Joris Luyendijk wrote a book in which he wanted to be vulnerable: people like him (white, of good descent, well-educated) have an advantage over people with less privilege. He has worked – he says – for two and a half years to find out.
In Buitenhof, Sylvana Simons and Neelie Smit explained that he could have done something useful in those two and a half years: that white, smart, educated men have privileges that – say – Afghan illiterate girls do not have is not really a discovery.
Luyendijk objected, but he came out of the conversation badly battered. Now, two and a half weeks later, he has discovered why: he didn’t have a fair chance.
It was a terrible experience, says Joris now in The Friday Move. “I was confronted with two people who had not read the book and who repeated criticism from others who had not read the book either, while I thought I could go there and tell what I had come up with there in 2.5 years together. That was really horrible, yes.”
“What I found very intense: if you work on a book for 2.5 years, do a lot of research and try to make it accessible so that everyone can at least read it, and then you get 40 seconds to tell and then deposit they criticize you… Then as an author you no longer have the chance to tell what you have chosen.”
“That that was at the VPRO, with whom I had seven Tegenlicht broadcasts and two seasons of Zomergasten and Wintergasten, and they not only threw me in front of the bus, but drove the bus themselves and then didn’t hear anything anymore… I thought that was very intense. ”
Buitenhof did this deliberately, according to Joris. “Oh, they knew exactly what they were doing. They thought: we’re going to score on Twitter.”
