Why I am not siging a petition to create laws to protect celebrities in the aftermath of Caroline Flack’s tragedy

The suicide of Caroline Flack was a tragedy. I empathise with her family. I lost my sister who committed suicide too.

In that sense, I can relate and empathise with her family and friends with the guilt, pain, their loss and their feelings of powerlessness.

These are natural feelings that the surviving family and friends have to contend with. However, calling for stricter laws to protect celebrities and people in the public eye is not going to protect anyone.

It is a kneejerk reaction to a situation that people who are vulnerable think will make a difference. It is not a well thought out reaction.

It is more emotional than anything else and I can understand and empathise with where they are coming from.

Normally when people are making reactionary petitions, they are not well thought out.

They are driven by other considerations such as grief; pain, loss, and guilt. Those mixed emotions are enough to cloud anyone’s reasoning. 

They may think that they are doing something to protect someone else from going through the same things.

However, you cannot protect someone who is determined to kill themselves or self harm. They will do whatever it takes; that is the sad reality.

There is no law that can prevent someone from taking their own life when that time comes.

Instead, we risk getting flooded by over legislation. There is too much legislation in the world and we don’t need anymore.

So when I saw the following insert from an email from change.org, I knew what I was going to do.

“After the tragic passing of Caroline Flack over the weekend, her friends are calling for stricter laws to protect celebrities and people in the public eye. Over 222,000 people have signed the petition. Will you?”

I was not going to sign it. I have nothing against Caroline Flack or her family and friends. It is not personal.

I do not believe having laws to protect privileged people is an answer.

There are people who have to put up with more vitirol than Caroline had to put up with. Take the case of Meghan Markle.

Image copyright belongs to The Evening Standard https://www.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2019/10/25/17/meghan-markle-251019.jpg

The media has given her a lot more flack; she has been the subject of racist attacks by celebrities and people in the public eye.

The likes of Germaine Greer a so called feminist is a typical example of people who have consistently attacked Megan. Forget that they are both women which makes the attacks so much more insiduous. She is not alone.

The above illustrates the double standards of the media and the subtle racism that is insinuated in the subtle choices of a few poignant words.

Why should they be protected yet have the privilege of attacking people they don’t like for their own selfish reasons?

We don’t see the same kind of sustained attacks on Kate Middleton even for similar things they criticise in Meghan.

The media is always biased in reporting news. A black youth who commits the same crime as a white youth is demonised and depicted as evil and a devil.

At times, they don’t have to do anything bad at all. It can be good. But they will be demonised for being black. Their skin is their crime.

Image shows how the media depicts black people in racist stereotypes and demonises them even when they have done noting wrong but extols the virtue of white people for doing the same thing they lambast black people for.

Yet a white youth is humanised and referred to as a lad who made a mistake. He is not subjected to the racist stereotypes and vitirol directed at young black men or women are subjected to.

We should concentrate on treating people equally. We cannot have separate laws for different people.

Black people already have to deal with laws that are skewed against them. We have to deal with a judicial system that is biased against us and a media that only amplifies black stereotypes.

Nobody calls for laws to protect them from a racist media.

Having laws that protect celebrities only places other people right at the bottom rung of a  multi tiered legal ladder.

Celebrities and people in the public eye have made choices to live in the glare of the limelight and paparazzi. They invite them into their lives.

They may manipulate the media to get column inches and use them to get what they want in the form of publicity and influencer deals.

Therefore, it makes it difficult to introduce laws that protect these people because of the nature of their fleeting relationship with the media.

It cannot be ok to be milking the media when it suits them and tell them to fuck off when it doesn’t.

If you don’t like the media then get out of the limelight.

If a moth plays near a candle, one day it’s life will be snuffed out and so it is with celebrities who live their life under the spotlight. It is the natural cycle of that life.

What we need is less legislation. We need common sense that Jesus and other wise sages througout time were trying to teach that, “you should treat people just as you would like them to treat you”.

That would do a lot more to protect our sanity and generate more goodwill than selective legislation can ever achieve.

What we need is more humaninty and less legislation.

In conclusion, I say give us equal rights and justice.