Hello. I'm the boring, stupid, post-quarry parasite who wrote the article.
Not here to argue with anybody, just wanted to say a few things in my defence.
Firstly, I think I know how you feel. I hate anti-Morrissey articles and I wrote about how much I hate them in my own anti-Morrissey article, which I never wanted to write. To me, it always felt like they were written by people who liked a few Smiths songs and never made much of an effort to understand the intelligence and humour of the solo work before grasping for the moral high-ground. I'm not a big fan of the kind of moralist clickbait that seeks to divide people. So if you want to call me names and tell me to f*** off then that's fine, I understand that reaction. But please know that I didn't write it to call Morrissey a racist and I certainly wouldn't think less of anybody for standing by him either. But he has lost me (and quite a few others). Ultimately, he's said some pretty reactionary, upsetting, and let's face it, ill-informed things and I wanted to explore that with counter arguments and without throwing
ists and
isms around. And I think I did that. But I guess you can be the judges.
Secondly, before Morrissey was a singer he was a music critic of sorts and he wrote some pretty harsh stuff about his favourite artists and that's bascially what I'm doing. Yes, I have my own beliefs about the world and I tend to vote on the left, I also enjoy spending time with my friends on the right and disagreeing with me doesn't automatically make you prejudice. But if you can't politely engage with reasonable criticism of Mozza's statements, which one of us is the snowflake?
(Somebody made the point that I should I be writing about more important things like Trump and democracy, and
I do. I couldn't resist an excuse to shamelessly self-promote myself)
Anyway... thirdly... say what you like about the New European but they also published a counter argument alongside my article which makes a lot of the points that have been made here. People can read both articles and make up their own mind. I don't think writers exist to tell people what to think or what to do, the best we can do is explain our own perspectives and let people come to their own conclusions. So if you read the article with an open mind you have every right to think I'm a boring idiot.
Oh and if you think the headline is "disgusting", that's nothing you should hear me play piano.
