
Diane Abbott: she has suffered more racist abuse than anybody you can name, due to the colour of her skin – and has now lost the Labour Parliamentary whip for attacking a newspaper article that apparently tried to minimise racism against people of colour.
First they came for Jeremy Corbyn…
Then they came for his grassroots supporters…
Then they came for left-wing Jews…
Now they are coming for members of the Socialist Campaign Group – and Diane Abbott is the first to be targeted.
She is an easy target because she has an unfortunate turn of phrase and often fails to think carefully before going public with her words.
This time, it has cost her the Labour whip, after the Observer published the following letter:
Diane Abbott must know what happened to Jews and gypsies in Germany in the 1930s and across Nazi occupied Europe during WW2. She must know about the Pale of Settlement and pogroms of the Russian empire in the C19. This is such a strange letter. pic.twitter.com/kDVoZCuPYF
— Robert Peston (@Peston) April 23, 2023
For those who can’t read images, here‘s the letter in full:
Racism is black and white
Tomiwa Owolade claims that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people all suffer from “racism” (“Racism in Britain is not a black and white issue. It’s far more complicated”, Comment). They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.
It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice. But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.
Diane Abbott
House of Commons, London SW1
Anybody can see what she was trying to do: she was pointing out that people of colour suffer racism far more often in their daily lives than those who might be defined as “white/European”, because the difference is visually obvious.
(It is also misleading. I have a friend who is white and Welsh, but whose face might seem to have a Middle-Eastern look about it to those who live by stereotypes. He tans very easily, and tells me that, when he has been on holiday abroad (lucky fellow!) he is habitually picked out for a “random” bomb check on the way back into the UK, by security officials who think he looks like an Islamic terrorist.)
Nobody who knows her history could deny that she has a very strong point; if I recall correctly, Ms Abbott receives more racist hate mail than all other MPs put together.
She tried to make a distinction by saying people of colour suffer racism while Irish people, Jews and Travellers (the GRT community), suffer prejudice instead – and that’s where she went wrong.
It’s all racism. Jewish people (for example) were originally Semitic (hence the word for hate against them: anti-Semitism), and the fact that their culture, like Christianity, has been successful in absorbing people from other races does not stop hatred being directed at them because they are different.
I was going to suggest that she could have used the word “xenophobia” to describe the hatred of people of colour in this context – the so-called “dislike of the unlike”. But that does not only refer to race/skin colour but also to culture, so it might be a better umbrella title for the prejudice faced by all the groups she mentions.
The problem here is simply finding the right word for the distinction she intended, which is that the other groups can avoid abuse on occasions because their skin colour means they can blend in with what, for want of a better word, I’ll describe as the majority.
But it was enough for the usual suspects to spring to the attack – presumably secure in the knowledge that nobody is about to ask them to compare the amount of abuse those of them who present as white/European receive against Ms Abbott’s.
(Indeed, judging from the abuse that Ms Abbott has received over this letter, it seems some of them may even have perpetrated some of it.)
At the end of the day, it was a valid point made in a very clumsy way.
Ms Abbott has apologised for it, claiming that the letter published in The Observer was a draft that should not have gone out. That’s still her mistake, though – and one she should not have made. Here’s what she said:
My statement pic.twitter.com/Wu2h4nNOvN
— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) April 23, 2023
Again, for people who can’t read images:
I am writing regarding my letter that was recently published in the Observer.
I wish to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them.
The errors arose in an initial draft being sent. But there is no excuse, and I wish to apologise for any anguish caused.
Racism takes many forms, and it is completely undeniable that Jewish people have suffered its monstrous effects, as have Irish people, Travellers and many others.
So she accepts that she was at fault and has apologised.
If she was a member of Keir Starmer’s gang, that would be the end of it. But she isn’t, so she has lost the whip and there will undoubtedly be attempts to push her out of the party (or at least out of ever again being able to stand for election to the Hackney Parliamentary seat).
But some good has come of the row, because alongside the screaming, some people are discussing her points in a reasonable way. And they have good points to make:
Oh, Diane Abbott. What a daft thing to say. Travellers and Jews of course experience racism. But here's a few honest points I think very few people are actually honest about.
— SK Tedeschi (@skedeschi) April 23, 2023
This country has severe problems with treating a lot of people badly. And often privilege is related to class, wealth and also characteristics.
— SK Tedeschi (@skedeschi) April 23, 2023
It’s possible to foresee difficulties for Keir Starmer, though, as the suspension can be seen to carry a meaning that is harmful to him:
Barry Sheerman, Steve Reed, Neil Coyle, and more got away with racist remarks by being on the right of the Labour party and issuing boilerplate apologies.
What are the odds Diane Abbott's apology will not be accepted?
— Marl Karx (@BareLeft) April 23, 2023
How about this from a Jewish Twitter user?
Looks like Black people are not allowed to define racism against them either. Solidarity with Diane Abbott.
— WikiJewSoc🕎 (@JewSoc) April 23, 2023
Ever since DA became an MP she's had to work harder to prove she belongs, unlike every White MP. Every error she makes has been over-scutinized and analysed for days. And Corbyn-supporters will note a swift apology was not good enough for Starmer and his White team.
— WikiJewSoc🕎 (@JewSoc) April 23, 2023
She's wrong, obviously, but she's being treated way worse than any other MP who says something stupid has been treated and that's because people don't want to engage with what she's saying about institutional racism against Black people.
— WikiJewSoc🕎 (@JewSoc) April 23, 2023
And this is an important point about the online wolves who are currently baying for her blood:
That should read “hypocritical scum”, obviously.
— Jack likes films #JoinAUnion (@JackHancock1983) April 23, 2023
At the end of the day:
Diane Abbott overreacted to a newspaper article and published hasty words and, while that reflects badly on her, she has apologised, and that goes in her favour. The Labour Party that has suspended her – and the critics and abusers who have lined up to pour hate on her – will need to justify any action taken against her in that context – and I don’t think they’ll be able to.
It is they who will come out of this smelling like bull manure – not Ms Abbott.
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