Diane Abbott

[Flowerly]

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?

Can you quote the ‘vile comments’? I’m not being facetious, i can’t see anything ‘vile’ beyond disagreement (which is unsurprising given you started a thread)

The Labour party has many anti-Semites in it (as evidenced by the fact Corbyn was elected leader by party members!), Mumsnet has many Labour voters...

After all, a redheaded person can tell you how they and their ancestors get spit at, called names, kicked and punched just for how they look. Do you consider their oppression the same as you then?

This for one. As you well know, comments like this are littered through the thread.

Indeed.

i am aware my Nanny got teased for having red hair but the level of prejudice is not comparable to what my Asian dad suffered and still has to occasionally deal with and the judgements that are still made on him to this very day

he takes it on his stride sadly because he has been conditioned to this makes me feel really sad and angry

Nope.

My point is that there is a hierarchy . It exists.

The best that DA could have said is comparing Jewish experience to Islamophobia for example. So you could be Islam, and without your hijab, name etc. most people would not identify you in the streets. Technically you could be white and Islamic, but if you are not wearing your traditional head covering etc, and are instead wearing 'traditional English' clothes going to work etc. No one can identify you immediately and assault you as a result. Same if you are gay or trans etc. Your identity can be hidden - maybe I should phrase that as you have the power/choice to make it irrelevant. Black people don't have this choice at all.

No one is trying to minimise anything. But different levels of bigotry for different groups does exist.

That's a fact.

Funnily enough I wouldn't say MN has 'many' labour voters. Swinging more right nowadays looking at the threads about immigration and trans folk.
To suggest that DA is representative of most Labour voters is ridiculous. Starmer acted quickly and as made it clear the party won't tolerate anti semites/anti zionists or whatever they call themselves.
Saying that, the Conservative party haven't covered themselves in glory. Brexit has unleashed shocking xenophobia and they've pretty much turned into the Britain First party.

I kind of understand what DA was getting at, in that people of African heritage too often suffer a more overt, less subtle and more direct form of racism. I don't entirely disagree. But she willfully minimises racism experienced by other groups at a time when KS is doing a good job of cleansing the party's anti-Semitic image. She turned it almost into a competition over who suffered more, which was tasteless and actually pretty inaccurate.

DA has done so much good and its a shame she's written this piece so badly. I hope that she is allowed to continue as a Labour MP purely because of the good that she has done. I don't want her job on a platter, and it would be a shame for her career to end in this way. But DA and fellow MPs need to do better.

@TeapotElephant

Do be careful of posts like this and do your own deep dive, as you stated.

JC has a particular view about how things are being handled by the government of a particular country at this time. This does not make him anti-semitic. He had a particular view about apartheid SA, that did not make him anti-white or racist against whites.

Nor does being against Putin, make me anti- Russians as people.

I totally agree about what I see as a swing to far right in the Conservative Party, the outright xenophobia promoted and encouraged by this current government actually frightens and saddens me in equal amounts.

notanotheroneagain I said in my first post that she’s not wrong that black and brown people will suffer a particular for of racism. I think most pp on this thread have agreed as much so to claim this thread is all lives matter I don’t think is fair. I think most people with half a brain cell can understand what she was getting at. She just didn’t have to claim that Jews and other minorities don’t suffer racism and conveniently omit the holocaust when discussing historical oppressions. At best you could call it insensitive but really we all know what it is and I’m someone who really really didn’t want to think DA was antisemitic.

Sorry quoted the wrong post 🤦‍♀️ meant to quote @Samphiredragonfly

You (and others) seem to be going to great lengths throughout this and another similar thread to tell Jews they are wrong about the racism they face. That in itself is despicable and is a huge reason why Jews don't feel safe. But to you it's "disagreement". This covert - rather than explicit - antisemitism is what distinguishes left wing antisemitism from the more blatant right wing antisemitism but it is no less harmful and fuck knows where it's going to lead.

That's what's vile about it.

@notanotheroneagain Well, I have done a deep dive as you call it, and can quite confidently say JC is an antisemitism apologist at best, and an antisemite at worst. There's an excellent post by a PP explaining this but obviously you have had no interest in engaging with it.

I agree she has a point. But her letter revealed what she really thinks, and that appears to be not much of Jews.

Also I hope those vigorously defending DA would mount the same spirited defence of, say, Kemi Badenoch.

Recently I visited Hughenden Manor, the home of Disraeli, I believe the only Jewish prime minister. Interestingly the most extreme anti-Semitic protests against him, when he stood for Parliament, were by the Liberals. Stooping as low as ever!

@notanotheroneagain

"What???

Where do those slave descendants sit in an African society today"

+++++

Unlike the Atlantic Slave trade few records were kept by Barbary slave traders. But the majority of European white slaves taken to Africa were either worked to death or executed. A large number stayed and intermingled with the local population. A minority of the the wealthy slaves were ransomed and an even smaller minority for example Thomas Pellow managed to escape.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Pellow

wearesouthdevon.com/barbary-pirates-torbay/

The fear of being taken into slavery is the reason that Rule Britannia has the verse :

"Rule Britannia, Britannia, rule the waves
Britons never, never, shall be slaves"

There was a massive and long lasting economic impact along the south coast of the UK particularly in Cornwall and Devon from working men taken into slavery and the millions paid out in ransom.

All these Labour Jewish voices that came out to support Jackie Walker who was expelled from the Labour Party for anti-Semitism whereas David Baddiel with an obnoxious racist past gets to write the script. The real target was the popularity of Jeremy Corbyn and his support for Palestinians.

This is so pathetic about David Baddiel. A long, long time ago he did blacked up to mock a footballer. It was wrong then and wrong now. He apologised to the player in question and apologised to anyone who found it offensive. That does not mean that he has no right, years later, to talk and write about racism that he has experienced and sees.

Should we now ignore Diane Abbott when she talks about racism and oppressions because of this letter? I would suggest that despite getting this wrong, she still has plenty to say and deserves to be heard.

I suspect that that those that drag this up every time David Baddiel talks about anti-semitism have more of an issue with the uncomfortable questions he asks of the left rather than the sketch and joke that he has profusely apologised for.

Jewish…people have also been persecuted over the centuries, but not in the way Black African/Asian heritage people have.

Are you for real?

I've read about protests in Israel about the racism towards black Jews, I think mainly Ethiopian?

@dinkytoon JVL are not Labour and are barely Jewish. Even the founder of Momentum called them out on their antisemitism. They are a bunch of hateful and factional racist cranks.

We need to learn from the past and definitely not forget it, but isn't it more important to try to change the present? Racism of any sort is vile, so we need to make huge efforts, both individually and collectively, to educate ourselves and our children. We can't change the past, but instead of raging against each other, surely we need to rage against the vile racism and slavery going on right now. Have we all forgotten how the Uighurs are treated? It's not so long ago that our press was full of how they are transported to labour camps, families split up, women forcibly sterilised, their children taken away to be reeducated. So many posters are spitting rage (and rightly so). But let's save some of this rage for current slavery and let's try to do something about that, too.

@Snippysocks

Exactly

The Global Slavery Index (2018) estimated that roughly 40.3 million individuals are currently caught in modern slavery, with 71% of those being female, and 1 in 4 being children.As of 2018, the countries with the most slaves were: India (8 million),China (3.86 million), Pakistan (3.19 million), North Korea (2.64 million), Nigeria (1.39 million), Indonesia (1.22 million), Democratic Republic of the Congo (1 million), Russia (794,000) and the Philippines (784,000).

You don't get to call out other Jewish voices and decide who is Jewish or not based on whether you agree with them or not. That's racism pure and simple.

https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/

JVL only admits full membership to Labour Party members who identify as Jewish. In August 2019, JVL said that it had full members in a quarter of constituency Labour parties.All other members are associate members without voting rights, as the constitution specifies that the organisation is led by Jewish people and only they can vote on its policies. JVL does not make promoting the centrality of Israel to Jewish life a condition of membership" which is a requirement for membership of the JLM. Committee member Ian Saville has clarified that "There is no ideological test to join" and it is "a group for Jews in the Labour Party that would welcome all Jews, whatever their attitude to Israel".

I've been informed my people killed Jesus ,

I don't know the context. This is factually correct if you believe in the Bible and even non Christians believe that a man named Jesus existed.

Jesus, his Mother and the Apostles were Jews, and the Book of revelation speaks about Jews, that too is factually correct for believers.

Are Biblical facts for many, now racist?

He only truly apologised last year in person when he had become a self-declared authoritative voice on anti-racism and this past was holding him back. He caused enormous pain to Jason Lee and many black footballers with his casual and pervasive belittling, bullying and constant racist stereotyping. When people as adults tell you who they are believe them - they are telling you who they are, and besides you accept his apology but not hers.