AIBU to wonder if it was Dianne Abbott who banged on about sending your kids to state schools then smugly tried to defend herself when she sent hers to private schools?

[ssd]

it was a while ago, but I remember how she smugly tried to defend her choice, whilst telling us we should send our kids to the local state school

why is she still getting away with talking crap

I don't care if she is the first black woman in the house of commons, she is playing the black/race/feminist card way too much and she should shut up and go

It was a stupid comment. But wouldn't you have quite liked her to resign before she said it as well Sausagesandmarmalade?

"Seems to me everyone jumping on the bash DA bandwagon without bothering to read what she said over a series of tweets - ie In Context - is being far more racist than she has been."

Why? That happens all the time on here on almost every thread.

"I haven't read the whole thing but..."

"You should do this OP..." - followed by ten replies all saying "Read the thread...this has happened since then."

You see it on here all the time. People might be commenting on one Tweet or one newspaper headline but I doubt the reason they are doing so is because they are racist.

oh yes....she should have gone a long time ago!

What an ignoramus (sorry....am beginning to get really annoyed).

She doesn't speak for blacks, whites, mixed race......
She has no authority!

Grrrr

If it were an essay or part of a longer interview, well yes, people should be expected to read the comments in context.

Twitter is not the place for long conversations. Each tweet is a statement on its own and is often taken as such, rightly so.

This is what she said............

But you are playing into a ?divide and rule? agenda. White people love playing ?divide and rule?. We should not play their game.?

Obviously referring to all whites generally. What's there to misinterpret.

I think "whitey" upthread was being used ironically.
I think the OP used "coloured" in ignorance that it is no longer a pc term.
Saying "I thought black people were not racist" is in intself racist.

Personally, if someone uses a term which is no longer pc in an innocuous statement, I can't get excited about that.
If someone is racist, it usually runs deeper than employing an out of date word.

I think Diane Abbott sounds very confused. She uses generalisations about whites and about black boys and about white schoolteachers which may strike a chord with certain people but which are gross generalisations nonetheless.

I've always found her smug and less intelligent than she thinks she is. Like a lot of politicians. I'm not offended by her tweet, I refuse to take her seriously. I doubt anyone will take her very seriously now.

grafit

In simple terms "divide and rule" means that you play different groups off against each other creating division between them so they don't think about getting together and ganging up on the common enemy i.e. the colonial powers.

For example, taking advantage of disputes between different Maharajahs in India to stop them all joining together to challenge the British Raj or using the Indian caste system to your advantage so that the higher castes identify themselves with the foreign British Raj rather than with the poor lower caste Indians.

So I suspect DA was suggesting that the establishment like to see tensions between and within ethnic minority groups within the UK because that stops them working together against the establishment agenda.
(except that she equated establishment with all white people)

Greythorn - perhaps ironically, but irony still doesn't make a racist term acceptable.

"(except that she equated establishment with all white people)"

And in doing so, she was wrong and exposed her own racist prejudices.

On a seperate note,
Someone earlier used the word coloured and soemone else called them out on it. I understand why coloured is offensive, but why is "of colour" acceptable when it means the exact same thing and is just the francophonic way of saying coloured? Can anyone explain why "of colour" is deemed acceptable?

Chaz I wasn't misrepresenting anything. I was making an additional point and that was that when discussing what DA said, when a (presumably) white person said "coloured" people objected. More people than when a (presumably) black person said "whitey".

One is ill judged and outdated and, yes, ethnocentric. The other was deliberately intended to offend.

why the term coloured is offensive

"It's wrong," says Toyin Agbetu of Ligali, an African-British human rights organisation. "Because it strips me of my identity and reduces me to the most superficial physical identifier, as opposed to my African ethnicity."

In the same kid of way the term white does to a white person or black does to a mixed race person.

Someone will be along shortly to put some meat my feeble explanation no doubt.

Dur didn't see it had gone on so much! Ok so Whatme was being ironic. Fair enough.

where has my other post disappeared to?
DA was racist in what she said. A black woman said she was upset at the use of the term "black community", and Abbot replied using the above divide and rule quote and in one go told a woman what to feel based on her colour, and accused all whites of racism. there is no way to justify her racism, and she should stand down. At some point in history every race on the planet has behaved vilely and shamefully (white black and arab peoples took part in the trading of slaves), but that does not mean we can use this to justify continuing with racism.

greythorne,
and whitey is a very racist term, using it ironically is no excuse.

foglike,
I can see why coloured is rightly considered offensive, but why is "of colour" ok, that is what i do not get, it means the exact same thing as coloured, but just used the french structure to say it.

It's worse - in 1997 she had a massive go at Harriet Harman and Tony Blair for sending their children to grammar schools. Then only 5 years later sent her son to a £10,000 a year private school.

And yes, then she said, "West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children. It's our atavistic streak."

So 'white' mums who send their children to private schools are clearly uncaring witches happy to perpetuate inequality and privilege but West Indian mums are 'going to the wall' for their kids.

She also said that blonde, blue eyed nurses from Finland shouldn't be allowed to work in her local hospital as they'd never seen a black person before. Imagine a white MP saying black nurses shouldn't be allowed to work in a hospital in a predominantly white area!!

She also 'tweeted' Labour poll results during the two minute silence on Nov 11th. See the link here and look at the time on the Twitter feed.

In short, Diane Abbot is a racist, entitlement-minded disrespectful, whinging hypocrite, and if she was white she'd have to resign.

You're right to ask why Kelly.
The term "Black" used to be offensive in the 60's and the term "Coloured" was the correct way to describe the colour of someone's skin.
I suppose the descriptive for white people in Asia and Africa would be white.
And I wouldn't be offended by that at all.

She says some ridiculous things - yet when i see her on TV I actually quite like her.

I have a friend who is in her constituency and says she is the most brilliant MP - really makes things happen.

She is VILE. The way she has been so blatantly hypocritical about schools makes me sick - and to make it worse, she then used the race card to defend her decision! Utterly amazing that anyone would vote for her. I absoloutely cannot stand her.

Wasn't the message in reply to a woman who was talking about the simplyfying of communities and her not feeling she fit a particular definition or something TODAY. And the reply was meaning you only feel like that coz white people want you to,

Kelly

I know "whitey" is racist! But it can also be used ironically to draw attention to racism.

I find these labels a bit confusing...

as a mixed race person...I have been described as being coloured in the past...but haven't been offended by that...but apparently I should have been.
I found the term a bit difficult to understand...but it didn't particularly bother me. I'm pretty confident in who I am...and what my ethnic mix is.

I've been told by black friends...to use the word 'black'...but I've never seen a black person (being true black in colour) in the same way as I've never seen a true white person.

Perhaps labels will change again in time to come.

I hate the ethnic surveys that you get on many forms as I don't fit into either box....except 'other' maybe

greythorne, but it is still offensive to the people it is being directed to, and to be honest it did not sound as if she was beign ironic anymore thna John Terry sounded ironic.

But Whatmeworry wasn't drawing attention to racism when she said it, because she's arguing that what DA said wasn't racist.

"What is interesting is that telling unpleasant truths about whitey is also un PC now."