The case of serial baby killer Lucy Letby has shocked the country – though seemingly for the wrong reasons. Predictably, media coverage of the case depicted Letby, a young white woman, in a sympathetic light. People expressed disbelief over how ‘someone like her’ could have committed such heinous acts. Worse still, supposedly left-wing media outlet Novara decided to deny that racism played a role.
Lucy Letby: ‘her violence is the standard’
The subtext behind ‘someone like her’ is obviously someone who is a young, attractive white woman from a conventionally respectable background. Barrister Dr Charlotte Proudman noted:
Yet more photos of Lucy Letby as an ‘innocent’ child & fun young woman. Are they trying to evoke empathy? What on earth have her ‘loving’ parents got to do with serial murders? If Letby was was a person of colour, single mother, drug user it’s likely they’d have vilified her. pic.twitter.com/BFmdMfikJi
— Dr Charlotte Proudman (@DrProudman) August 22, 2023
Almost immediately, to those who know better, the role of race became evident in explaining how Letby managed to evade justice for so long. This was particularly obvious in the fact that a senior doctor of South Asian origin, Dr Ravi Jayaram, repeatedly raised alarm bells regarding Letby – but hospital management shut him down.
As author and lawyer Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu tweeted:
Lucy Letby exemplifies how ideology of Whiteness keeps Britain in a chokehold. They believed her tears/denials even though evidence said otherwise for no other reason than she’s White. A Black or Brown nurse would’ve been reported to the police immediately & sacked for suspicion. pic.twitter.com/hMZFbbx4in
— Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu (@SholaMos1) August 21, 2023
Writer and podcaster Kelechi Okafor took to Twitter to state that violence from white women is not anomalous:
The media keep trying to present Lucy Letby as an anomaly when I would argue that her violence is the standard.
They keep asking how “someone who looks like Lucy, could do such a thing” those of us who have been paying attention aren’t shocked in the slightest. pic.twitter.com/ulCDxPIX9H— Kelechi (@kelechnekoff) August 20, 2023
Okafor said:
They’re presenting it like an anomaly, when actually when we look at it historically and presently, the violence of white women is not an anomaly, it is the standard …
She went on to state that:
One of the greatest crimes against humanity was the translatlantic slave trade and colonization, and it was a white female monarch in Britain, if we’re talking about this in the British context, that said, yes, let’s run it.
Okafor described how the presumed innocence of white women was central to the existence of white supremacist hetero-patriarchy. She also pointed to the way in which white supremacy protects white women despite the evil they commit.
This, of course, relates directly to the way the Countess of Chester Hospital protected Letby. In fact, even the head of the Royal College of Nursing has said that Letby got away with it for as long as she did because she was white:
The current president of the Royal College of Nursing Sheila Sobrany says she believes Lucy Letby wasn’t caught sooner because she was white.https://t.co/uR3Cj0clfD
— Lorraine King (@lorrainemking) August 23, 2023
It’s bizarre, then, that talking heads from Novara Media decided to suggest this case doesn’t have to be about race.
#NoMoreNovara
Novara‘s Ash Sarkar declared on Twitter:
This isn't going to make me popular, but I think it's incredibly reductive to say that Lucy Letby would've been caught sooner if she was a woman of colour, or that she was protected by her race. For one thing, I think that massively understates just how wrong things went.
— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) August 21, 2023
Apparently using the words “incredibly reductive” means you can say something stupid and pass it off as intelligent without expecting any scrutiny.
Fellow Novara-er Michael Walker also decided to get in on the action, though he later deleted his tweet:
Never one to sit out a messy take, Aaron Bastani chimed in too, directly quoting Okafor’s words:
Some stuff you see on here is obviously absurd and yet it gets thousands upon thousands of retweets.
A baby-murdering nurse is (fortunately) not the standard. She is (fortunately) an anomaly. https://t.co/H4WJvrJjRl
— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) August 21, 2023
Okafor has written extensively about Black women’s experiences within healthcare. So for Sarkar, Walker, and Bastani – none of whom happen to be Black women – to diminish her input in this way is nothing short of appalling:
https://twitter.com/misanthropicc92/status/1693937136947355999?s=20
Unfortunately for them, sensible people on Twitter weren’t taking their word for it:
Living in delulu through you proximity to whiteness . You and Novara have undermined people of colour’s experiences of systemic racism in healthcare and inflamed right wing hostility and rhetoric against prominent Black women on Twitter. Stop denying white supremacy
— Aqsa ( She/Her) 🇵🇸 (@aqsa_sz) August 22, 2023
https://twitter.com/blackfeminist21/status/1693714610510061905?s=20
The hashtag #NoMoreNovara gained traction as people shared their anger in a Twitter space:
That is LITERALLY whitness + systemic power. Kmt #nomorenovara https://t.co/UPt5yO0Tqj
— 🇰🇪🇬🇧♥️✨FREE 🇵🇸🇨🇩🇸🇩 (@HealthyNuance) August 22, 2023
Bad taste
It also seems as though this has gone far beyond a hashtag. Novara employees minimising the experiences of Black women won’t be forgotten any time soon:
Novara hosts coming after @kelechnekoff would be shocking if they weren't constantly chasing after GB News appearances and mainstream respectability.
"Edgy leftists" cannot be trusted. They look for any opportunity to publicly discredit & shame Black people.
— 💖 Tariyé 💖 (@TariyePeterside) August 22, 2023
And although Sarkar later apologised for her words, she didn’t delete her tweet. As Okafor noted:
This part! She’ll keep it for the engagement.
— Kelechi (@kelechnekoff) August 22, 2023
And that’s the crux of it, really. Why would a group of ‘leftists’ – none of whom happen to be Black – argue with a Black woman about the role of racism in shielding white women within healthcare? They’re either complete idiots, or they’re doing it because messy opinions will boost their engagement in a way that standing up for what’s right won’t.
With allies like these, who needs serial killers.
Featured image via YouTube/ The Mirror
