Neoliberal Virtue-Signalling

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Although it was amazing to watch the tearing down of Colston's statue during the midst of a Black Lives Matter protest, something which should be historically significant, I can't help but feel that a lot of local councils and corporations are now being disingenuous about the issue.

Council's are now suddenly saying that they will take down some of the more contentious statues, and streaming and broadcast services are removing literally anything that could be even remotely construed as racially offensive.

Many people had been lobbying their local councils for the removal of the more contentious statues for quite some time, but almost no-one had been arguing for the removal of Gone With The Wind or The Mighty Boosh.

It's all performative and vacuous and to appropriate right-wing terminology, it’s virtue-signalling.

It's obvious that councils and other polities are trying to protect themselves and appear virtuous, it's obvious that Netflix et al are trying to protect their capital interests. If any of them really cared, they would've sought to ask the people they purport to serve what they thought years ago.
It's also obvious that media machine is focused on commodifying as much of this issue as possible so it can be consumed by an evermore uncritical and unaware populace so it can then move swiftly onto the next paradigm of rage-profit generation.

And besides that, what does removing statues and pseudo-offensive programs actually do to address the structural issues that effect all of us in disproportion depending on ethnicity, gender and class besides being symbolic? The performative, virtue-signalling nature of these actions is emblematic of neoliberal capitalism and that in itself should remind us of where this will lead - right back to square one.

Don’t get me wrong, these are important issues that need rigorous discussion, but let's not take our eyes off the ball: Capitalism

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