Is Diane Abbott right that only Black people experience racism and other ethnic groups experience prejudice?

[IwantToRetire]

Diane Abbott has been suspended as a Labour MP pending an investigation into a letter she wrote about racism to the Observer, the party has said.

The politician said "many types of white people with points of difference" can experience prejudice, in a letter published on Sunday.

But they are not subject to racism "all their lives", she said.

She later tweeted to say she was withdrawing her remarks and apologised "for any anguish caused".

Labour said the comments were "deeply offensive and wrong".

Suspending the whip means Ms Abbott will not be allowed to represent Labour in the House of Commons, where she will now sit as an independent MP.

In the letter, she wrote that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people "undoubtedly experience prejudice", which she said is "similar to racism".

She continued: "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."

She had been responding to a comment piece in the Guardian questioning the view that racism "only affects people of colour".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65365978

I agree @HyacinthBookay .I can't square the level of stupidity in the phrasing of that letter with her years as an MP.
I have a sil with diabetes who has startlingly out of character lapses.

I didn't want to speculate about her health, but she has had periods of being well off her usual game for a while now.

I guess it's really difficult to decide or recognise when it's time to step down.

Well sure, but the basic error was trying to defend a leftist alternative meaning of "racism" in the first place. Although she probably went beyond it and off into her own lunacy by bringing Jews into the discussion.

If she just used a dictionary definition or the UK legal meaning, she wouldn't have had a problem.

The left-wing likes to use their own alternative definition of racism so they can exclude white people as victims.

I guess I could accept that as momentary lapse (like the live TV incident a few years back, which made me feel quite protective of her!) but an email? To a newspaper?

I keep coming back to it perhaps being drafted by a young, trendy, American IDPOL influenced staffer, in which case hitting send without thinking carefully about the contents could totally be a short term lapse.

And if that’s the case then she is perhaps motivated to cover up in protection of a junior member of staff? In which case a full party investigation will disclose it eventually…

But if she’s genuinely bought into some imported American ideas around race and discrimination then it’s possible she is no longer a good fit for her constituency, which is likely one of the most diverse in the country and the needs of all members of the community need to be carefully negotiated because there will be times when differing cultural practices or religious beliefs clash and the law needs to be balanced and neutral in order to best protect equality for all.

We do need to be able to have good faith conversations and debates without fear of ‘cancellation’, being wrong shouldn’t be something no one can come back from (even murderers are usually entitled to parole eventually!)
Abbott (or her team) have been politically daft in terms of Abbott’s own good standing within the party tho, because the party cannot afford for any more missteps relating to antisemitism and as one of Corbyn’s closest friends and allies in the PLP, Starmer might well want rid of her anyway.

The way our parliamentary system works combined with Labour’s own policies means that decisions relating to Abbott’s future can theoretically be decided in several ways…

The National executive committee at the top of the Labour Party can expel a member and/or prevent a candidate standing on a short list.
The Leader can suspend an MP/withdraw the party whip, a la what happened to Corbyn (and presumably pressure the NEC to expel said suspended member?)
The local party members select the parliamentary candidate from a short list and can deselect a previous candidate (via some quite complicated procedures, iirc!)

And finally the local electorate can choose not to vote for the candidate on Election Day.

The north London seats occupied by some of the most familiar Labour names are very safe Labour seats though, so the individual voter doesn’t have much sway.

Keir Starmer, Diane Abbott, Jeremy Corbyn, David Lammy, Emily Thornberry, Barry Gardiner, Dawn Butler et al are all in a cluster of London constituencies that are (IIRC) very safe Labour seats, so safe they are ‘super majorities’.

When a seat is that safe (so safe that anyone selected is guaranteed win the GE) you can see why people might be tempted to get into a denouncement/demand for sackings/posting hostile things online situation, as an expression of people power or whatever (personal abuse is not acceptable though, argue the points rather than insult the person).

In an ideal world you’d hope that a politician as experienced as Abbott would get a fair hearing through internal and external investigations and with the party compliance unit, but as with GC women being dragged through disciplinary proceedings and tribunals both within political parties and in workplaces and member orgs, the process can be used as the punishment, and within Labour that manifests as an internal investigation that’s spun out so long that the local party members will be forced to select someone else to stand in Abbott’s seat, as a suspended member isn’t ‘in good standing’.

At 69 Abbott might decide it’s not worth the bother of going through the process and retire instead, which would be a massive shame as it would leave a cloud over all she has achieved.

Perhaps she will be forced out of her seat (by a GE occurring before her suspension is lifted) but still continue on through the disciplinary to clear her name? Once she’s out of her seat perhaps there will be less of an appetite to burn her at the stake anyway?

I don’t see it as that. I get the vibe of it being post-Covid/lockdown siloed thinking.

During the lockdowns when we were all dependent on social media, I noticed that friends of mine were definitely falling down into tight filter-bubbles and there was a lot of content out there to make black people really paranoid and like everyone was racist and despised them. I felt a bit helpless to witness it.

The fact that her arguments seem to be a mish-mash of those sort of arguments (the kind I saw friends sharing on social-media) makes me think that, understandably considering the shit she’s faced, she at some point started to perceive everything through the lens of being a black woman in a racist and sexist world - which is a distortion of reality. I think she has got out of touch - something public representatives shouldn’t do.

As for her being expected to have the Equality Act at the forefront of her mind - it was a distant memory when she made these comments. I remember at the time, it felt rushed in before the new government - there was a sense that it was almost interim “that’ll do for now” and straight away Stonewall, etc, started advising organisations to make adjustments ‘ahead of the law’, so as not have to change them again in a couple of months, so confident were they that they categorically knew how the EA would be amended in the near future.

That suggests to me that there were some promises made at the time to trans activists that they just needed to quickly concede to pass the law before the next government and they could expect to make adjustments later. With that sort of vibe I doubt DA felt very wedded to it.

I don’t think one of the symptoms of diabetes is saying racist things.

Interesting thoughts @JolyGoodBloviator

I think the question she's touched on goes something like 'Why is the Holocaust treated as such a unique event when there are so many examples in the past few hundred years of groups being treated inhumanely and large numbers of them being wiped out?'

Enormous pitfalls either side of that question!

But she didn't bring up other cases of genocide, she was bringing up ginger people!

She didn’t even mention the Holocaust. What she did mention was the transatlantic slave trade and Jim Crow laws in the US. Perhaps it is more that she thinks that the transatlantic slave trade and segregation are especially unique such that nothing else can compare sufficiently to be called “racism.”?

I think it was weird to mention American history asa British politician.

If you listen to the lyrics of the Calypso singers from Trinidad mid 20th century, they thought GB was practically a race-equality utopia compared to the USA.

I'm prepared to accept that perhaps the 'ginger hair' comment was the first draft.

But it's a stretch to argue that the whole argument (that 'white-seeming' people haven't really experienced racism) was a 'first draft'. Her argument seems to be something like, sometimes white people go nuts and turn on a minority group, but discrimination against black people is baked into the system.

I don't agree with her version of things or how she expressed it. But there is an issue that needs to be addressed. I couldn't help noticing that in my workplace (for example) on Holocaust Memorial Day we were remembering all kinds of horrific events that took place around the world against various groups of people, but the actual Holocaust that the day is meant to mark wasn't mentioned.

Yes I found it very strange too.

She has to bring the US into it because the UK for all its faults never had segregation imposed by law or legal prohibition on miscegenation.

However if she's going to bring the US into it I'm sure the Mexican, Hispanic and in particular the First Nations' population would be interested to hear that they didn't and don't experience racism as they aren't black.

The same with all the Chinese “coolies” shipped over to San Francisco and Los Angeles as debt slaves to work the railroads from the West Coast to the interior. Some were freed and tried to get in on the gold rush, but Chinese were legally barred from staking claims on the gold fields (although free Blacks could stake a claim).

Many factories refused to hire anyone who wasn’t white- Levi’s used to have labels on the jeans that said proudly “Made by white labor”

Black men got the right to vote in 1870. Women got the right in 1920.

Native Americans had no right to vote until 1924.

But Americans of Chinese descent were not considered US citizens and had no right to vote from 1882 to 1943!

Thanks!

Yours too, re: end-of-the-noughties Labour not being particularly wedded to the rushed EQ10 that went through right before their GE ousting.

Apart from the weirdness re: GRA interaction with the Sex characteristic (and the misrepresentation of what ‘gender reassignment’ means for single sex spaces as preached by the Church of Stonewall) it seems to me have been quite a good bit of legislation that is actually capable of recognising a clash of rights (none of this imported ‘rights aren’t pie’ sloganeering).

Of course, it hasn’t always been implemented particularly well and it’s way too expensive for most people to make proper use of (but crowdfunding strategic cases has a good knock on effect for others) but it’s much better than some attempts at similar legislation seen elsewhere in the world (eg America where trans protections are being inappropriately lumped in with Title 9 largely at a president’s whim and thus hollowing out the entire point of Title 9 and where measures aimed at improving equality for black people have seemingly resulted in penalising Asian people).

Obvs our own equalities laws should be constantly monitored to ensure they are achieving what they set out to do but clearly importing American policies wouldn’t be an upgrade!

IIRC we’ve done a bit better at negotiating the religious belief/gay rights clash too but I would have to reread on both transatlantic ‘gay cake’ cases to be sure of that statement!

As a life long Labour supporter and ex member it’s galling to see a Tory MP (Kemi Badenoch) discuss the rights clashes in a manner that is both respectful and non-pandering whilst a far more experienced Labour MP seems to be getting it so wrong but here we are 🤷‍♀️ no more rosette-wearing loyalty from me, every policy to be looked at on it’s own merits (or lack of merit).

Deeds not words tho, so I’m not putting all my (dinosaur) eggs in Badenoch’s basket just yet!

Apologies I typed too fast, I always say Black people or Black peoples and I have said “free Blacks” in one sentence in my post above I realise that is not on and I need to slow down. On a break from work and well not a valid excuse really. Sorry again.

What I've heard different ethnic groups , people of colour say about each other would make your toes curl . Racism is in all of us worldwide .

@tonyele I'd disagree that being Jewish is solely about a religion (disclaimer I am not Jewish so am not intending to "speak" for anyone who is). You might disagree with David Baddiel's recent book and TV show, personally I don't think he has tried to say that Jewish people suffer "more", he is saying that too many people simply consider discrimination against Jewish people to be "not that bad" - he gave a very interesting interview to Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart that is worth listening to.

He is right when he points out that he is an atheist and yet had he lived in 1930/40s Germany he would have found himself in a concentration camp based purely upon his appearance and heritage.

Also look at the treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII - asset stripped and forcibly detained for no other reason that having Japanese heritage.

I'm no fan of George Takei, but listening to his story of internment as a small child is horrifying and heart breaking in equal measure.

George Takei’s Family’s Japanese American Internment Nightmare (forbes.com)

I’ve repeatedly messed up the capitalisation for ‘ultra-Orthodox’ in every conceivable combo on this thread and when I finally went to Google to check I discovered that the proper term is ‘Haredi’ and ‘strictly Orthodox’ is preferred over ‘ultra-Orthodox’

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haredi_Judaism#:~:text=Haredi%20is%20a%20Modern%20Hebrew,at%20the%20word%20of%20God.

But everyday is a school day and hopefully we can all give each other the benefit of the doubt re: typos or minor mistakes in phrasing, and accept and offer corrections in good grace!

I anticipate using Haredi AND strictly Orthodox (in brackets!) for at least a few years though, as my phone’s spell check doesn’t like ‘Haredi’ at all and sensitive conversations about multiculturalism are not a good time for an autocucumber error 😬

(and I am not a politician writing to The Observer so posting a draft is less of a big deal!)

I think we’ve got beyond berating people for innocently using turns of phrase some people might be offended by.

You can safely assume people want to understand what you are trying to say rather than quietly hoping you trip up so we can demand your grovelling apology.

I think that's very reductive.

Diabetes, and other things too, can cause poor reasoning. Poor reasoning can take you all kinds of places. Your ideas about what constitutes racism are products of your reasoning too, there isn't some fully formed list that comes down from God to every persons brain.

@DemiColon

On 5 June 2017, during a Sky News interview, Abbott was unable to answer questions about the Harris report on how to protect London from terror attacks. She insisted that she had read the report, but was unable to recall any of the 127 recommendations. When asked if she could remember the specific recommendations, Abbott said: "I think it was an important review and we should act on it."[48][49] Abbott also denied reports that Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell were attempting to stop her from making broadcasts.[47][50] The next day, Abbott withdrew at the last minute – citing illness – from a joint interview on Woman's Hour on 6 June, in which she had been due to face her Conservative frontbench opposite number Amber Rudd.[51] On 7 June, Corbyn announced that Abbott was "not well" and had stepped aside in her role as Shadow Home Secretary. Lyn Brown was temporarily assigned to replace her.[52] Barry Gardiner said in a radio interview on LBC that Abbott had been diagnosed with having a "long-term" medical condition, and was "coming to terms with that".[52]

Thank you Hathor & JolyGood.