Bald-shaming row over alleged assault on disabled woman goes viral

The fight nobody saw but everyone is talking about

A video of an alleged assault has blown up on social media. A man whom critics call "the bald guy" — because of his advanced baldness — allegedly abused a disabled woman. Or so some say. Others claim the woman is a rude journalist who provoked the man, who reacted with a slap. The scene, filmed during the pandemic, pits those who see a deliberate act of violence against those who read it as a defensive overreaction.

The debate does not focus on the facts — almost nobody offers a complete account — but on the labels. "Nancy", "statist", "pogre disabled woman" are the tags the two sides throw at each other. What is never missing is the reference to the aggressor's height: "he's 1.59", they say, to undercut his authority. Nor the dismissal of the victim: "uneducated idiot".

Behind the row, a constant emerges: the establishment's — "the R78", in slang — need to label dissenters so they can keep them on file. Anyone who does not fit the official narrative, whether attacker or attacked, gets a stamp that disqualifies them. "Nothing pisses off the statists more than not being able to categorise you," one comment sums up.

The underlying question is whether the episode reveals anything more than a street brawl. Polarisation has reached the point where any incident becomes a symbolic battle. And while some call for calm and others for more fuel on the fire, the objective fact — who hit whom and why — is buried under the mud. We will probably never know the whole truth, because the version that will prevail is the one from whoever labels best.