If you hadn’t heard about it on this side of the pond, BBC Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson has been suspended over a “fracas” (supposedly involving a thrown punch) with one of the show’s producers. Given that the actual details still haven’t been shared, it’s hard to say how serious the incident was.
TV star behaving badly, details at ten. You wouldn’t think it would have been more than a brief news blip, but instead it’s turned into a seven day furor as UK’s progressives howled for Clarkson to be fired over the incident and “cultural insensitivity” (including muttering a nursery rhyme racial slur that got caught on a microphone).
It seems that Clarkson, an unapologetic enthusiast for car culture and other masculine pursuits, has become the latest flashpoint in the culture wars.
Here’s a panel discussion on the Clarkson issue. Skip to about 8:50 in if you want to see Milo Yiannopoulos (Twitter’s @Nero and gay conservative journalist and all-around bon vivant) address the issue of structural prejudice against men in the modern western world.
Notice the immediate, sharp pushback Yiannopoulos gets at daring to question any part of the feminist line.
That’s the context on the Clarkson dust-up. My impression that it’s not so much what Clarkson said, but his refusal to bow to the usual victimhood identity politics shibboleths that has the social justice warrior types howling for his blood. That’s why they want his scalp so badly.
At this remove, it seems like the UK progressive establishment is far more incensed at Jeremy Clarkson than Rotherham and similar child rape scandals.
