Unusually for Resisting Hate, these individuals are not fash. Or at least not fash in the usual sense of the word. Judy Gatiss actually claims to fight against racism. Though our experiences of her so far (which include dragging race into every conversation in a disparaging manner and attacking antifascists online) perhaps suggest she has more in common with fash than she thinks.
I am going to preface this article by sharing some (anonymised) messages I have had since engaging with Judy Gatiss online. Several individuals have come forward to say she and her small gang of internet provocateurs have bullied them. These include both Jewish people and people of colour who believe they have been intentionally targeted for these characteristics. I have reported this to a sister organisation who specialises in tackling antisemitism.
It is also noted that Judy Gatiss focuses on attacking established antifascists. A surprising action for a woman who professes herself to be antiracist. I refer the reader to Judy’s Blog “Much A Jude about Nothing” to view the defamatory remarks and abuse directed at socialists and antifascists.
Judy Gatiss first came to our attention a few weeks ago when we were tipped off that she was writing a blog where she tries to expose well known antifascists as racists. We didn’t pay much attention to her little blog and small following but this week she decided to try it on with Resisting Hate so we delved a bit deeper.
Judy’s tweets fall into three categories. Tweets that mention her skin colour, tweets that mention her autism and tweets that antagonise other people. Sometimes she manages all three in one tweet.
We found this tweet to a Jewish lady particularly abhorrent. So there’s no place in the Greater Good for Jewish people Judy? No place in your neighbourhood for them either? How on earth can you expect to be respected as someone who stands against racism when you are posting exactly the kind of thing you profess to dislike?
Frustratingly Judy cannot accept criticism about her behaviour without assuming it is a derogatory comment on her race. Possibly the fear of being called a racist would silence some of her detractors. But at Resisting Hate we call out negative behaviour regardless of what colour a person is. And we certainly do not believe being white, black or brown is an acceptable reason to justify appalling behaviour. We most definitely do not believe that the colour of Judy’s skin justifies her bullying of Jewish people and people of colour or indeed anyone. This kind of racist behaviour is not acceptable.
Charles Goodwin’s tweets primarily consist of condeming the tweets of left wing people in an attempt to obtain some kind of moral high ground. Or as we at Resisting Hate call it, timewasting.
Of course we always try to be reasonable but it is hard to find middle ground with a woman who appears to think the middle ground is a place for her to defecate.
Judy appears to believe she is ‘exposing’ people. What she is actually doing is abusing and harassing individuals who disagree with her views. In some cases she is racially abusing individuals. In some cases she is using antisemitism to abuse individuals. In most of the cases we have seen she is using lies to abuse individuals.
Judy’s obsession with race is divisive. Comments like this are designed to cause racial division and to divide the political left. We have many activists in Resisting Hate, activists from many different racial communities and we find the concept of judging activists on skin colour to be abhorrent.
In exactly the same way we would call out a white supremacist, we call out this woman who thinks she can objectify and stereotype based on race. Anti racism is about treating people no differently based on their colour. It is not racist to call out an individual for poor behaviour. It would most certainly be wrong to base a negative opinion about Judy on her skin colour but to have a negative opinion based solely on the way she chooses to interact online is treating her as anyone, regardless of skin colour, would be treated.
Put simply, the colour of a person’s skin does NOT give them a free pass to harass and abuse other people.
Judy will not understand that. She will assume she is being criticised because of her colour. That kind of lazy assumption is easier than challenging her own behaviour or self questioning why she is so keen to start fights on the internet with antifascists.
Like all intrinsically blinkered people, Judy is so carried away with her own rhetoric that she fails to notice she is making no sense. Here she is condemning the behaviour of an individual, calling them a racist and and saying no black people are defending them. She didn’t bother to find out that two of the ‘racists’ she is talking about are also people of colour and they are people of colour who have done a good deal of practical work to fight hatred and racism. (Or perhaps she did know she was harassing a lady of colour and an Asian man and decided to do it anyway.)
Judy continues to moan that no black people support the ‘fake profiles’ she has encountered on Twitter. Had she done her homework she would have discovered that 2/3 of the accounts she is terming ‘fake’ are actually both genuine antifascists and people of colour. This is the danger of becoming so preoccupied with race that common sense goes out the window. Frankly, she makes herself look a fool. She is also, by her own logic, racially harassing other people on Twitter.
When we challenged Judy she seemed uncertain of whether or not she believes in antifascism.
She also appears very unsure of whether or not she is an activist.
Well no problem Judy we can help with that. You are neither an activist nor an antifascist. You are, in my opinion, a racist attention seeking troublemaker who spends her time baiting and winding up people who have devoted a great deal of their free time to fighting the very things you profess to be so offended about.
This, for example, is racist. Whether you think it is or not, whether you like it or not, this is racist.
This obsession with division is racist.
This determination to judge and quantify people based on their skin colour is racist:
Again this obsession with dividing white and black people. What’s the word I’m looking for…. Oh yes, it’s racist. It’s actually the very quintessential nature of what racism is all about, dividing people into categories based on skin colour.
And there’s yet more racism…
So she doesn’t appear to get on with Black people, white people or Jewish people. One wonders who, apart from her small group of internet trolls, this woman actually does get along with.
Even her small (and rather badly researched) blog is obsessed with race and the division of people into ‘black’ and ‘white’ partitions. How she expects this to help in the fight against racism is anyone’s guess.
This tweet isn’t so much racist as it is ignorant. Judy is talking abour Resisting Hate, a multi racial diverse group of people. Yet instead of doing her homework Judy assumes our org is 99% white because it suits her narrative.
We appear not be the only people who have noticed that this internet troll is stirring up trouble:
Charles isn’t too popular either. It appears people see right through that holier than thou act.
By her own admittance Judy appears to have quite a rocky relationship with the law. Perhaps if you get banged up for the “violent crimes” and “drug offences” Judy you might use the time to educate yourself a bit on the difference between the fascists you should be tackling and the decent dedicated people who spend their time trying to work toward a society where all voices are heard equally.
Their friends are a bit dodgy too. I wonder if they bothered to find out Monkey’s heritage before making this comment toward her?
Interestingly Charles and Judy have spent the last two days in heated faux outrage about language used on Twitter and furious that Resisting Hate will not unfriend people who use language they dislike. (To be clear we do not support or condone ableist language.) However it would appear that Charles likes to use ableist language and Judy doesn’t feel any need to unfriend him because of it:
We also find it quite distasteful that Judy refuses to make concessions for people who have mental health concerns.
And it is extremely concerning that they both use ableist language on social media.
So a woefully inadequate pair of troublemakers who fail even to hide the evidence of their own hypocrisy. They shout about other people using ableist and racist language while doing exactly the same thing themselves.
Judy and Charles appeared out of nowhere. We have not yet encountered any credible antifascist or organisation who can vouch for them or who has even heard of them. To date their timelines simply appear to be focused on baiting and attacking people who fight racism. They do this with trolling, smears and breathtaking lies including this ridiculous nonsense toward Resisting Hate.
We have not yet delved deep enough to work out if this silly pair believe themselves to be genuine anti racists (who evidently know nothing about how to oppose hate) or whether there is something more sinister going on. Certainly we would consider the possibility that anyone who puts so much effort into dividing people who ostensibly share the same views may well be nothing more than fascists with some well established sock accounts. Time will tell.
Roanna Carleton Taylor is one of the founder members of Resisting Hate. She is the author of many of our articles, and also writes occasionally for other media publications including Huff Post, Byline Times and Immigration News. Roanna loves German Shepherd Dogs and Oil Painting.
Good article., thanks for writing it. Seems to me that no-one who genuinely cares about issues of racism, anti-facism, disability etc – let alone someone who cares about those things *and* is politically on the left – would come out with the kind of vile hate-speech & bullying that Gatiss does. I think it likely that she’s a stooge of the far-right, & possibly also has mental health issues.