Every Monday on Global Comment, we share the slow, thoughtful, considerate words that our brains – and souls – need but that it’s easy to miss in our busy world. We distil the best of the web and recommend just three links every week that you absolutely must see.
No fluff, no fuss, just three exceptional reads.
Here are this week’s recommendations:
Calling some people a ‘burden’ provides a cover story for welfare state violence (China Mills / Healing Justice Ldn)
State violence hides and thrives, harms and disarms, because we’re told it’s for ‘our own good’. The violent bureaucracy, assessments, waiting, being made to feel like you’re undeserving, being told the problem is you and not the system – wears camouflage in the name of welfare. It passes under the radar for apprehending violence. But not for everyone. Not for those who experience it firsthand, full-on, everyday, stitched onto skin and bone.
The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth
A teenager spent years building an online romance with a young Englishman. Months after they met in person, he killed her—and then her family learned of his dark past. Why did no one stop him?
On Boxing Day, six weeks after Wadsworth arrived, Sepple texted his mother saying he’d “smacked” Wadsworth because he found out she had blocked two British numbers on her phone, years ago. He assumed the numbers belonged to other men. “That’s no reason to lay a hand on her,” Dalton texted back. His psychological problems, it was increasingly obvious, were more deep-seated than Wadsworth had known. She’d been aware of Sepple’s history of self-harm—when he got angry or wanted his girlfriends to console him, he’d cut himself, deeply enough to bleed but never to seriously injure. He also regularly took an anti-anxiety medication. Wadsworth felt compelled to stick by his side. The day after Boxing Day, she changed her Facebook picture to a photo of Sepple with his arm around her, both of them smiling, and captioned it “My bestie” with a red heart. Around the same time, she began keeping a secret Snapchat folder to document her bruises. Wadsworth didn’t hide the abuse from her sister, but threatened to cut communication with Hailey if she told their mom. “She didn’t want us to hate him,” says Hailey.
Women’s world cup
@jessiheni22 like !!??? OK FRANCE #france #worldcup #womensworldcup #soccer #greenscreenvideo ♬ original sound – Jessiheni22
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Image: Patrick McLachlan