‘White men’: the most dehumanising insult of our times

The one good thing about Twitterstorms is that they tend, witlessly, to prove the point of the person they’re hounding. In the very act of whipping up fume and fury against someone who’s said something you’re not meant to say, these virtual pitchfork gangs confirm that person’s point, which was normally something like: ‘Have you ever noticed how risky it has become to express your thoughts on [some heated issue]?’ ‘You can’t say that!’, hollers the Twittermob in response. Well, yes, quite. So it was for Simon Jenkins this week. He wrote a column in the Guardian saying the one group of people you’re allowed to hate these days is old white men. ‘Stupid privileged white old man why doesn’t he STFU’, responded the Twittermob. Let’s call it Jenkins’ Law: the fury that greets anyone who says old white men have become hate figures proves that old white men have become hate figures.