Black MP accused of racism - thoughts?

Labour MP Diane Abbott - Britain's first ever Black female MP - has been accused of racism after Tweeting: "'White people love playing 'divide & rule'. We should not play their game."

Explosions of righteous indignation abounded from the (largely WHITE) political parties, who each cheerfully shoved forward the closest available PoC politician to say how this wasn't okay and no form of racism is allowed. (Unsurprisingly, the Tories had to dig quite deep into the back benches before they could find someone)

From the BBC article:

BBC said:

Labour's Chuka Umunna said party leader Ed Miliband had told Ms Abbott her remarks were "unacceptable".
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Shadow Business Secretary Mr Umunna told the BBC: "Ed Miliband has spoken to her this morning and made it very clear in no uncertain terms that the contents of the tweet were unacceptable.

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In a statement, the Labour Party said: "We disagree with Diane's tweet.

"It is wrong to make sweeping generalisations about any race, creed, or culture.

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But Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi told BBC Radio 5live her comments were "intolerable".

"This is racism," he said. "If this was a white member of Parliament saying that all black people want to do bad things to us he would have resigned within the hour or be sacked.

"For a shadow minister to hold these sort of views is intolerable, it is wrong, she needs to go."

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Diane Abbott has since apologised and said her remarks were taken out of context. In fact the tweet was part of a larger conversation about race relations and a discussion about the term "Black community leaders".

Leaving aside the sheer hilarity of the I-spoke-to-a-Black-man-once-Conservatives wheeling out a non-White back-bencher to accuse a Black woman of racism, what are your thoughts on this story?

Of course, in the simplest-possible interpretation of events, an MP made a sweeping generalisation about a particular racial group. The Sun gleefully called her a hypocrite ("She doesn't want White people to be racist to Blacks but it's okay for Blacks to be racists to Whites!"); The New Statesman went with "Let's not pretend that Diane Abbott's comments were genuine racism". They are, however, a lone voice in the crowd of people going "Oh this is racism. No question".

But if individuals from minority communities can't point out discriminatory, colonialist or racist behaviour in the White majority, how can they work to tackle those issues? How can we move towards a truly post-race society if any criticism of White people is shut down in a storm of righteous indignation?

Should White people maybe just take a long hard look at history and suck it the hell up?

I'm honestly not sure what to think about this.

ETA: DAMMIT there is already a thread about this which I only saw five minutes AFTER writing this all out.

missesdash said:

I'm torn because I've yet to decide whether or not I accept the"power+prejudice" definition of racism.

If I subscribe to that belief, her comment isn't racist.

Regardless, her comment was irresponsible. Still, it's amazing how quick people are to interrupt a conversation about white supremacy by bringing up the insipid "reverse racism" card. The large conversation was certainly more important than a comment taken out of context. This is a major derail.

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To me, it keeps coming down to two things:

1. This was a comment made as part of a wider conversation she was having about the Black community, with another individual on Twitter, in the wake of the verdicts in the Stephen Lawrence murder case (in brief: Black teenager murdered by gang of White teenagers 18 years ago. Police royally f-ed up original investigation, accused of institutionalised racism. Finally, two men convicted of the murder almost twenty years after it happened). So in the wake of this she was talking about the Black community and "Black community leaders" and the importance of solidarity in minority groups etc etc, and she made this comment as part of that discussion.
Predictably, people have picked up on this one part of the wider conversation (a massive derail, as you say) and started yelling about how racist it is, ignoring the fact that Ms Abbott was discussing very real issues faced by a minority community. Instituionalised racism? Remnants of colonialism still affecting daily lives of PoC? Black teenagers being stabbed to death by White people who get away with it for 18 years? Forget all that shit! The slighted feelings of over-privileged White people are MUCH more important!

Which brings me to...
2. This gleeful "look at the Black woman being racist!"-fest ignores the fact that Britain is NOT post-race and NOT racially equal. White people still enjoy an enormous amount of unearned privilege simply by virtue of being White. All the White people complaining about how racist this is have probably, 99.9% certainly NEVER been on the receiving end of racial abuse; been told to "go back where they come from"; had racial slurs and insults thrown at them; been stop-searched solely on the basis of their race; been denied jobs solely because of their race; been treated differently in the classroom because of their skin colour; been treated with undue suspicion and mistrust by the police because of their skin colour; or been made to feel that they are not truly "British" because of their race. NONE of these things have ever happened to them.
So when I see these people - White people, hugely privileged and yet totally unaware of that privilege, totally oblivious to what it is actually like to be a minority in Britain - when I see them moaning about how racist this is, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I know that she made a generalistion based on race, which I can see, yes, that's not really fair and she should have been more clear or maybe NOT tweeted it in a public place where everyone can see. You could read that as racism if you define racism as "stereotyping/judging based on race", so very simplistically it's racist. But the reaction to it is completely out of proportion. This is on the "I say, steady on," end of the scale of offence, and everyone's acting like it's at the "That, sir, is an act of war!" end.


It's also worth pointing out that when White politicians and public figures are accused of racism, there's usually plenty of people falling over themselves to explain how it's NOT racist because of blah blah blah. Yet when it's a Black woman saying something ill advised, everyone's all "RACISM! RACISM!" and doesn't care about the nuance.

I don't know. I see the racial generalisation. I see that it's kinda unfair. I see that it's ill-advised to say that publicly on Twitter. But the reaction to it just leaves me with the distinct impression of a lot of very privileged people gleefully leaping on one mistake so they can act all hard-done-by and victimised.

missesdash said:

That's exactly what rubs me the wrong way. People LOVE making these kind of arguments. It's so validating for them. "see! see! She's racist too!"

That's why I called it a derail. It's so obvious what they're doing.

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It also furthers this myth of parity: that somehow, one Black woman's ill-advised generalisation on Twitter is just as bad as all the racism and discrimination BME communities in the UK have to deal with. It's all "See? We're racist, they're racist, everyone can be racist! Stop blaming us and making us feel bad!"

Jcomp said:

I wouldn't dispute this, but I would say that when you're aware of what the typical reaction to such a statement would be based on history, you have to know better than to make such a statement. Especially on Twitter, where you have to type it out and then hit send and can't chalk it up to misspeaking. You're not in position to change the game and you're only going to sabotage whatever relevant argument you're trying to make by inviting this backlash, however disproportional. You just have to know better.

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Yeah, I understand this. I mean, the statement was totally ill-advised and I'd go so far as to say the whole discussion was probably not a good one to have on Twitter, in snippets of 140 characters. But what gets me is how many White public figures seem to get up on stage or Twitter or the football pitch or TV and just open their mouths and spew outrageously racist BS. I don't see David Cameron watching every word he says lest he causes offence (*points at hugely insulting generalisations about the Muslim community, made by Cameron last year*). Or David Starkey. Or John Terry.

There's often a double standard applied to minority communities: they must be cleaner-than-clean, because any slip up is viciously pounced upon as evidence that they are "just as bad as White people".

It's not what she said so much as the way everyone is reacting to it that's making me uncomfortable.

Jcomp said:

Understandable. The way I tend to see these things, though, is that it's already known how the game is played. If you'll allow me to just torture the hell out of this "game" analogy that I can't seem to shake... if you already know things are stacked against you and your side is far behind on the scoreboard, and if you are going to step into a role of "leadership," then you take on a responsibility of having to be that much better than your counterparts. You can't afford to make similar mistakes. Just can't. It's shitty, but it's reality, and the most efficient way to combat it isn't to dwell on what's unfair, in my opinion. I'd rather go for the victory first, then go back and analyze what's unfair.

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I get this. I just... I think that it's really unfair and it depresses me. I mean the way people are reacting you'd think she'd declared war on White people or something.


I think this pretty much sums up why I have a problem with this story:

David Starkey name-drops Enoch Powell and says "The Whites have become Black", and blames Black culture for the rioting in Britain last summer. Toby Young goes forth to the Telegraph blog to explain to everyone that this is not, in fact, racist.

Diane Abbott remarks briefly on Twitter that "white people love to play divide and rule". Toby Young goes forth to the Telegraph blog to explain how terribly racist this is and how Diane Abbott is probably a racist too and there's no excuse for this and what if a White person did it?

Well we know what would happen if a White person said something like this. Toby Young would defend them as 'not racist' on the Telegraph blog.

It is fucking bullshit.

To clarify to people who don't like this:

Psychomacologist said:

Should White people maybe just take a long hard look at history and suck it the hell up?

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It is a question, not a statement. Because I honestly don't know if I think this. I mean, one very cynical and emotional part of me is going "Oh, FFS White people, get the hell over yourselves already!" but I know that's not really fair. I don't honestly think we should just let something like this go. But then I look to the history of racism, and the fact that White people today still benefit from the racism and colonialism of the past, and it just annoys me that so many people are ignoring the wider social and cultural context of this and viewing the statement as if it were said in a vacuum.

The other thing is, and this is a big part of why I'm annoyed about all this - when a White person says something racist/racefaily/inappropriate/offensive, there's usually plenty of people queueing up to explain how this isn't racist at all and everyone is just making a fuss. Take, for example, the SlutWalk debacle in America recently, where a young White woman turned up with a sign saying "Woman is the N***er of the world". In the resulting internet shitstorm, there were plenty of (mainly White) people saying that this girl didn't mean to cause offence and it's a John Lennon song and why was everyone getting upset. Or, in other words: "Suck it up, Black people - White girls can say n***er if they want!"

David Starkey says something blatantly racist? Suck it up, Black community - he didn't mean all of you! In the other thread, someone linked to the twitter stream of comments in response to Liverpool FC player Suarez racially abusing another footballer. And so many people are saying Evra is a grass, he's a sissy, he's a wimp (along with plenty of racial slurs) - in other words, he should just suck it up and not complain. Complaining about racism makes you a grass and a sissy.

PoC are told to "suck it up" all the time.

It is usually the case, when people from minority communities try to draw attention to racism or racist portrayals in fiction/film or discrimination or rampant White privilege, that a bunch of (usually White) people will dismiss such claims as "making a fuss" or "seeing racism everywhere" or "being oversensitive". People will defend the racism. They'll say "If you don't like it, don't watch it/read it/listen to it!" Derailing for Dummies was written by someone who saw the same dismissive and belittling attitude repeated over and over again, every time anyone from a minority group tried to draw attention to discrimination or racism.

And yet, the minute a Black woman says something racist about White people, a zero-tolerance policy is advocated.

It's not individuals to blame for this - it's just a social attitude. It's a society-wide phenomenon.

If I was to be particularly vindictive and cynical, I'd suggest that if White people really want in on the "victims of racism" party, they should have the whole experience. They should experience the sweeping racial generalistion, and then they should listen to lots of Black people explain how this isn't racism at all, and they should experience the frustration of trying to get their complaint heard whilst every single point on the "Derailing for Dummies" list is thrown at them; they should experience not just the racism but the accompanying dismissal, the accusations of over-sensitivity, the suggestions that the community "deserves it" for one spurious reason or another, and the general belittling of their complaints as not really that important. They should go through all this in a society that routinely under-privileges them because of their skin colour, and where despite best efforts very real and dangerous racism against them still persists, so this one comment is just part of the whole fabric of overt and subtle discrimination they have to deal with in their day to day lives. Maybe then I'll be inclined to throw a pity party for all the White people who are soooo offended and upset by Diane Abbott's statements.

I'm sorry if this seems harsh or unfair. But I am honestly so sick of people acting like this one thing she said somehow makes White people just as much the victims of racism as BME people. Because it doesn't. Not by a long, looong way. It means that for once, for ONCE, White people are finding out what it's like to have racial discrimination come back the other way.

Because yes, what she said was unfair. Yes, it was a racial stereotype and therefore racist. Yes, she shouldn't have said it and she was right to apologise. But it is one incident in a society where still the vast majority of racism is by White people, towards Black people and other minority groups. The context is this is a tiny blip on the radar in a culture that routinely privileges White people and disadvantages everyone else. So whilst people are of course well within their rights to be offended and demand an apology, and Diane Abbott was absolutely right to apologise and retract her statement, can we please stop pretending that we're all equal and everyone is equally victimised. Because it's not true.

Okay I think I'm done now. I'm honestly quite upset about all this, so if this post comes off as overwrought I apologise. I'm just really sick of the hypocritical attitude of people (I'm looking at you, BBC and other news outlets) who will ignore hundreds of tweets calling Evra a f****** n**** black c*** and a grass and a sissy (who cares about the racial abuse of a Black man?) but will latch onto and make a huge fuss over one tweet with one insensitive remark about White people. The whole thing is just, "Racism towards White people is much more important than racism towards BME people" and that makes me sick.

I hope I haven't offended anyone. I'm still trying to get all this straight in my head.