Page 21 | Diane Abbott

Flowerly · 2023-04-23T11:02:30+00:00

To say that Diane Abbott is doing her best to help the Labour Party to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? Hideous antisemitism seemingly not gone away at all and add that to the horrendous misogyny in the Labour Party I wonder at this point why ANYONE would vote for them. AIBU?

Thepeopleversuswork · 23/04/2023 19:20

Jourdain11 · 23/04/2023 19:15

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

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

GoodChat · 23/04/2023 19:21

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

TeapotElephant · 23/04/2023 19:22

highfidelity · 23/04/2023 19:12

YES.

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

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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.

NutButters · 23/04/2023 19:24

It comes up a lot. Appalling.

Jourdain11 · 23/04/2023 19:25

GoodChat · 23/04/2023 19:21

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

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

Wiccan · 23/04/2023 19:28

onirgellep · 23/04/2023 16:45

DA was physically unwell when she made that mistake - she explained at the time that she was struggling with poorly controlled DM

Quite possibly it would have been a good time to retire

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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.

1dayatatime · 23/04/2023 19:29

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.

nochangeever · 23/04/2023 19:30

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.

highfidelity · 23/04/2023 19:30

TeapotElephant · 23/04/2023 19:22

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.

Show quote history

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.

🤷🏻‍♀️

AdamRyan · 23/04/2023 19:31

Jourdain11 · 23/04/2023 19:11

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.

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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.

TeapotElephant · 23/04/2023 19:32

highfidelity · 23/04/2023 19:30

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.

🤷🏻‍♀️

Show quote history

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.

onirgellep · 23/04/2023 19:33

Jourdain11 · 23/04/2023 19:15

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

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

LeHamelRenard · 23/04/2023 19:37

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

Jourdain11 · 23/04/2023 19:39

AdamRyan · 23/04/2023 19:31

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.

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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.

Thepeopleversuswork · 23/04/2023 19:39

@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.

onirgellep · 23/04/2023 19:40

Wiccan · 23/04/2023 19:28

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.

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

And previously ''racist old gits''

HeadNorth · 23/04/2023 19:41

onirgellep · 23/04/2023 19:33

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

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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.

Jourdain11 · 23/04/2023 19:43

Thepeopleversuswork · 23/04/2023 19:39

@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.

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.

highfidelity · 23/04/2023 19:43

Thepeopleversuswork · 23/04/2023 19:39

@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.

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.

1dayatatime · 23/04/2023 19:45

LeHamelRenard · 23/04/2023 19:37

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

No the comment :

"And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships."

Is both factually incorrect and deeply offensive. At the height of slavery there were plenty of white people being manacled on slave ships being sent to Africa.

Plbrookes · 23/04/2023 19:46

AdamRyan · 23/04/2023 19:02

I see. So now its not what people say but the agenda other people think they have that's the problem.

I read the article she was replying to and could see her issue with it. It was minimising racism, particularly racism against black people.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/15/racism-in-britain-is-not-a-black-and-white-issue-it-is-far-more-complicated

Because the corollary of one third of ethnic minority people reporting that they have experienced racist assault is that two thirds of ethnic minority people have not.
But the Evidence for Equality National Survey report complicates some of the underlying assumptions that many ostensibly progressive people espouse on racial inequality in Britain. One is a narrow idea of what constitutes racism.Anyone who is white is privileged, we are told, and racism only affects people of colour. The problem with this view is that there are certain minorities who are seen as white and yet experience prejudice. In fact, the two groups most likely to say they have experienced racist abuse, according to the survey, are Gypsy, Traveller and Roma communities and Jewish people. [actually incorrect as the graph shows "other black" as second highest behind travellers]
But the problem with this point of view is that the report has already been used to advance the claim that Britain is still plagued by racism – and the very same people who make this claim also emphasise only one kind of racial inequality, one that puts black and Asian people at the very bottom of society, and “white” people at the top.

I think we are in a bad state when a black woman can't write a response to an article like this without a public roasting

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Erm ... if someone writes a response to the article comparing Jewish people's experience of racism to the prejudice experienced by red-headed people they deserve a roasting. And, no, being a Black woman is not the trump card that absolves someone from criticism that you want it to be.

woodhill · 23/04/2023 19:47

Her remarks were so insensitive

Especially the bus comment.

TreadLight · 23/04/2023 19:50

AdamRyan · 23/04/2023 19:31

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.

Show quote history

Historically and linguistically, only in America has racism been limited to white on black. In this country we have plenty of history of racism against Afro Caribbeans, Eastern Europeans, Chinese, Indians, Sub Saharan Africans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Nepalese, Jews etc. Etc.

It is quite offensive that one group would monopolise the term and diminish the experiences of all the other victims.

And it isn't based on skin colour. Because the view derives from Critical Race Theory and the American legal system, some people will say some black people can't experience racism because their ancestors hundreds of years ago weren't slaves or experienced segregation in America.

EsmaCannonball · 23/04/2023 19:50

1dayatatime · 23/04/2023 19:29

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.

Her history degree mustn't have covered the Ottomans, who were quite the fans of shackling white-seeming people from the Mediterranean, Central and Eastern Europe, as well as plenty of black people from East Africa. The latter well into the twentieth century.

onirgellep · 23/04/2023 19:52

HeadNorth · 23/04/2023 19:41

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.

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No it's my personal view from seeing her speak and be interviewed

Sure there's perhaps excessive reporting of her gaffes and the tirade of misogynistic racist abuse on SM but I'm talking about something different