Diane Abbott

Yes. Some consider Jews to be too educated, too monied, too powerful to be oppressed. But this isn't the case at all. Yes, some Jews are all these things, but many are not.

For many on the left, there's a massive blind spot with regards to Jews, something that is still very much evident.

Diane Abbott may not be stupid, but there are some Campaign group MPs who really do seem to be lacking basic intelligence and critical-thinking ability.

Not to mention the SNP. But I think that if any other party got ca. 90% of its candidates elected, they'd be in trouble too.

Do you think the ‘wierd gap’ between Abbott’s education & intelligence and how she presents herself could be in any way linked to right wing media and what they choose to present to us and the story they tell about it? I don’t think she has made more gaffes than other politicians referenced up thread, yet somehow she is presented as thick and stupid.

We know institutional racism exists. There is a thread going at the moment that young black girls are 3 times more likely to be strip searched. Abbott has always been presented through the prism of a racist society - we recently had an openly racist Prime Minister, remember.

Well you're lovely aren't you - ''fuckwit comment'' ''cretin''

And previously ''racist old gits''

@onirgellep

Diane Abbott if far from stupid. She, like large swathes of the left, has just been captured by a particular ideology that dictates that Jewish people are not subject to the normal rules which dictate the way the left treats oppressed groups. It’s been pretty endemic in Labour for a long time.

Where did I say black people can't use the word racism? I didn't. You're being ridiculous!

Black people absolutely can describe their experiences as racism. What's not okay is saying that no other group experiences racism, because it's patently untrue.

She’s not being anti-Semitic. She makes a valid point.

There have been quite a few posters on this thread saying that she is ''thick'',
''stupid'' etc and unfortunately she doesn't come across as someone who is in fact very bright and well-educated

Around the time she was unwell approx 10 years ago I was very surprised to see that she is an Oxbridge graduate! Problems with her blood sugar seemed a reasonable explanation for the errors she made plus the photos of her napping in the HOC

I'm not suggesting she has any cognitive impairment which explains her views on racism but there is a weird gap between how she presents and her actual proven ability

And it's not because I disagree with her political views

Fucking hell, I have never noticed this before. But I do tend to steer away from political threads, maybe that is why.

This has made me reconsider visiting Mumsnet altogether.

So I go back to my original question.
How do black people talk about their unique oppression if they can't use the word racism?
Historically racism has been understood to mean oppression of black people by white people. Expanding that definition takes away black peoples ability to talk about that oppression.

I assure you, it is pervasive on here.

This is the only real reason I bother with threads like this, because the antisemites always show themselves.

🤷🏻‍♀️

I’m a fair-skinned Asian woman.

When I’m in Western clothes I face some prejudice / micro-aggression e.g. white people sometimes talking to me as if I can’t speak English.

But when I wear Asian clothes, the racism is amplified and I have been called ‘P*’ and have been ignored in queues in favour of white people.

So based on my experience, I think the racism experienced by black and Asian people is much worse than those who pass as white.

I found the comment "And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships." to be both factually incorrect and deeply offensive.

Try telling this to "white seeming people" (including some of my relatives) that were forcibly abducted by African slave traders from their homes in places such as Cornwall, Devon and Ireland and then manacled on slave ships to be taken to Africa.

This of course is in addition to her offensive anti semitism, anti Irish and anti travellers comments.

What was her excuse for every other time she made a totally fuckwit comment ? . I have just been watching her radio /tv interviews and tweets she has made and I am completely convinced she is a cretin and has made many racist comments in the past and it's about time she was held accountable.

And that you might, y'know, have heard of the Holocaust.

It comes up a lot. Appalling.

Blimey, disregarding this particular thread, is it something that comes up on here? Haven’t noticed it before. That’s shocking, especially if @MNHQ don’t address it.

It’s my understand that antisemitism is much more rife that we fully understand. Which is horrendous. Yet it isnt often discussed in the same way that some other issues are.

@Thepeopleversuswork no but studying history would suggest you'd have a half decent idea about things like racism and segregation

Having a good degree is not a guarantee that you won’t do stupid things.

(At Cambridge, should say.)

I think possibly the most worrying thing about this is that the woman read History St Cambridge!

YES.

Have said it before and will say it again, antisemitism is rampant on here and @MNHQ do absolutely nothing about it.

Human’s cruelty to humankind seems to be an eternal grinding machine. All forms of racism and prejudice are repellent. There shouldn’t be a hierarchy - therein lies the ‘divide and rule’ pitfall which weakens the unity of the resistance to prejudice and racism.

These are all things that happen regularly Gypsy and Travellers. You can add that G and T have had their entire way of life criminalised and at constant risk of imprisonment, fines and having their homes taken from them.

They did. In England in 1554 a statute enabled anyone calling themselves “Aegyptians” to be summarily killed. You could be hanged simply for being Romani. If you killed a Romani, there were no repercussions. Romania actually enslaved Roma people from 1300-1800. Moreover Roma people were ‘hunted’ like prey for sport in Medieval Romania. Roma and Sinti are Europe’s largest minority, treated as less than human for hundreds of years. Is it any wonder some Romani never wanted to assimilate with the ‘Gorja’ (non-Roma)?

Really? Are you sure about this. What are these physical characteristics?

And at the same time, do you realise that saying that many Jews do not appear physically Jewish is antisemitic?
Why? Because it buys into the idea that Jews conform to certain physical stereotypes when really, people are thinking of the antisemitic tropes perpetuated by the Nazis.

Yeah, but she is then minimising racism against other groups by saying it isn't racism. One being wrong doesn't make the other right.

It was a ridiculously stupid decision to write that letter and if she really did send in the wrong version, it was ridiculously stupidly careless.

I don't actually think she's got dementia, but I'd be interested to know what happens if an MP does lack capacity. A senior MP was sectioned sometime ago and there was quite a lot of speculation about what the mechanism would be to relieve him of his duties if he came back not in a fit state. He actually died without ever returning, I believe, so the question never arose. This is in the public domain but not really widely spoken about.