as a result of their surroundings so what can you do to ensure that people don't grow up in a place that eventually leads them to crime? You solve serious issues. You make sure that kids aren't growing up in poor communities and that they have opportunities, job opportunities, they have

education, they have counselling. Do you know what I mean? They come from households where they are nurtured and loved and appreciated and not neglected. You invest in the welfare state, you invest in social services. Do you know what I mean? And when people talk about police abolition, it's not something that just happens one day. We're not just going to vote tomorrow to abolish the police and there's no police, but it is a gradual and slow process of taking money out of police and surveillance budgets and investing it back into communities and resources and all of that jazz. But it's also about as a kind of community and as a society, how we help each other. When we think of a lot of the crime that happens,

if kids were taught better how to de-escalate situations. Imagine how much we could avoid. It's so much of it is also just about like soft skills and giving kids the space to understand themselves and understand interpersonal relationships and how to kind of build a better society and what they can do as individuals. But when you talk about police abolition, people are like, well, what are we going to do about,

you know, rapists and murderers and serial killers but it's it's not necessarily about having a society that's punitive but more that is one that is preventative and on the on the show I kind of spoke about the fact that 50% of people that go to prison end up re-offending we don't have a prison system that reforms people we have a prison system that keeps people we have a prison system that keeps people trapped and they also use people in prison as a source of of cheap labor so people like you're almost incentivized to have people go into prison to be a source of cheap labor so they can further exploit them do you know what i mean so it's it is like everything about our justice system is just it just doesn't work. There is no space for rehabilitation. There is no space for reform.

And even the way we do justice, the way everything is so punitive, everything is so vengeful. Like I remember when the incident happened with Amy Cooper and instead of her being convicted or instead of him cooperating with the police, he said she has suffered enough. I don't want her to go to prison. And a lot of people are like, well, when Amy Cooper called the police on you and lied and said, you know, this man is intimidating me and this man is, you know, trying to attack me, she called the police with the intention of the police coming to arrest and maybe murder a black man. So why should she not have to face that same justice system? And the point here was that if we know that the justice system already kind of persecutes and unfairly mishandles black people and their cases, why are we then legitimising the same institution by relying on it for us to be delivered justice?

And so much of what we see as justice in society is not centred around the wants of the victim. In a lot of cases, people can be prosecuted for not cooperating with police if they, you know, maybe change their mind later on down the line after trying to, after going to the police about an incident. So our whole justice system isn't even about justice or retribution, it's about prosecuting people and being vengeful and sending people to prisons where they're used as cheap labour. So the way we kind of do justice in society wasn't even set up to make things better. It was set up to be an additional vehicle for capitalism.

And so, like, that's, OK, I guess, I'm not a complete expert on abolition, and I can only talk about what I've read and what I know and what I understand, but that's, like, abolition is so much more than one day, no police, no prisons, but, but like changing society from the ground up and saying we can do things differently and a lot of it just starts with imagination and we've kind of been told there's only one way that we can live in society there's only one way that we can operate we have police we have prisons this equals justice it doesn't matter if this person re-offends and does the same thing again and again and ruins other people's lives. As long as we feel like under

our laws and legislations, we have delivered some form of justice, then that's that on that. But it's about imagining a world that is completely different. And it is so possible, and it is within reach, it is within our grasp grasp but we need more people to actually want more and want better for themselves and their society so it's a it's a whole thing you explain that so well and and actually i had the same revelation when i was reading about it and there was like slides on instagram of someone saying like what you would on rather than i completely agree with what you say about the preventative side everything Everything comes down to poverty and inequality, which is structured by the capitalist patriarchy that we live in. And that needs to be, but until we can dismantle that,

because that's not going to happen overnight, as you say, like I was like, well, then what does happen to these criminals? And I saw this amazing thing on Instagram. And it was like, okay, imagine someone has a mental health breakdown. They start attacking someone. And instead of the police coming, you have a squad of people who are so qualified in dealing with mental health crises. They come along, they talk to the person, they calm the situation down. The person might go and have

counseling, whatever is sorted. A woman is sexually assaulted and there are people who, and I read it and I was like, of course, this should be what happens. Why is there one group of people dealing with the most disparate set of circumstances you could have someone steal something from you you could be raped you could be i don't know come into an altercation and like have a mental health breakdown that myriad of different instances where you need some kind of policing and verticalness should not obviously be dealt with by the same institution it doesn't make any sense they're not qualified to be dealing with these situations and frankly it's not asking for good enough as you say this isn't just for um black people though it's like massive it doesn't who does it serve like these these crimes

don't get solved anyway we know that the women who are raped like none of those cases ever really get taken to court and they know if if they do it very rarely gets approved like the system evidently doesn't work and what I find so weird about it though is like once you explain it and I'm the same as you like once I started learning about I was like this this world is fucked like obviously crime there's a reason for it like people are stealing because they don't have like you don't steal because you have shit and you start to wonder like these people are clever but it's a cognitive dissonance where they're allowing themselves to be ignorant because

they could if they really wanted to sit and look like how can how can boris johnson pretend that he doesn't know this shit he must know and he must have just decided that he wants power like this is the problem it's more than ignorance it's willful it's like it's violence like these people don't fucking care they just want they just want power I guess you got the same thing but like when I'm on Twitter it feels like so great I feel like everyone's in the conversation I feel like I'm ready to be called in people are talking it's so active and then suddenly you see the whole world spreading out I know that you write for loads of different um like you write for the Guardian you write for Galdem what do you find when you write for a more mainstream publication? Do you

recognise a different resistance than when you write for someone like Galdem, for instance? Yeah, like it can be such mixed responses. And even when I think about my Channel 4 series, when my Channel 4 series came out on YouTube and Facebook, the comments were horrible. People hated it. They dragged me. Within seconds of the video going up, it had like 100 dislikes and the dislikes were always double the likes. But then when the series was on places like Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat, the perception was completely different and it's kind of yeah the same with some of the articles that I write if I'm writing something that's in the independent whoo sometimes depending on the topic people will go ham like they will come for my neck

and then if it's like um a gal dem or if it's in maybe like complex or vice like the perception is completely completely different like it is just not is not like that um and it's quite upsetting and i guess i would say to to people like a lot of activism starts at the home right it starts with talking to your family and talking to your friends and convincing them and spending the time investing in helping them see how the world can be different. I talk about abolition with my family all the time and they may not a hundred percent get it or they may not a hundred percent be on board, but I keep having those conversations because I know that's where I have access to people who will actually hear me out. And it's where I can, you know know flesh out arguments and really spend time investing in

teaching people who I know are willing and want to learn basically so it's like I try not to think so much about convincing the masses all of the time and I try to think about who in my personal life in my close circle can I speak to about this and convince them? And those small wins are, for me, way more important than trying to get people who, random strangers on the internet with no profile and 11 numbers in their Twitter handle to understand the foundations of abolitionism. So, yeah, you have to pick your battle.

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Everybody has the capacity to grow and to change. And like, I know as much as we kind of talk about cancel culture and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, realistically, the only people who bear a lot of the brunt or a lot of the kind of, a lot of the attacks from people online are people who consistently double down on their incorrect views. If you say, do you know what? I never thought about it that way.

And I hear you out and I'm going to make a concerted effort in the future to not say this or to do better. That is fine. I think forgiveness is always there. And for a long time, I think the media have painted particularly you know young people who are socially conscious as this like hungry foam at the mouth mob who

literally just want to tear everyone down but actually no we're some of the most forgiving people but we are so much more direct about what we like and what we dislike and what we find problematic that for some people that is intimidating but that doesn't mean that you you are you know below being forgiven or you're below the the capacity in the space for change I haven't always been perfect of course I've had problematic views when I was in school but you know what I've learned and I've grown and people who've helped me to to better, you know, their struggles or other struggles. And now I'm in a place where I can better support them, but also educate people

around me about, you know, other struggles that may not necessarily be my own. And I just feel like a lot of people are scared that if they admit they are wrong, that they can't come back for it and they double down, but you have, you don't have to do that you can just apologize and do better next time and you know you can turn things around it's interesting you brought up cancel culture thanks that was the next thing I kind of wanted to talk about because what's so I feel like these people don't get is I'm I am I feel like I'm quite consciously aware but it also means I know if I make a mistake I'm going to apologize and I'm going to like take time off and there might be a time when I do something wrong. I'm not worried about getting cancelled because I'm not, I will evolve past that, that opinion.

What people think cancel culture is, is when they're not, they feel like they're not allowed to keep saying the thing that pissed people off. That's not being cancelled. That's being like just so stubborn that it's ignorant. What, what do you think about this cancel culture debate? Honestly, I just feel like this idea of cancel culture doesn't, it doesn't really exist. Like it's always been that way. But now there's just been a power shift between, you know, people who

were, you know, usually the butt of the joke or people who are usually the ones coming under, you know, fierce critique or being dragged or being, you know, made fun of, those people now have social capital because of social media, because of accessibility, because of being hyper-visible, and they are now calling out the actions and the behaviours that they do not like. And now all of a sudden, because they're doing that, it's like oh cancel culture we can't say what we want to say anymore this literally and then they make it about free speech as opposed to being like not racist or not transphobic do you know what I mean like it's now

just people who were powerful who had a complete monopoly over a lot of our social discourse, being subject to the same scrutiny that they were kind of treating other people with. And now they've given it a name and they've called them the woke elite, the woke mob. But actually people just want equality. And even when I think about that Harper's letter and how their issue was about, you know, as much as we're happy that conversations have shifted around social justice, we do think it has gone too far. And it's like, how can social justice go too far? It's almost like for them, equality is a threat. For them, equality means they're going to lose everything that they have and it's quite telling that people are people having access to you know rights or people having um not being made fun of or people being able to protect their identity is for you insulting and infringes some way on your own freedoms but it doesn't but that is what they've been taught and that is honestly how I think about that council culture debate and also like one of the things that I was trying to say on that Sunday Morning Live program

is that when we think about kind of cancel culture and how sometimes it can be like it can seem quite ruthless with a lot of the online dogpiling and this is on both sides of the political spectrum like I you know people I'm not I don't think a lot of these right-wing trolls can cancel me but like they can definitely camp in my mentions and they can definitely be angry but one thing I I notice is that people are just kind of people people are reenacting the same sort of vengeful way that we do justice in this country. This is the only way people feel like they can have their voices heard, essentially, or they can seek some sort of justice for what they feel has been done wrong for them. And so I honestly feel like cancel culture is not a new thing, but it's very much our culture. It's how we do justice. There is no space for forgiveness. There is no space for reform.

There is only punitive measure after punitive measure. There's only prosecution. You know, there's only the harshness of the state. And that is exactly what we're seeing imitated in our online conversations. So it's like everything is so interlinked. You don't just decide to cancel someone or you don't decide to cancel someone in a way that can seem particularly harsh. You're just acting in the way that you know how to act essentially. But a lot of people just do not understand that concept of forgiveness and of apologising and not doubling down. And then they get caught out for it. But at the same time, a lot of the people who are complaining about cancel culture will still have huge commissions in the telegraph people will still buy their books

if anything it this whole idea of being cancelled or presenting yourself as being cancelled helps you to tap into a whole new market of of people a whole new set of fans people who want to who believe that they are the great defenders of free speech like you know they then flock to you and and you grow a whole new platform like Katie Hopkins had millions of followers like you know there was no way she was cancelled and she can complain about being cancelled but the only reason why they took her twitter account down is because she was not following the rules and she was promoting hate speech and violence. So, you know what I mean? Being cancelled is not when you have to receive certain, I guess, actions or consequences for your actions.

That's not cancel culture. That's just what it is. If I go and I steal a laptop from Mac in central London and then like I get arrested or whatever that is like essentially how the world works so you don't get to be above it all and you don't get to scream cancel culture if you've just broken the rules um but that just seems to not be that missing from from from people when they talk about this and they've made it more about I can no longer be a racist homophobe so I'm being cancelled and they're impinging on my free speech as opposed to maybe what I'm saying is actually a bit problematic and I should really just listen to people who know their stuff. There's so much I

want to pick up on that and I think the first thing I want to say is like one of my favourite quotes which is equality to the privilege feels like oppression which I think is what you were basically saying. And I think that's completely true when someone like Piers Morgan is told that he can't use a certain word. He feels like that's just as threatening as that person experiencing the violence because of him using that word. Like that's the conflation. It's like the idea of white people are more afraid to be called racist than to then to commit a racist act like they'll happily be racist but they don't want to be called racist that's like duality and I wonder if it comes down to this idea of like punch down from the government which we kind of get we're told so much that we

have so much agency and that we can make all these choices when really we're not like that we don't really have any control when it comes to what happens. I mean, we can make massive movements. That's why civil rights movements work. And that's why these huge protests are actually creating change. But for the most part, this like little infighting that goes on and people really think they're doing something you're not doing, nothing's changing. Everything just stays the same. And I thought it was interesting. You were saying that whilst they're not going to cancel you, I wanted to ask you, how do you deal with that barrage of abuse because that is that's what people are saying when they get cancelled they didn't like it because as you said they've been

called up for their consequence for consequence for their action whereas you're getting it's I don't think it's a consequence it's people feeling defensive about you holding up a mirror to society that's what people are taking um offense to but how do you actually cope with that? For me, like I've really, really had to set up a lot of filters on social media, like a lot of filters, like people who don't have like emails attached to their accounts, people who don't have profile pictures, people who made their account like a day ago and stuff like that. I will not see any of their notifications. I will not see it at all and I've just like tried to you know for sometimes on my Instagram I change it so you can't leave a comment unless you follow me um and like all that kind of stuff so I can just really protect myself from trolling because it does get a lot and like yeah I've had some serious trolling particularly when I was at uni and I did a lot of student lot and like yeah I've had some serious challenges particularly when I was at uni and I did a lot of student activism and like sometimes the activism would end up like in in the sun or

the daily mail and the barrage of like hate I would get it would be awful like it would be terrible and I just I remember just some of my lowest points, like being afraid to leave my uni accommodation. I mean, I didn't know if anyone would beat me up, but I obviously didn't want to stick around to find out. And it was, yeah, it was really, really tough for me then. And I think because I've dealt with it so much, I'm starting to feel a bit more comfortable and a bit more confident um with how I deal with it and my social media settings and not searching my name on Twitter not searching the hashtag of the shows I've been a part of like I completely just separate myself from it because a lot of the time it's not a constructive debate and even if I think about the backlash from um from what's it called from uh the how has britain changed like a lot of it wasn't even people

disagreeing with my points but it was people being like you you're angry you're aggressive you would you know we would listen to you more if you weren't so hysterical do you know what i mean and and and it's just things like that it's like you don't even want to have a debate you don't want to have a conversation it's not that you particularly disagree with what I'm saying but it's the fact that I'm a black woman who is vocal and confident and won't be spoken over and will hold her own that it makes you so mad um and that is just like the wildest thing of it all because it's almost just like fair enough if you disagreed with my points but you just disagree with me as a person having a platform and there really isn't much I can do about it so I just have to filter out as much of that stuff as possible

it's really devastating to think that like as a young woman at university you're not only like working so hard that activism is one of the hardest jobs you could ever do and to put yourself in that position when you know that there's going to be people against you and then to actually have that is is awful and no one one should have to deal with that. And I did see, because I think you retweeted someone saying like, oh, she's just aggressive. And I just thought, oh my God,

first of all, Shante, you were not aggressive. You spoke so well. You were so much calmer than I could ever have been. I think I would have like been fizzing in the chair because it was just so, you were so calm, but all they see is black and woman. And then that's what

they're so that you could have been smiling the whole way through and they would have called you aggressive because of fucking the way that people treat black women in society but the one thing I think is great though is that you are now being platformed and you are becoming like a face that people are going to know and does that make you feel safer because you have, I guess, the clout of like mainstream media behind you a bit more, or does it make you feel less safe? How, how has that shaping you? Cause fame's a weird thing. Like the minute you get on TV, I guess that your, your public perception changes. How does that feel? I think it's a, it's a weird one because for me, like, I don't mind the kind of the visibility if I have my own, if I have an extended space where I can have extended conversations.

I don't want to only be, you know, known because of like soundbites or I don't want my only contribution to things to be something I say for two minutes on on a tv show like I really need my own space to delve further into those issues because obviously those things kind of motivate people and inspire people and get you thinking but then it's like what do we do beyond that there's so much learning that needs to happen there's so much learning that I need to do and I really need the space to do that but not not in kind of like five minutes and so in in a weird way like I like the I like that the visibility will give me more options to speak or more opportunities to speak about what I know and what I'm passionate about but I'm also like hmm I really need spaces where I can continue and extend these conversations so they don't just end up being

one-sided or they don't just end up being one-sided or they don't just end up being like one-line zingers as opposed to like really fleshed out ideas and solutions that help give people the language to to fight their own battles if you know what I mean. No completely and what you were saying again about that like why were there so many people on that panel because I feel like when we have maybe a different debate and you have a program about it often it will be just like a one-on-one interview but when it's race because it's coming away from default white I think people get so scared that oh my god we've got to balance up whereas like every tv show up until whenever did like would only have maybe one black person in the background and no one ever was like well this isn't balanced and I think I find it funny

when people say about this social justice going too far this free speech movement because especially because lots of them were old school feminists and anyone knows that with any kind of to get the pendulum swing you have to go and I don't think anything that you do is fucking radical in terms of what you're talking about it's's not extremist. It's like, it makes complete sense to get it to some form of equality and equity. But I think you do have to push so far. I think the feminist argument, I think it has to go so far the other way, just in order to get to the middle.

Do you know what I mean? I don't know if I'm explaining that well. Yeah. You mean like sometimes it has to be like so radical or like you can't just be moderate you can't just kind of explain the situation you have to be quite almost dramatic because that's how we kind of do tv and even news in this country everything is so theatrical so it's like you have to play up to it if you want to be given the the space and the air time to say what it is that you want to say and it's like it's so unfortunate but it's like the way the media circus kind of

works and I think I think as well because if there's any bit of like caveating where you're going for instance let's use a like not all men thing for example so if you're talking about the sexism whatever and someone says not all men that literally makes every man think it's not them and I think it's the same with racism like we have to say like white people are institutionally racist and that's all white people and then people get so offended but it might make them think if you say oh racism is just these acts and these covert and you give examples people find ways to keep the status quo because they exclude themselves from the narrative and I think this is what people who haven't maybe become

who haven't educated themselves on Britain's colonial past and institutionalized racism they are the ones that do not deserve any kind of coddling because you won't learn you'll simply just go oh that's not about me then yeah essentially and that's why we have to be so direct and that's why I kind of constantly made that point about language because if you cloud your language and you play to the sensibilities of people then they kind of feel disempowered like they don't feel like they have to do anything they don't feel like they're part of the problem they separate themselves from the problem but in a way everybody is is complicit in everything that's happening and we all have to be like introspective

and think about the ways that we contribute to harmful systems like nobody is innocent as long as you live in this society that's institutionally racist everybody plays a part of keeping that together so I kind of just feel like yeah I I I try to be as clear as I can particularly when I have these platforms because I'm like I don't want anyone to misinterpret what I'm saying or feel like they are above this issue or it's out of their control because we all have a role to play completely and one of the questions which I always think it's like I sometimes ask stuff like this and then when I watch someone else asking I kind of felt a bit jarring but the last question on the show was like do you feel hopeful um and everyone was kind of like yeah but do you think because it's something I've asked before but actually watching

it play out do you think questions like that are kind of unhelpful as well um it shouldn't even be about hope it should be about solutions do you know what I mean like what do you think we could do better or how can we change the justice system or in what ways are we complicit in it as opposed to ending on this idea of hope because I mean hope is nice and I can kind of hope all I want but at the end of the day if I'm the only person who feels like I need to do any work to solve things then nothing's going to change so it's so much more about like in a weird way kind of convincing people that you know the world can be different and you we don't live in this society because this is how we are as

humans and it's in our bodies but it's how we're socialized and we can all do the work to to undo that as opposed to being like oh things are going to get better but how you know we're socialised and we can all do the work to undo that as opposed to being like, oh, things are going to get better, but how? You know, we need to tell people how they'll get better. So that's kind of what I think about it. Was there any question on that show that you wish you had been asked? Like, did you go on it thinking, I really want to make this point? I think definitely, I wish we spoke a bit more about, like, healthcare

and I wish we spoke a bit more about like health care and I wish we spoke a bit more about racism out I know I know it was about Stephen Lawrence but I think even the the data that they collected they collected data about like you know microaggressions in the workplace and touching black women's hair and if people felt like the NHS was racist and if they felt like education was racist like there is so much that that I wish we kind of spoke about in terms of like real life examples and and institutions and all of that stuff particularly around health care with you know black women dying five times more during childbirth like I wish we kind of spoke about those things because I think that would have been really impactful. I thought it was quite

interesting that the statistics and the data were opinion-based because as you say there's like literal evidence for um institutionalized we've seen it with covid like the institutionalized racism directly impacts how things happen and i wonder if that was maybe because we don't have the metrics um in place in order to make these these measurements and it had to be opinion-based because as we know data isn't generally collected um on this stuff so i thought i i agree with you i thought that was quite interesting she also just said she was great but she did just say oh but like positively people thought the nhs was much better but i wonder if that's just because the nhs has diverse staff because as we know black people aren't like there's massive institutionalized racism um within the the health care system and

I think maybe visibility wise it looks better but I don't think that I don't think it is better in practice and like obviously we've just seen that youtuber who so sadly passed away with her um sorry this has been such a heavy chat and I feel bad but it's been so amazing to talk to you is there anything else that I'm so excited about your book and a huge congratulations again. Is there anything you want to point people in the direction of that you're working on or that you'd like people to look at? I think, yeah, check out the Channel 4 series,

like really engage with some of the stuff that I talk about there. I'm always posting stuff on my Instagram and I'm kind of always, I'm looking to do a few more chats of people, particularly with abolitionists, so'm looking to do a few more chats of people, particularly with abolitionists, so we can break down a bit more what abolition means

and the ways in our personal life we can practice abolitionist principles around discipline and all of that kind of jazz. So yeah, just keep up with me on Instagram and on Twitter. And yeah, that's what I can think of at the moment. Thank you so much for joining me, Shante. It's been such a great chat.

Thank you. No worries. Thank you everyone for listening and I will see you next week. Bye. Bye. We'll be right back. One feeling winning in an exciting live dealer studio exclusively on FanDuel casino where winning is undefeated 19 plus and physically located in Ontario gambling problem.

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