Latest news with #prejudice
The Independent
4 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Diane Abbott may not be right – but is she entirely wrong on race?
Diane Abbott has been suspended by the Labour Party… again. They have said that they're taking 'incredibly seriously' an interview she gave to James Naughtie's Reflections programme on BBC Radio 4 conducted back in May, but only aired yesterday. During the interview, the veteran Labour MP said she did not look back with regret on comments she previously made in 2023 in a letter to The Observer, in which she was seen to be downplaying the discrimination received by groups such as the Jewish, Irish and Traveller Communities, by comparing it to that experienced by Black and Brown people. She had written that what they suffer from is 'prejudice' – which although similar to racism, isn't the same – and said that people use the two words as though they are interchangeable. After the outrage, she apologised for any anguish caused by her remarks and claimed that her letter had been a 'first draft' and a mistake. She was ordered to undergo an online two hour e-training module which was apparently a two-hour antisemitism awareness course. Her comments concerning the Irish and Traveller communities were not addressed. I suspect Abbott had been rather keen to clarify the comments in the Naughtie interview and didn't anticipate this reaction from Labour HQ. She has posted the excerpt from the interview that is causing all of the controversy to her X account in which she can be heard saying: 'Clearly there must be a difference between racism which is about colour, and other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street. You don't know… but if you see a Black person walking down the street, you see straightaway that they're Black. They are different types of racism.' She added: 'I just think that it's silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism.' This is a salient point. There's clearly a marked difference in how a Black person or person of colour suffers racism compared to someone who is 'white passing'. When there were riots in Southport last year, racist thugs didn't double-check the identity of the Black or Brown people they were attacking – they worked solely on the basis of skin colour. Naughtie pressed further, saying the effect is 'the same if you are, going to a synagogue on a Saturday morning and you have to have guards outside because some people might come along and want to insult you or even throw things at you'. 'That's pretty much the same as the kind of thing you describe in your book is happening to you as a Black person,' he said. 'The fact is one is a person of colour and one isn't, is neither here nor there. If you suffered it, it's still damaging.' Abbott replied: 'It is here, because you can spot that person of colour from hundreds of yards away. That is what is different.' I understand what she means – but I see why the second point she made could be construed as dismissive. The fact is, if you go to the synagogue on Shabbat and are Jewish – and have white skin – that is not going to protect you from any antisemitic attack. We've not been able to have a grown-up conversation around race in the UK for quite some time now. For me personally, I felt a significant shift around the time of the Brexit vote, Trump's first victory across the pond and Corbyn becoming leader of the Labour Party. This is when, instead of being able to simply speak about my own lived experiences, I was being called upon to compare them to others – forced to participate in some sort of 'oppression Olympics' which I hadn't trained or signed up for. I've always believed that intersectionality is the way to best understand what other people are going through. You can draw on some of your own experiences, look at the similarities and listen when they explain the difference in order to be able to empathise. What Abbott is trying to highlight here, however clumsily, is assimilation. I know many people from Jewish families who have Anglicised names and this was a deliberate choice, but it's important to point out not all of us can do this successfully. Despite many people from the Caribbean community (which I am from) having Anglicised names, it makes no difference to the racism we face. In some cases, it only delays the inevitable. I've heard plenty of stories of our people turning up to a job interview and witnessing the palpable disappointment of the panel when they realise 'Jason Davies' is actually a Black man. I deliberated long and hard on what to name my son, and in the end, I decided to give him an unmistakeably African name so people knew what they were getting – and there would be no surprises. My friend Iain decided to give his daughter an Anglicised name so that she could at least get her foot in the door, knowing that sometimes CVs and applications are thrown away just because you have a Black-sounding name. This is how early we start to worry about these things. But my experience is also different in other ways. I don't have to sit listening to people crack racist jokes because they don't realise I'm Black – that is obvious to them – yet my Jewish friends have had to listen to tasteless Holocaust jokes, because no one realises they're Jewish. Racism is often doled out due to perception. Gary Lineker, for example, has discussed being racially abused as a child because of his dark skin, despite being white; yet Meghan Markle has spoken about not suffering the level of racism growing up as she does now because people didn't realise she was half Black. Orthodox Jews are identifiable from the religious attire they wear in the same way that some Muslims are (those who wear thobes or hijabs.) But in dire circumstances, such as threat to life, these things can be removed. In Islam there is something called Taqiyya (annoyingly misused on social media) which allows you to conceal your faith in times of danger and persecution. Black people can't do this. If only Stephen Lawrence or Anthony Walker had been able to run around a corner and remove their skin in order to save their lives. The GRT (Gypsy, Roma and Traveller) community may able to walk down the street as individuals and blend in to mainstream society in a way that I can't, but that doesn't negate the horrendous levels of discrimination they face within the education system, the legislative changes and even just trying to have a drink or a meal. They are refused service and suffer crude racism in a way Abbott confidently asserts doesn't happen as overtly to Black people anymore. She said, 'they may think the same thoughts, but they know it's not acceptable to express them.' To my mind, Starmer has either made a serious mistake here, or the disrespect he has repeatedly shown Abbott and the wider Black community since the start of his leadership is set to continue. His failure to address the findings in the Forde Report (which was commissioned to examine the level of anti-Black racism and Islamophobia in the party) resulted in many leaving the party altogether. Some found a home elsewhere, while other MPs disengaged with politics altogether. The blind loyalty afforded to the Labour Party over the years since the overtly racist 1964 Smethick campaign where the Tories used the slogan: 'If you want a n****r for a neighbour, vote Labour' no longer exists. Now, a new generation of voters – some of whom are going to be as young as 16 – are looking at how Starmer's Labour operates a hierarchy of racism; how he gave a speech on immigration that many compared to Enoch Powell and then stood by his comments that the UK risked becoming an 'island of strangers'. Downing Street said Starmer 'completely rejected' suggestions he echoed Powell. In the words of Professor Gus John, if he didn't know what he was invoking, he is simply not fit to be prime minister. Racism manifests itself in different ways. There is nothing wrong with pointing this out. And unless we are able to have difficult conversations around the subject – which includes allowing people to make honest mistakes – we will never even come close to starting to resolve it. But maybe some people just don't want to.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
I'm the reason Diane Abbott wrote that letter, and I stand by what I said
Two years ago I wrote a column for The Observer. It was, I thought then, one of the more uncontroversial columns I have written in my career. It had two general points. The first is that Jews can be victims of racism; the second is that any definition of racism that excludes them is worthless and sinister. Who could possibly object to these points? They are almost so basic as to be not even worth expressing. The middle of the twentieth century was indelibly marked by one of the most gruesome acts of inhumanity ever perpetrated: the annihilation of European Jewry. And the people who committed this crime – the Nazis and the regimes who collaborated with them – saw Jews not simply as a religious group. They were demonised as a race; atheist Jews were also slaughtered in the gas chambers. I ask who could object to such a point, but what I really mean is which figure would stoop so low to do so. There are cranks in academia and the media, of course, who may reiterate the nonsense argument that only black and brown people could be victims of racism. But I was astonished, a week after I wrote my column, to learn that a member of Parliament would object to the main points I made. And not just any member of Parliament, but someone as experienced and well-respected as Diane Abbott. Jews can experience prejudice like 'redheads', she wrote in a letter, but they can't experience racism. She apologised soon after and was suspended from the Labour Party. But it seems her apology meant nothing in the end, and she has just been suspended again by the Labour Party. The reason? According to Abbott, in a recent interview with the BBC's James Naughtie, she doesn't regret her letter from 2023. She added that: 'Clearly, there must be a difference between racism which is about colour and other types of racism, because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street, you don't know.' That Jews cannot be recognised simply by looking at them would be news to those who are verbally and physically abused on the streets. But there's something else going on here that needs to be unpacked: it is the notion of a hierarchy of racism. In her original letter to The Observer, Abbott argued that Jews were not put at the back of the bus in segregationist America. Nor were they oppressed in apartheid South Africa. That they were oppressed and victimised in other ways is beside the point; Jews are white, according to this logic, so they can evade the prejudice against black and brown people. I have no personal animosity towards Abbott. I sympathise with the racist and misogynistic abuse she has suffered. And I thought her recent stand against assisted dying was brave and principled. More than anything else, I feel sad that someone so ostensibly committed to the cause of anti-racism can embarrass herself in this way. This doesn't mean I have changed my mind on the article I wrote. In fact I stand by it even more fiercely than before. The piece was written 6 months before October 7, the greatest massacre of Jews since the Second World War, and since then the subsequent orgy of anti-Semitic abuse and violence throughout the world has reinforced the necessity of speaking out against anti-Jewish racism. And it has made it even more important to call out people like Abbott who spread untruths about what constitutes racism.
The Independent
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Independent
Diane Abbott facing suspension after doubling down on racism remarks
& Rob Freeman Labour MP Diane Abbott is facing a potential new suspension from the party following recent comments she made about racism. Ms Abbott stated she has no regrets about remarks made in 2023 that led to her initial suspension, where she differentiated between racism based on colour and other forms of prejudice. In an interview with BBC's Radio 4, she reiterated her view that racism concerning skin colour is distinct from prejudice against groups like Travellers or Jewish people. The Labour Party has announced it will investigate her latest comments, taking them "incredibly seriously" and assessing them under party rules. This development follows her readmission to the party before the 2024 general election and comes amidst other recent suspensions of left-wing Labour MPs. Diane Abbott facing suspension from Labour again after expressing 'no regrets' over race row letter
Times
5 days ago
- Politics
- Times
Labour set to suspend Diane Abbott for repeating race comments
Labour is expected to suspend Diane Abbott for 'doubling down' on claims that Jews experience racism differently from black people. The former shadow home secretary, a veteran left-winger, had the whip removed in April 2023 over a letter to The Observer in which she wrote that Irish, Jewish and Traveller people 'undoubtedly experience prejudice' that is 'similar to racism'. But she added at the time: '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.' • Diane Abbott has Labour whip suspended over Jewish racism claims She withdrew the comments and apologised for 'any anguish caused', saying the letter had been a draft published in error. However, asked on Wednesday if she regretted the comments, which led to her being suspended from the party for a year, Abbott told BBC Radio 4: 'No, not at all.' She added: 'Clearly, there must be a difference between racism which is about colour and other types of racism because you can see a Traveller or a Jewish person walking down the street, you don't know [their background]. You don't know unless you stop to speak to them or you're in a meeting with them. • Tomiwa Owolade: For one who knows the pain of racism, Diane Abbott shows such ignorance 'But if you see a black person walking down the street, you see straight away that they're black. They are different types of racism.' A Labour Party spokesman said: 'There is no place for antisemitism in the Labour Party. 'We take these comments incredibly seriously, and will assess them in line with the Labour Party's rules and procedures.' Senior Labour sources said Abbott was expected to lose the whip. One said it was for 'doubling down on something she previously had the whip withdrawn for'. They added that she 'shouldn't be immune because she's the mother of the house' — the title given to the longest-serving female MP. Abbott, who became the first black female MP in 1987, was pressed on whether she believed she had done anything wrong. In response, she said: 'I just think that it's silly to try and claim that racism which is about skin colour is the same as other types of racism. I just … I don't know why people would say that.' Protesters outside Hackney Town Hall in east London last May demanded she be allowed to stand for Labour at the general election ALISHIA ABODUNDE/GETTY IMAGES Abbott maintained she had 'spent a lifetime fighting racism of all kinds and in particular fighting antisemitism, partly because of the nature of my constituency'. As the MP for the north London constituency of Hackney North & Stoke Newington, Abbott's seat has one of the highest proportion of Jewish residents in the UK, many of whom live in Stamford Hill. Her comments risk reopening the row that saw Abbott suspended in the first place. Her readmission to the parliamentary party was contentious, as some had sought to block her from being able to stand again as an MP at the general election. However, Abbott's supporters pushed for her to be reinstated. Abbott said: 'I got tremendous support locally. We had a big rally on the steps of Hackney Town Hall. And in the end Keir Starmer and the people around him had to back off because of the support I had from the community.'
SBS Australia
14-07-2025
- Politics
- SBS Australia
Causes and consequences: Do we all have the capacity for hatred?
Nick Haslam, Professor of psychology from the University of Melbourne, told SBS Examines hatred often stems from a sense of "unfair victimisation that you've suffered, and there's not much you can do about it." People feel hatred in response to humiliations or maltreatment they think they've suffered at the hands of another personal group. "That drives an emotional state, which is often a chronic kind of anger or content or aggressiveness or hostility. And that motivates action, which is usually some sort of revenge or distancing or desire to see the people who you hate suffer in some way." Associate Professor Matteo Vergani, Director of the Tackling Hate Lab, says there's an evolutionary basis for prejudice — but we can "override emotional impulses". "Of course humans can resist hate," he said. This episode of SBS Examines: Understanding Hate looks at the psychological roots of hate, and the impact of extreme division in our society.
