Tag: UNITED KINGDOM
First black woman to win top literary prize says cultural appropriation is ‘total nonsense’
Bernardine Evaristo, the first black woman to win the Booker Prize for fiction writing, dismissed the idea that artists cannot engage in “cultural appropriation.”
Evaristo, 60, was one of two 2019 Booker Prize winners, an annual award given to the author of an “outstanding fiction” work written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Evaristo spoke about the book that won her the award, Girl, Woman, Other, and how it would have been impossible without “cultural appropriation” at the Hay Festival Winter Weekend on Friday, according to The Times.
“This whole idea of cultural appropriation, which is where you are not supposed to write beyond your own culture and so on, is ridiculous,” Evaristo said. “That would mean that I could never write white characters or white writers can never write black characters. Look in television; that happens all the time. But there is this idea that when it comes to fiction that you are supposed to stay in your lane. It is a total nonsense.”
Evaristo’s book follows the lives of a dozen either black or mixed-race people. One girl, named Megan, grows up and identifies as non-binary and changes “their” name to Morgan. Evaristo said that writing about Megan was “a sensitive area” because the character could offend people.
Evaristo said, however, that she is not overly worried about offending others with her work.
“That’s not my primary concern because you don’t know who is going to be offended by anything you write. I refuse to construct some kind of character who is going to appease everybody,” Evaristo said.
Article via WashingtonExaminer
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Police break up 400-person ‘modern day slavery’ ring in U.K.
Prosecutors say more than 400 victims were forced to work for minuscule wages while their masters earned some 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) and lived a luxurious lifestyle.
Article via NBCNews
Details about what prosecutors have called one of Britain’s largest-ever modern day slavery rings have emerged with the conviction of eight people originally from Poland.
Prosecutors say more than 400 victims were forced to work for minuscule wages while their masters earned some 2 million pounds ($2.5 million) and lived a luxurious lifestyle. Reporting restrictions were lifted Friday, allowing details to be published.
The group preyed on the homeless, former convicts and alcoholics in Poland and lured them to Britain with false promises of well-paid work. Some ended up being paid less than $1 for a day’s work and were held in squalid conditions.
Five men and three women originally from Poland have been convicted of modern day slavery offenses and money laundering.
Jurors in two separate trials at Birmingham Crown Court heard testimony from more than 90 victims, with indications that at least another 350 had been trafficked by the criminal gang.
Victims reported being forced to wash in a canal because they had no access to fresh water, having to plug leaky toilets with their blankets and sheets, and getting food from soup kitchens and food banks because their wages were not sufficient.
The group targeted vulnerable people in Poland for recruitment, including newly released convicts, and placed them in England in cramped, rat-infested lodgings. They were put to work on farms, rubbish recycling centers and poultry factories.
The victims ranged from teenagers to people over 60.
Judge Mary Stacey said at the end of the first trial that the traffickers’ “degradation” of fellow human beings had been “totally unacceptable.” She imposed prison sentences of up to 11 years.
She said the belief that slavery had been ended in Britain was not true: “The hard truth is that the practice continues, here in the U.K., often hiding in plain sight.”
The police investigation and research by the charity Hope For Justice turned up numerous cases of abuse.
In one instance, a man who complained about poor pay and living conditions had his arm broken, was given no medical care, then ejected from the lodgings.
Another was forced to remove his clothes and threatened with the removal of his kidneys if he did not keep quiet about the situation.
In the second trial, which ended in June, 52-year-old Ignacy Brzezinski and Wojciech Nowakowski, 41, were convicted. A third, Jan Sadowski, 26, pleaded guilty.
Convicted at the earlier trial, which ended in February, were chief conspirator Marek Chowanic, Marek Brzezinski, Julianna Chodakiewicz, Natalia Zmuda and Justyna Parczewska.
Man stabs himself to death after thinking his vest was ‘stab-proof’
A British man who believed he was wearing a “stab-proof vest” died last summer after he took a knife to his own chest, local newspaper Teesside Gazette reported Saturday, citing an investigation into his death.
Jordan Easton, 22, of Thornaby, reportedly was in a friend’s kitchen on Aug. 23, 2017, when he stabbed himself.
“While in the kitchen, he took hold a knife to demonstrate it was stab-proof and sadly realized it wasn’t the case,” assistant coroner Karin Welsh said during a court hearing.
Easton reportedly was rushed to the hospital, where he died.
The newspaper reported that while his injuries were self-inflicted, there was no evidence that proved Easton purposely tried to harm himself.
The man’s mother, Alison Price, said in court that Easton stabbing himself was “out of character,” and added she “can’t absorb it.”
Friends described Easton, who had just turned 22 five days earlier, as a “one of a kind kid” with a “golden heart.”
Easton’s death was ruled a “misadventure,” which Welsh said meant the victim died from consequences that were not intended.
“It seems clear that’s the situation with Jordan,” she said.
via: https://nypost.com/2018/06/17/man-stabs-himself-to-death-after-thinking-his-vest-was-stab-proof/
HIV-positive hairdresser allegedly cut tips off condoms to infect his Grindr dates
A hairdresser deliberately infected at least four men with HIV after meeting them on gay dating app Grindr — before sending them mocking messages, a court heard.
Daryll Rowe, 26, from Edinburgh, Scotland, is accused of embarking on a “cynical campaign” to infect as many men as he could with the virus.
He texted one of his alleged victims: “Maybe you have the fever cos I came inside you and I have HIV, lol. Whoops!”
The court heard Rowe also called one of his victims and laughed over the phone as he goaded the man about his potential diagnosis.
The victim later tested positive for HIV, with a strain of the virus similar to Rowe’s.
Another man Rowe had sex with said he used a condom, but found it discarded in the sink with the end ripped off.
Caroline Carberry QC, prosecuting, told Lewes Crown Court: “He was extremely concerned and upset about this and repeatedly asked Daryll Rowe whether he was clean, which he said he was. That condom did not split accidentally.”
Another alleged victim discovered he had the virus after feeling “feverish and ill.”
Rowe was diagnosed with HIV in Edinburgh in April 2015.
Later that year, he moved to Brighton.
“With full knowledge, putting others at risk, he embarked on what was a cynical and deliberate campaign to infect other men with the HIV virus.
“Unfortunately for some of the men he met, his campaign was successful.
“He had numerous, casual sexual relationships with men he met via Grindr.
“He deceived each of those men into believing he was HIV-negative.
“He reassured the men he was clean and when they insisted on a condom, he deliberately sabotaged the condom.
“Many of them were sent abusive and mocking messages.”
Carberry told the jury that Rowe met eight men in Sussex and two more in the northeast.
“At least four have contracted the virus, others were lucky not to,” she said.
“In all cases, it was his intention to infect those men with HIV.”
Sussex police arrested Rowe in February 2016 after two men were diagnosed as HIV-positive.
He refused to admit being HIV-positive and denied meting with or having sex with the two men.
Rowe was bailed to an address in Berwick, Northumberland.
He was interviewed again when other alleged victims came forward. After being re-bailed, Rowe went missing and police launched a manhunt to find him.
He was discovered living in Wallsend — some 350 miles north of Sussex — under a fake name.
The case, which is due to last six weeks, continues.
via: http://nypost.com/2017/10/06/hiv-positive-man-allegedly-tampered-with-condoms-to-infect-partners/