Content warning: this post discusses harassment

Goldsmiths Welfare and Diversity Officer, Bahar Mustafa, has upset the right wing press. Her evil crime? Suggesting that women and non-binary people of colour should organise in their own autonomous spaces. The media outlets–coincidentally, owned and run by white men who like to yell over everyone else–are freaking the fuck out over not being welcome everywhere. And, of course, white cis men with “free thinker” in their twitter bios are tediously predictably jumping on the bandwagon that media barons want them to be aboard.

I could go from top to tail about why they’re wrong, but other writers have already said it, and better than I could. I recommend reading these articles by Sam Ambreen and Lola Olufemi, as well as the open letter from Goldsmiths students. Suffice to say, there’s a lot of foolishness coming from Bahar’s detractors.

There is one point I would like to add to the above. Bahar’s detractors are fixated on her ethnicity as a Turkish Cypriot, and keep churning out burbled nonsense about how this makes her the oppressor in Cyprus (and personally responsible for the Armenian genocide). As a Greek Cypriot, let me just say this is one of the most absurd things I’ve ever heard, and they are mixing up Turkish Cypriots–a Turkish speaking ethnic group who’ve lived on the island for centuries, and the state of Turkey (which perpetrated the Armenian genocide and invaded Cyprus). So, as a Greek Cypriot, these shitbrains really need to stop using me and mine as a shield in their risible crusade against a young woman of colour.

Bahar has done nothing wrong, and everything right. Every screech coming from her detractors strengthens the case that white people must be excluded from BME safe spaces, and men must be excluded from women’s spaces, and that cis white men should basically be excluded from life generally. As a little experiment, tweet the hashtag #supportbaharmustafa, offering your support, and see how many white men reply to you with their absolutely ignorant opinions about what racism is, and their demands to be educated, and the boring and wrong shit about Bahar’s ethnicity, and their #GamerGate hashtagged profiles.

Imagine these people being in the spaces they demand access to, yelling over the real conversation. At best, they’d be demanding to be spoonfed 101 information they could easily google, like squawking gannets. These are people who want everything to be all about them, all the time. They should–and must–be excluded from spaces so that actual organising can be done.

Join me in supporting Bahar Mustafa, for her strong stance on how organising should work. And hear every single detractor proving her more and more right.

P.S. Yep, I’m white. That space isn’t for me. It’s still important, because unlike the pissbabies, I know the world doesn’t revolve around me.