hose who doubt the operation of a beneficent, or at least an amusing, providence should consider the case of the British writer Titania McGrath. Margaret Ann Bulkley may have decided to move to South Africa and live her life as a man. But Titania McGrath, a Twitter sensation and the author of the forthcoming Woke: A Guide to Social Justice, is “a radical intersectionalist poet committed to feminism, social justice, and armed peaceful protest. A regular on the live-slam poetry scene, Titania regularly performs at arts festivals, deconsecrated churches, and genderqueer spiritual retreats.” Nice! Ms. McGrath was guyed by Private Eye forthe way she commended her book to the public: “I have written the most important book of 2019. Do not buy it for my sake, but for the sake of humanity.”
Shameless? Or in-your-face intersectional wokeness?
We incline to the latter view. Ms. McGrath burrows deep into the contradictions of late capitalism, patriarchal privilege, toxic masculinity, white supremacism, and heteronormative binary exclusivity. She is so woke she makes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez look like Sleeping Beauty. Consider: “If you don't think exactly the same way as me,” she points out, “then you've clearly got a lot to learn about diversity.” Could any triggered academic put it better? “I despise whiteness. Literally nothing about me is white except for my skin colour.”
Although she is British, Ms. McGrath outdoes Bill Kristol at his own game: “It's a broken kind of democracy that allows a majority of voters to impose their wishes on the rest of us.” Yes! Ms. McGrath cracks open the hard nut of oppression lurking inside all of us, all men anyway. “Men who are attracted to women clearly have feminine tastes and are therefore probably gay.” Again: “I have posed nude for Penthouse in an effort to dismantle the patriarchy from within.” And how's this? “If you only have sex with people you find attractive, you might want to ask yourself why you're such a superficial bigot.”
We've been hearing a lot about Brexit lately. But Ms. McGrath might have the most radical proposal we've yet heard: “It is our children who will suffer most from Brexit. Therefore we should hold a second referendum but only allow under 12s to vote.” And how about this? “I have always stood up for minorities. As such, it is essential that we respect the wishes of the minority of U.K. voters and overturn Brexit.” Ms. McGrath is also sensitive to the enormity of America's slaveholding past. “My book is now available to buy in the U.S. on Kindle. If you want the hardcover, you'll have to order it from the U.K. or wait a few months. I do this in order to punish the U.S. for its complicity in the slave trade.”
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