Beware those who call themselves your friends. If it’s Piers Morgan who professes to be your friend, then be doubly careful. This week, the Nigerian best-selling author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - known for her TED Talk on feminisim, which Beyonce sampled in ***Flawless - wrote an essay entitled It Is Obscene, and posted it on her website about the way young people behave on social media ‘who are choking on sanctimony and lacking in compassion’.
In the essay, she responds to accusations of transphobia from two unnamed writers who she alleges spread 'falsehoods' about her. She details her experience with the writers who attended a writing workshop of hers and later criticised her on social media for comments she made about transgender people in 2017. Chimamanda alleges one of the writers called her a 'murderer'. The writers - and many others - say she implied trans women are not ‘real women’.
The essay is in response to this criticism, attacking what she feels are kneejerk reactions to complex issues. Chimamanda writes: ‘We have a generation of young people on social media so terrified of having the wrong opinions that they have robbed themselves of the opportunity to think and to learn and to grow' and 'I have spoken to young people who tell me they are terrified to tweet anything, that they read and re-read their tweets because they fear they will be attacked by their own. The assumption of good faith is dead. What matters is not goodness but the appearance of goodness.'
Unlikely fan Piers Morgan saw an opportunity to plug one of his many hate campaigns by tweeting in response to the essay: ‘This is absolutely brilliant. Everyone should read it, especially the insufferable woke brigade.’
Not for the first time Piers Morgan has a very specific agenda. Upholding free speech for him is in the name of attacking the so-called woke brigade, which is really just anyone calling for equality.
Whatever you think of the rights and wrongs of Chimamanda’s argument, she isn’t coming from an 'anti-woke' point of view. Instead she is asking us to think things through; Piers Morgan rarely does. His inflammatory speech invites us to take the thoughtless reactions that Chimamanda abhors.
When Chimamanda talks about cancel culture she says she's talking about people who jump on bandwagons, virtue signal and think they’re right on, but don’t bother to think about issues themselves. She writes that it's ‘people who wield the words “violence” and “weaponize” like tarnished pitchforks.’ The irony and hypocrisy of Piers Morgan’s support of her words is that he frequently incites the very violence online that she critiques.
The irony and hypocrisy of Piers Morgan’s support of her words is that he frequently incites the very violence online that she critiques.
When we look at his record of ‘upholding free speech’ a lot of what we see is him defending his right to attack vulnerable women with vicious hate campaigns. When Meghan Markle spoke out about feeling suicidal while being pregnant, Piers Morgan publicly declared he didn't believe her - storming off Good Morning Britain when he received complaints. Then there was the time he unnecessarily criticised Demi Lovato, someone who has laid bare how much she has struggled with addiction and her mental health.
Another irony is the way Piers Morgan relentlessly attacks cancel culture - constantly moaning about not being able to speak about anything any more because of the 'woke brigade' - while having one of the biggest platforms available to air his views. All he wants to do is stoke the culture war flames by supporting Chimamanda’s essay.
Would Chimamanda choose Piers as her supporter? Very unlikely.