"Wait, No, Now It's Affecting People I Like!"

Sonia Sodha is finally beginning to wake up, I think:

A few years ago, when I was still getting to grips with the vagaries of Twitter, I inadvertently took part in a social media pile-on. Someone well known said something stupid and I enjoyed tweeting to that effect.

Of course you did. It's great to be part of a mob, isn't it, whether that's physically, or via the safe medium of social media.

But mobs are fickle things, and suddenly your side is targeted, and it's far too late to say 'Hang on..!' isn't it? 

Some people are desperate to see the world cast in black and white. Clanchy’s worst crime is not to fit this mould. Of course she doesn’t: none of us can rise above the imperfectly human. Look at her in the round and it’s obvious she’s done more good than most. This is why the strand of anti-racist thinking that is obsessed with the blame and shame all white people should bear for structural discrimination is so corrosive to common cause and understanding. White people who do nothing to challenge racism are terrible, but white people who trip up when trying to do something about it are even worse. The societal misogyny that infects this movement means it sees older white women as the very worst of all. Any expression of distress is the weaponisation of “white women’s tears”. The witch is not permitted to have feelings; they distract from her role as lightning rod for anger at all of society’s ills.

That's the thing when you call down lightning, Sonia. It doesn't care who gets scorched. 

What has happened to Clanchy is a sad tale for our ages. No individual is to blame: it is the product of brittle and cowardly institutions, and the collective social media frenzy that prizes heads on a platter over change.

The very 'brittle and cowardly institutions' that you've spent your career at the 'Guardian' railing against? That's like beating a dog for years and then complaining that's it's cowering in the corner...