Sam Kriss and the misogyny of the Far Left

Today, an accusation of sexual harassment was made against Sam Kriss, freelance Vice and Guardian journalist and alt-left attack dog. You should read the whole thing, as well as the public statement in which he acknowledges the truth of the allegations but tries to paint his behaviour as arising from a simple misunderstanding between friends.

Kriss admits having ‘crossed a line from persistence to aggression’ in consequence of ‘not picking up on [his accuser’s] signals’ — where he considers that ‘line’ to lie, and how much more obvious her ‘signals’ would have had to have been for him to take notice of them, he does not explain — but insists: ‘Anyone who follows me closely will be aware that I am friends with many women with public platforms.’ Perhaps he is, but he’s been a public enemy to many others. His accuser highlights this:

I had hoped I would never have to write this account. But watching a man who repeatedly groped me, twisted my neck to forcibly kiss me, ignored any attempt I made to stop him, and refused to ‘let me’ drink non-alcohol, unashamedly attack feminists online, use misogynist language, singling out women for ridicule time and time again, means I’ve not really been able to forget.

Sam Kriss is one of several young men on the Far Left who have been extensively rewarded for public displays of aggression and misogyny. His abusiveness was not merely enabled by but key to his success within the political culture in which he made his career — which is, at the end of the day, only the latest version of the political culture that enabled generations of sexual abusers such as Gerry Healy and Comrade Delta. His accuser did a brave thing in speaking out.

2 thoughts on “Sam Kriss and the misogyny of the Far Left”

    1. Yes. It’s so hard though. Take the worst recent incident on the Left that is widely known about in this country: the Socialist Workers Party rape case. The man in question — ‘Comrade Delta’ — was never prosecuted. And the SWP lost a lot of members, but at least one of its front organisations, i.e. Stand Up To Racism, is still going strong, with support from no lesser a personage than the leader of the Labour Party. There’s a lot of opposition to SUTR over its intimate links to the rape-enabling SWP. But there’s also a lot of opposition to the opposition. Everybody’s stopped talking about Jeremy Corbyn’s continued endorsement of the organisation’s events (see the addendum to the article I linked to in the last sentence but one). And this summer, I had a furious argument with a Labour councillor who implied that opposition to SUTR was all down to white privilege.

      The Left protects its own, just like academia, Hollywood, Fox News, and the Catholic Church. ‘Its own’ being those who matter to it: not the victims but the powerful men who victimise.

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