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

Yes, which is probably why they did not understand my Rwanda example of racism.

The technicalities of whether it’s racism, xenophobia or discrimination is just semantics. It doesn’t matter. There isn’t a hierarchy to the harm that has been done to various different groups.
However, I don’t like the idea that people (even Dianne Abbott) can’t have an intellectual discussion about these things without someone being cancelled into denying their views. She should be allowed to say it and people should be allowed to argue back. Her ridiculous ideas and own prejudices are better discussed in the open.

God people talk bollocks.

Just because I said there is a facial difference between people from sub-Saharan African heritage compared to those of European-central Asian heritage which is not just skin colour, and is part of the racism, doesn’t mean I am saying everyone looks the same.

??

Well as long as you don’t look Jewish, ‘act’ Jewish, go to a synagogue or a Jewish school, mention Jewish holidays or customs, then you should be actually fine. If only the Jews in (for just one example) the Second World War had known that! It would all have been just fine according to Diane (oh wait, I think she doesn’t know about the holocaust.) Obviously that’s the last time there have been any issues for Jewish people, oh no… wait…

Oh but, it was probably just a mistake. She’s didn’t really mean to compare redheads and being Jewish or peskily forget the holocaust. She made a typo in a draft. She doesn’t hold a position of power in the government, in a location with many Jewish constituents that have had recent and escalating issues. She isn’t part of a party that has recently been accused of having an issue with antisemitism or… oh yeah. I’ve run out of excuses for it.

And I’m anti-cancellation etc. Someone that has felt sorry for her in the past (the drink on a train ridiculousness) and admires the work to get to where she is. But come on. This is not ok.

The technicalities of whether it’s racism, xenophobia or discrimination is just semantics. It doesn’t matter.

These were all lumped in together under ‘BaME’ for political purposes.

Perhaps it isn’t always helpful to lump things in together. Perhaps it is.

I don’t think you can categorically state that it doesn’t matter though.

Also - this whole ‘white against white discrimination’ / ‘what is and isn’t the definition of a race thing?’ Just no. It’s just a distraction from what is not ok, at all.

The words mean different things to different people. The terrible treatment faced by Jewish people could be called racism or discrimination it doesn’t change the results or harm.

Romani people are brown. They originate from India. Travellers are White, because they originate from Ireland.

If you go shopping with Roma children in France, you can witness the racism first hand: they will be followed by shop assistants almost immediately and treated with hostility. I have also witnessed baseless public accusations of stealing. These children were identified as Roma purely based on their skin colour; they were dressed like any other youth.

In 2018, the Equality and Human Rights Commission found that out of 1,903
adults in Britain, over 40% expressed ‘very negative’ attitudes towards
the Roma/Gypsy/Travellers, which was by far the most of any protected
characteristic group in the study. In the school year 2020/2021, Gypsy/ Roma children had the highest rates of school suspension of any ethnicity in the UK and large numbers had experienced racism and bullying at school.

Many Romani children continue to be schooled in segregated schools with a less demanding curriculum and poorer teaching in several Eastern European countries (comparable to S-Africa during Apartheid). Only 4 days ago (19 April 2023), the European Commission referred Slovakia to the EU Court of Justice for not sufficiently addressing discrimination against Roma children at school. Also in several Eastern European countries, thousands of Romani women have suffered forced sterilisations from the 1960s until as recently as 2012.

Historically, the Roma have experienced 500 years of slavery in what is today Romania (Romanians and the Roma are different ethnicities) and were subject to the Nuremberg laws just like the Jews. Large numbers of Nazi human experiments were carried out on Romani people, and in some countries almost all of the Roma population was murdered in the 1930s and 40s, a genocide that is still often overlooked. Large numbers also perished in concentration camps.

Yes, the Roma do suffer racism.

No. What she said was vile - it’s awful to diminish racism of others just because she doesn’t care about it. Racism can be directed towards anyone including white people. The fact she chose to diminish Jewish people’s experience of racism is particularly disturbing

Irish gypsies also have Indian origins.

Irish gypsies do suffer discrimination based on their lifestyle and culture.

Well said, a history book about 20th century racism that the Roma have suffered that I read ages ago and left a profound imprint is “Bury Me Standing” by Isabel Fonesca.

exactly. Why are we still tolerating this behavior- would we accept it from a white person? I suspect we would not and thus it’s Diane’s race that effectively gives her a type of privilege

From what I’ve noticed, it does seem some exponents of CRT are anti-semitic.

I love that book

I don't think she was saying having red hair led to the same kind of discrimination as being Jewish, or that being teased for that is in some way equivalent to the Holocaust.

It's possible to compare things that are very different in important ways. Sometimes the point of comparing two things is that they share one or a few characteristics, but are in other ways very different - it can help make clear whatever the quality they share is supposed to be because it isn't going to be confused with other qualities - it's a very useful technique though rather falls flat when someone has her basic facts as mixed up as Abbott does here.

I’d assume that’s related to Louis Farrakhan and his bizarre-o brand of anti semitism? Or at least, the bits of it that have filtered through to the younger generations - Farrakhan is well old now.

https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/farrakhan-his-own-words

https://abc7ny.com/amp/black-lives-matter-mural-greenburgh-louis-farrakhan-westchester/12169620/

Isn't it interesting timing that this happened just a couple of days after Sunak has been condemned for being weak for not sacking Dominic Raab. Starmer, by comparison, has shown strength in his position, commitment to weeding out anti semitism, distancing himself yet further from Corbynism. Funny coincidence.

Hathor Irish travellers did not originate in India. That was Romany Gypsies. They are totally different.
Also , whoever said this:
Many, many poor white people in apartheid SA were treated just as badly, if not worse than the black people. They weren't accepted by either.
That is quite a statement...are you sure about that??

I love a conspiracy theory at the best of times but just trying to get my head around what you’re suggesting…. are you thinking that Diane Abbot doesn’t really think these things, she just sacrificed herself and took one for the team to advance Starmer in the polls??? That feels like a stretch

I don't know what that person is really talking about.

But I don't find that kind of scenario hard to imagine. You can look at how poor whites were seen in the Southern US. In terms of laws and such they were better off. But many white people saw them as being socially inferior to many or most blacks, and so did the members of the black community, and that translated in how they were treated in society in some significant ways.

Abbott's comment perfectly illustrates an enormous problem we currently have: that huge numbers of people in Britain seem to think they live in the US, not an island off the coast of Europe.

Her perspective is simply a product of an American cultural imperialism that has sunk, deeply, into the consciousness of swathes of Brits.

She has no recognition of the enormity of the mass genocides and ethnic cleansings that took place in Europe in the 20th century, and how they very much were predicated on concepts of race and ethnicity.

To even have to state this is frankly ludicrous.

And of course the word "slave" is derived from "slav" because they were so persecuted and enslaved.

Powerfully put, thanks!