Diane Abbott had this letter in The Observer yesterday:
Abbott has apologised for the letter.
Labour has removed the whip from her. They have reacted, wholly appropriately in my opinion, to the letter.
Of course racism is, for some, a black and white issue. Skin colour drives far too much prejudice in the world. But to suggest that is the limit of racism and no one else can experience it is, in my opinion, wrong.
I will leave the anti-Semitic element of this letter to others to address. There are millions better able to address this than me.
I do, however, have a large extended Irish family. And to deny that the Irish suffered racism is just wrong.
There was no famine in Ireland in the last 1840s. There was a starvation. Food was exported from Ireland as millions died. This was not a natural and unavoidable phenomena. It was genocide. The population, 8 million before the starvation began, has not yet recovered. Contrast that with England, where the population has tripled.
And that was just a part of so much abuse, which was all too familiar in my childhood and beyond.
Throughout his life my father did everything he could to avoid association with his Irish roots. Assimilation was the key to his perception of survival and acceptability. He adopted his own cultural suppression to achieve that. The conflict was part of the insecurity and doubt that persisted throughout his life. His name said something of which he was in perpetual denial for fear of oppression.
His was a common experience. It is easier to be Irish now in England, perhaps the easiest it has ever been. But let's not pretend that the issues do not persist, because there are places where they very clearly do. It's tough being an Irish-origin catholic in Scotland, for example. The prejudice remains.
Yesterday LBC posted this tweet:
I think the tweet profoundly insensitive. The question is extraordinary. I rather hope OfCom considers it. The answer is glaringly obviously, yes, they can. That is why Diane Abbott was wrong.
To her credit, Abbott has admitted her mistake. I suspect Labour will be unforgiving. That is another issue.
What matters to me, beyond the offence, is how naively stupid this was. The whole far-right fascist rule book is based on creating division in society so that the advance of fascism is not noticed. Diane Abbott sowed that division, wrongly and wholly unnecessarily. It wasn't just the views she expressed that were a gift to the Tories - although I think they were that - it was the infighting in the left that they will delight in.
Let there be no infighting. Let's accept, as Diane Abbott has, that she got this wrong. And let's accept that racism is not just a black and white issue, however important that issue is. Instead let's accept that society must be intolerant of prejudice in all its forms. The right want to fuel that prejudice. It is the job of the left to end it, not just pragmatically, but because that is what is ethically demanded, and that is what Diane Abbott got so wrong.
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Most British people have no clue about the barbarity of British conduct in and policy toward Ireland. The genocide during the famine of the 1840s was simply the worst of it, allowing mass starvation while other governments in Europe ensured their populations had effective relief. And the reason for it was prejudice, both racism & sectarianism, allied to dogmatic laissez faire economics.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/06/08/malt-j08.html
Malevolent attitudes persist, even now
https://twitter.com/Niall001/status/1150431326006317058?s=19
as a glance at the comments section of the Daily Mail or Daily Express will also confirm.
Diane Abbot had a point but she made it poorly. She was far better on the situation in NI recently:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/unionism-is-blocking-progress-in-ireland
Can I complain? She didn’t even mention the Scots, although you did Richard.
I mentioned a form of prejudice that is well-known to exist in Scotland.
This is not a joking matter.
I absolutely agree that Diane Abbot has been very, very stupid over this and the Labour party is right to act. But hers is a view that is quite commmon and I wonder why. It is so perfectly obvious that the treatment of many people who are ‘white’ is racist. I say ‘white’ because I think it is a term without meaning in this context. There is an interesting article in the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/23/when-cleopatra-was-alive-she-wasnt-categorised-by-colour-of-her-skin
which discusses when skin colour was and was not relevant.
Perhaps the language is wrong? For many someone’s race is decided by their skin colour, therefore racism must be to do with skin colour. But if it were the ethnic cleansing that has taken place in many communities between groups whose skin colour is the same would be considered not racist, which would be a complete nonsense.
I get what she was trying to say, although in a severely ill considered fashion. As the descendant of Irish catholic immigrants in Scotland it’s to the shame of my country that we still see the acceptance of a mind set that views people from my community as “other”. However, I don’t experience anything like the casual and sustained racism that people of colour do, and I suspect that was the point that Diane Abbot, albeit extremely poorly, was trying to make.
All forms of racism (and indeed discrimination based on race, creed, gender, sexuality, capability, or other characteristics) are unacceptable in a modern, civilised society, and while I do believe progress has been made, we are a long way from the finish line.
What I cannot understand is that there has to be a culture of ‘who suffered the most’ in these issues. Suffering is suffering isn’t it?
You can’t be selective about a phenomenon like racism – racism is racism. And it’s a gift to unprincipled politicians to say who suffered and who did not or how much.
The experience of racism should push the victims together towards a shared understanding leading to a shared fight against it.
Surely?
I would hope so
Sadly some people want to ‘take out’ their feelings on someone else. It is the kick the cat syndrome; and a common human response. Thus the original offence can, like ripples on the pond, spread far and wide.
However, the reverse applies. Some good deeds can sometimes have far reaching effects. Kindness is best taught by example.
Ough Diane you are intelligent, and know you can’t be so clumsy writing; that’s the whole point of clear communication.
BTW Diane Abbott is, and has been over a long time, subjected to hate mail and online abuse on a scale we can’t appreciate.
PS I’m not a Labour Party supporter.
I am well aware of the abuse Diane has suffered. It is thought it might be the worst of any politician – and the reason is not hard to imagine.
That is why this is disappointing.
I’m only a layman with Attention Deficit Disorder, but Diane Abbott’s behaviour so often feels more like ADD than malice or even stupidity. When I first read her 2 paragraphs I thought “Yes, skin colour has to be carried everywhere.” Then I read comments about the Holocaust and thought “Obviously the Slavs, Jews, Homosexuals, Left-Wingers, the GRT Community, and so many others – as well as non-Aryans – were subject to torture and genocide.” With ADD one temporarily forgets even the most important matters in a struggle to keep all the necessary details in one’s head.
I’ve frequently been thought on the Autism Spectrum or stupid or malicious (often by bad faith actors and those with little or no ability for abstract reasoning, though you may want to edit this bracketed part as you indicated her punishment was another matter).
I gather the letter to the Observer was sent out late at night (was it 2am?): with Ritalin (it keeps ADD/ADHD at bay) you don’t take it late at night because it can cause insomnia: I suspect if she’s taking it (and she may be undiagnosed) it had worn off.
As a white, mostly Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, amab, cis, hetero, able-bodied, middle class, postgraduate English person in a professional job, I am probably one of the people who is least able to talk about any sort of negative prejudice in the whole of the UK.
But I will just say one thing. Clearly all sorts of groups have faced racial discrimination (by which I mean negative treatment on account of skin colour, ancestry, ethnic or national origin) at different times, in different places, in different ways – the transatlantic slave trade and Jim Crow and Apartheid, pogroms and the Holocaust, ethic war in the Balkans, Rwanda, the persecution of the Uighurs in Xinjiang, the Palestinians, caste and skin colour in India, and so on, and it does not do much good to erect a hierarchy of discrimination. Yes some peoples were persecuted in some places when others were not, or not as much. I expect distinctions and differential treatment between “in groups” and “out groups” are as old as humanity. But it is just plainly wrong.
It is obvious from my surname that my forebears were from the country that gave the world Fascism and that country played an inglorious part in both world wars, which latter accounts for all those jokes about its tanks with 13 reverse gears and one forward, or rifles with U shaped barrels designed so that its ever retreating army could shoot back at the enemy , and the navy equipped with glass bottomed ships to better see most of its fleet on the seabed. I’ve heard them all, and had to endure stupid jokes about the Mafia, and “icea creama”, and listen to stupid oafs bursting into mocking song about Papa Piccolino playing his mandolino, and been called Mr Spaghetti. My grandparents were not interned during the second war, and did not go down with the Arabdora Star (look it up if you don’t know what I am referring to). This low level prejudice/racism was especially common after the war, perhaps understandably, and has subsided now as a younger more enlightened generation replaces the oldies who remember Mussolini and Caporetto. But it was wearying for me , a young boy frowing up In Anglo Saxon Protestant London littered with bomb sites and enduring rationing as a result of the war brought to Britain the Fascist allies. Yet I have to say, none of this racism compares in intensity and horror with the transportation of Africans in slave ships across the Atlantic, nor the herding of Jews and Roma and Homosexuals onto cattle trucks whose destination was the gas chambers in the extermination camps. And none of this low level racist abuse is anything like the corrosive venomous abuse, and mockery, that day by day Diane Abbott suffers simply because she is black and female. It is as if, day after day she has acid sprayed into her face, and it should be no wonder if eventually and suddenly without thought for wht she says, she lashes out, forgetting for one moment the so many othr victims of racist hatred. More especially, perhaps she felt betrayed by a fellow person of African origin, who seemed to her to be minimising the levels of hatred directed especially to the race to which both she and he belong. For a moment, in her hurt and fury, she forgot about the horrors of Auschwitz and Belsen, the suffering the Roma, the continued abuse of gays and others. But now she is genuinely contrite, and rather than criticise and condemn her, surely there should be a little understanding and forgiveness, along with a gentle reminder that there are more who have suffered the same extremes of prejudice and racism than just her own particular section of hymanity.
You can forget the holocaust when writing a letter to the Guardian on racism that specifically refers to the Jews?
Really?
As a Jew myself, though arguably “the wrong type” according to Labour, your post as a whole seems well considered, Mr G whose-Italian-name-is-not-recognisable-here. I do understand how Ms Abbott could momentarily merge the Holocaust’s ills into the scheme of other genocidal horrors throughout history and in many places in the daily/hourly, minute by minute onslaught of the abuse she suffers and can never rest from.
I also get Alex Ferrie’s clear overview of the situation.
Yes, Ms Abbott’s article was badly phrased and minimised any suffering other than her own and that of her people but I agree that it was thoughtless rather than malicious and her apology seems heartfelt.
Labour itself seems to have a hierarchy of racism, with black people at the hardest end as recorded in the Forde Report, no action being taken by Labour to address the issues highlighted and of which nothing seems to ever be reported. Let alone the fact that most other people that the Party has censured/expelled for “antisemitism” are, like me, Jewish humanists who believe that Palestinians are people too and deserving of human rights.
So, overall, I agree with Richard’s original post in that Diane Abbot was mistaken in her assessment and that the Labour Party have overreacted to oust this highly successful, somewhat progressive black candidate in a safe seat. Call me cynical but they seem to pounce on the smallest iota of a crumb to expel anyone with core Labour values in favour of shoeing in one of their “New New Labour” cohort.
(And, yes, I used to be a Labour member but no more).
Why do you feel it is right for the Labour Party to have suspended Diana Abbott? She has apologised immediately, and fully. The Labour Party does not seem to feel the need to suspend people who exhibited and said extremely racists things about Diana Abbott, or indeed about muslims in general.
It was a clumsy letter, but it surely is true that when walking down a street that non orthodox jews or Irish people are not obvious and therefore are not subject to random unwarranted stop and search or verbal abuse that black people are.
I have no doubt that Starmer has been desperate to suspend Abbott for ages, as a supporter of Corbyn and a believer in socialism. I’m really sorry that she gave him an excuse. And I’m sorry that you feel it appropriate to support him in that.
The issue is far too big for her not to be suspended pending an investigation
Sorry – bit anything else would be a gift to the Tories
And actually, contrary to due process
I have said, I hope she gets a favour hearing
But don’t accuse me of siding with Starmer – that letter was out of order – and of course, it requires action. It would in a NY political party, in my opinion. This is not just a Labour issue.
One of the problems here is that “race” doesn’t exist, not in any meaningful genetic sense. We’re all human, and to use the term “race” and thereby “racism” is to fall into the hands of those who want such to exist. Maybe “prejudice” is a better term, since what we’re discussing is the pre-judging of a person’s behaviour, characteristics etc on the basis of some difference, perceived by another, which is seen to be in common with a perceived group, which may or may not actually exist. The perception is the thing, not the nominal “difference”/commonality, so it could be something like “has long eyelashes”, whatever the perceiver has decided. Skin colour is a pretty obvious “difference”, and its obviousness, to the perceiver anyway, means that prejudice is easily and frequently triggered, and is thereby experienced on a continuous basis by individuals. That’s truly horrible, and as a “white” guy I can hardly begin to imagine what effect that would have on one. But all bases for prejudice are capable of such effects, to the most extreme degrees. The bases are entirely illusory, don’t matter, and it’s the prejudice and its effects we must be concerned about.
It has long been acknowledged that “race” is a social construct, and as such has no scientific validity. It is therefore not unreasonable to clarify what “racism” is.
Is it based on the recognisable difference in the colour of your skin, as it is with Abbott? Or has its definition been expanded to include other groups of people, based on their religion, lifestyle, nationality or caste?
I suspect that something of this ambiguity lay behind Abbott’s unarguably maladroit letter.
The law is quite clear on this issue
Abbott is very much on the wrong side of it
The Equality Act is very clear on race discrimination:
(1)Race includes—
(a)colour;
(b)nationality;
(c)ethnic or national origins.
(2)In relation to the protected characteristic of race—
(a)a reference to a person who has a particular protected characteristic is a reference to a person of a particular racial group;
(b)a reference to persons who share a protected characteristic is a reference to persons of the same racial group.
(3)A racial group is a group of persons defined by reference to race; and a reference to a person’s racial group is a reference to a racial group into which the person falls.
(4)The fact that a racial group comprises two or more distinct racial groups does not prevent it from constituting a particular racial group.
.
Thanks
And precisely
Thank you for the insight that middle-class white male Irish people who are not travellers can be victims of racism.
I sense sarcasm
I hope not
It would speak ill of ytou
White middle class Irish male here. I was denied accommodation in London in the 70s because of my nationality. Also roughed up by members of the Met for being “your sort, over here”.
You’re welcome.
Diane Abbott was wrong to write her letter in such a fashion, although as some have mentioned above, there is a bit of a point she is making, in terms of obviousness of skin colour difference compared to other qualities.
However, why on earth did the Observer publish this? Did they not even read it before putting it in the paper? If they did read it, why didn’t they realise it would be a huge story, and put it on the front page rather than in the letters section? Or better yet, bounce back to Diane and ask her if she really meant what she wrote?
It seems that they did not even realise the furore this would create
Diane Abbott’s letter was an honest attempt to grapple with a complex issue.
I am a member of one of the 3 groups – Irish, Jewish and Traveller – that Tomiwa Owolade refers to. (I have not read his original article.) I would struggle to describe what I have experienced as racism. Prejudice would seem a more appropriate term and it has only been very occasional.
I sense in Abbott’s letter as sense of exhaustion from continual racism.
I suspect the hysteria is being orchestrated so that yet another slightly radical LP MP can be removed.
I think it would be more appropriate to take the whip away from those MPs who chose to defend Labour’s gutter level poster about Sunak being opposed to the imprisonment of those convicted of sex crimes.
That was a blatantly dishonest piece of work.
John McDonnell agrees she got it wrong
Why don’t you?
This is not a Labour conspiracy
I have a lot of sympathy with Diane on the abuse she has suffered. Biut she was horribly wrong on this. You are dangerously close to apologising for it
This is the last near apology I will post
Richard, I am Irish and agree with everything you write about how we have been treated over the centuries by English misrule in Ireland. My parents came to England from Dublin in the 1950’s. Greeted by signs in windows, ‘No Blacks, No Irish, No Dogs’. My father wasa trained plumber and my mother a teacher. Yet they found the situation intolerable then and moved back to Ireland in the late 1950’s. I came to England to work in the 1980’s and am still here. I’m living in a different England to waht my parents experienced. Sp why the difference? Yes there are still racist minorities here but we now have equality under the law. That is important. We have protection under the law. I also happen to be gay and recall growing up in Ireland where it was illegal untill 1992. In theory no police officer could protect us and intheory could have faced years in prison. It is one reason I came to England where the law was changed in 1967. I felt more able to be myself.
The mark I think of a good society is we recognise that when things are wrong we change and protect under the law. I remember what the late Queen said back in 2011 when she addressed a State Dinner held in her honour at Dublin Castle. ‘With the benefit of hindesight we would have done things differently if at all.’ Sadly there will always be racists and hateful people but let us make sure they have no place to hide and the law deals with them. Then, given we cannot change the past perhaps we can say to all who have suffered wrong then, ‘we hear you and we are sorry.’ As another famous Irishman Edmund Burke once said ‘All it takes for evil to happen is for good men to do nothing’. May we all look into our hearts and be the ‘good person’ for all is my dream.
Thank you