A feminist philosophy student supposedly named “Shelley Garland" caused quite a stir when she wrote a post for Huffington Post South Africa called “Could It Be Time To Deny White Men the Franchise?” The article begins:
Some of the biggest blows to the progressive cause in the past year have often been due to the votes of white men. If white men were not allowed to vote, it is unlikely that the United Kingdom would be leaving the European Union, it is unlikely that Donald Trump would now be the President of the United States, and it is unlikely that the Democratic Alliance would now be governing four of South Africa's biggest cities.
If white men no longer had the vote, the progressive cause would be strengthened. It would not be necessary to deny white men indefinitely – the denial of the vote to white men for 20 years (just less than a generation) would go some way to seeing a decline in the influence of reactionary and neo-liberal ideology in the world. The influence of reckless white males were one of the primary reasons that led to the Great Recession which began in 2008. This would also strike a blow against toxic white masculinity, one that is long needed.
Yeah, sounds about right for a left wing feminist, right? It gets worse. The piece went on to acknowledge that taking away voting rights might not sound right to modern ears. "Let's be clear, it may be unfair, but a moratorium on the franchise for white males for a period of between 20 and 30 years is a small price to pay for the pain inflicted by white males on others, particularly those with black, female-identifying bodies," the piece read. "In addition, white men should not be stripped of their other rights, and this withholding of the franchise should only be a temporary measure, as the world rights the wrongs of the past." (An archived version still appears here,
if you'd like to read the rest of the piece.)
The post received wide criticism from Breitbart, the Washington Free Beacon, the Daily Caller, and NewsBusters, and
TruthRevolt as well -- news outlets that weren't as enthralled as HuffPo by the idea of disenfranchisement.
HuffPo SA editor-in-chief
Verashni Pillay received so much criticism that she decided to published some of the messages she's received. Then, she wrote, "Garland's underlying analysis about the uneven distribution of wealth and power in the world is pretty standard for feminist theory" and said she welcomes more criticism of this very viral post.
But there was one problem. HuffPo SA had fallen for a hoax. There was no feminist philosophy student named Shelley Garland. In
Pillay's follow-up piece, she said that Garland
doesn't exist and that
HuffPost SA “stands aligned to the Constitutional values of South Africa, particularly the Preamble of our Constitution which states that: ‘We the people of South Africa believe that South Africa belongs to all who live in it, united in our diversity.’”
Kat Timpf at
National Review is not buying this mea culpa. "The right to vote is a particularly sacred thing," she
wrote. She went on to say:
An understanding of that “universal enfranchisement” and “long struggle” is exactly what led so many people to be shocked and outraged by Garland’s piece. It wasn’t just acknowledging problems or looking for solutions. Hell, it wasn’t even examining the theoretical merits of an extra-constitutional solution from a philosophical perspective. It was written as a sincere, unapologetic suggestion that a significant percentage of the country be stripped of their constitutional right to vote.
Exactly. It'd be better if Pillay just owned her belief that it's perfectly fine to deny voting rights to half the population, instead of trying to shroud it with some sort of false "unity" language.
Photo Credit: Thomas at Flickr
