October began with Trump’s taxes and election news and Covid have dominated the news since. It was easy for many Americans to gloss over the fact that just in September on the 16th, Dawn Wooten had exposed the Irwin County Detention Center, for performing mass hysterectomies on immigrant women. Another person besides Trump who has contributed to the flood of information that has drowned out that story, is sixteen year old Claudia Conway.
The daughter of former Trump consultant Kellyanne Conway, has gained over a million followers on the social media app TikTok. She gained a lot of attention in July for making allegations about her famous conservative parents being abusive. She has continued to make allegations about Trump’s health. However, Claudia since then explained the miscommunication between her and her mother. The only truth that was uncovered was that her and Kellyanne both had tested positive for Covid.
Despite this insignificant uncovering and popularized family drama, she was described as “the whistleblower of our time” by Elle magazine and some call her “the Greta Thunberg of the USA” To compare Claudia, a teenager crying for help publicly on TikTok, to another teenager who was unfairly forced by the failed leadership of global politicians to lead a call to climate action, is utterly disrespectful to Greta.
Both far right white men on twitter and Gen Z, and even some young liberal millennials shine light on her time and time again and get sucked into the whole facade and Claudia savior complex. While the kind of attention contrasts from saying outlandish and disgusting things and sexualizing a sixteen year old girl, to building her up as some kind of hero, both contribute to unnecessary attention that celebrity and social media culture creates.
A real whistleblower, like Dawn Wooten, is someone who reports or calls out a person or organization engaged in illicit activities, usually about government violations. Whistle blowing is a courageous act since those similar to Dawn Wooten risk not being believed, losing their job and being black listed from future jobs. This matter is so risky there is even a Whistleblower Protection Act that was strengthened in 2012. Dawn herself is being protected by the Government Accountability Program, and Project South which is a social advocacy organization.
This inhumane treatment of immigrants in detention centers isn’t unknown. The extent of it is, and without Dawn Wooten calling attention to the center she worked at as a nurse, this would not have gotten national coverage. If there is one detention center functioning like this, that means there are others. Especially with the corrupt practice of privatized prisons and centers since the Irwin County Detention Center is run by LaSelle Corrections who run similar centers in three other southern states.
Claudia being named as a whistleblower is a prime example of people being quick to label in a time of fake news and cancel culture. It is again important to check sources and understand terms being used before labeling anything as a sixteen year old girl with a Mar-A-Lago membership and a hatred for her parents, is being called the same term as heroic nurse Dawn Wooten.