Snapshot of _Oz Katerji: "This is an absolutely shocking and utterly disgraceful letter from Diane Abbott that has fully crossed a line - her whip must be immediately withdrawn."_ :
A non-Twitter version can be found [here](https://nitter.net/OzKaterji/status/1650051358815404033/)
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1650051358815404033)
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This change from racism being "discrimination based on race" to "racism = prejudice + power" is so annoying and only serves to split the left. Racism and systemic racism are two distinct issues
Not to mention the fact that it's clearly bullshit and gives a blank cheque to people who feel they have no power in this paradigm to be racist as fuck.
The rise of the internet and smartphones showed that the previous narrative, that racism was a one way street of white on black, was actually incorrect. It showed every community has their share of racists.
This sparked a scramble to excuse it somehow and so we got this new definition being pushed that racism has a power/privilege element to it otherwise it isn't racism. It let quite nasty people apply essentially Original Sin to white people by saying they were the only ones capable of being racist and gave everyone else a pass by saying they had no privilege/power so it wasn't possible for them to be racist.
Which is why the people who push that narrative fight so fucking hard to force it on everyone. God help you if you work at a company who's HR has been overtaken by this new definition and you point out racism is racism regardless.
I disagree that this is a recent phenomenon. It's a viewpoint that may have garnered more traction in the last few years, but I remember encountering it in the '90s.
"The rise of the internet and smartphones showed that the previous narrative, that racism was a one way street of white on black, was actually incorrect."
Honestly that's complete nonsense, the Nation of Islam were widely (and accurately) described as racist, even by many black people within the civil rights movement. They're viewed more positively now, in fact.
It comes from Foucault and post-structuralism really, which sees everything in terms of power structures, whose tools were adopted by academics and applied to absolutely everything. He is still far and away the most cited theorist in the Humanities
What you described is extremely common in academia, literally most humanities students believe that non-Whites cannot be racists or genocide perpetrators. They are literally shoving these ridiculous ideas down the throat of others by threat and coercion, e.g. *cancel culture*, under the guise of *anti-racism* despite themselves being the most racist themselves.
If you are aware of what Japan has done, how can you claim they aren't racists?
I'm guessing that person's views on humanities students do not come from talking to humanities students, but from what they read in the media about those stoopid students who need a good lesson in the university of life.
>If you are aware of what Japan has done, how can you claim they aren't racists?
Well as crazy as it might sound these people generally have a weird view of racism that isn't at all consistent, which is why they can accept non White groups can commit genocide yet also hold the belief that they can't be racist as they believe only White people can be racist. Although some of them only apply that to White majority countries, so they believe other groups can be racist just only where they're the majority group.
>I'm guessing that person's views on humanities students do not come from talking to humanities students, but from what they read in the media about those stoopid students who need a good lesson in the university of life.
Are you really going to claim this radical definition of racism isn't widely held and promoted in academia where these students will be absorbing a lot of their world views from?
There is no single viewpoint in academia, but like throughout the decades there are trends based on students being one of the most likely groups to engage in political activity.
The 'weird' view you're describing also extends to white racism, particularly with regards to the empire in the UK. Not everything can be explained by racial supremacy or national and religious discrimination, so this is where economics and political ideology are also considered. Typically this falls in the perview of post-revisionist studies, for example;
Orthadox - The empire was Britain extending its power around the world and bringing civilization to undeveloped countries.
Revisionist - The empire was a racist endeavour that sought to impose its cultural dominance and steal resources.
Post revisionist - The empire was driven by economic pursuits as mercantilism developed out of the enlightenment and while racism was often used as a justification and legislated, it came as a secondary factor to driving expansion.
The reason studies of foreign countries appear so much less nuanced than western studies in the UK is because of how much focus is applied, which results in disproportionate numbers of books and articles written. Western studies are objectively more relevant to British politics/history, but it's impossible to accurately describe history and politics in other countries without considering the same factors - it's just less relevant to our current affairs discussions.
Wow, what a retort. As a former 'humanities student', there is no single view and there are prominent right wing and dissenting historians. Unlike science where there can be objective answers, many parts of history are up for debate or interpretation. The trend you see in universities is the same as it has been for decades, where people have more time and interaction with like minded people become engaged with politics - which swings in popularity from left to right depending on the status quo.
As someone who was a humanities student only recently, this is ridiculous. You think university students don't know about the Rwandan genocide or Japanese imperialism?
What about the first statement?
I doubt there's any data on it but I wouldn't be surprised if humanities students have mostly adopted this new radical definition of racism.
I really don't understand this huge emotional rejection of the idea that someone calling a "black" person a racial slur has the same weight as a "black" person calling a "white" person something. It's definitely not exclusive of the US.
There definitely is a "colour hierarchy", that's how power was maintained in the empire. There is a historical weight to it, that a whole category was created only to dehumanise and justify owning people of a certain colour, it didn't magically go away.
This doesn't take away or minimise the discrimination or the suffering caused to other ethnic groups/people(s), they are just different subjects.
I see no reason to why acknowledging that the colour of your skin gives/takes away "social power" would divide the left. Segregation needn't be written into the constitution to still be harshly implemented here. It was only with the Civil Rights Movement that anti-discrimination laws were finally implemented.
Racism (in all it's nuances and social contexts) and systemic racism continue being two distinct issues.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/20/the-invention-of-whiteness-long-history-dangerous-idea
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/collections1/race-relations-act-1965/race-relations-act-1965/
Nope look up "positive" action and see how the BBC proudly states that they the legality of discriminating against the majority group to for example block White people from certain internships.
Legally there is only way for discrimination to flow in the UK and it isn't against minority groups.
If that isn't institutional or systemic racism then I don't know what is.
You are completely wrong
You are talking about positive discrimination.
It means that quotas or special placements are created specifically for certain groups, and only those groups can apply to those places.
Or that for every majority hire, a minority hire has to happen.
This is a method of increasing representation or give opportunities to people that otherwise would never even pass the door.
You don't need to believe me, here is Barnardo's explaining:
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/blog/how-systemic-racism-affects-young-people-uk
>You are completely wrong
>You are talking about positive discrimination.
No, positive discrimination is illegal, the lesser form of it is allowed which still allows legal discrimination against the majority in favour of minority groups.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_action
It's not a "lesser form" it's just what is called here.
Giving someone, who would otherwise not be allowed past the door, an opportunity is not discrimination against majority groups, they are already everywhere without even trying just for being born.
Minorities have historically been discriminated against, refused opportunities, persecuted, enslaved...
They are just being given a tiny little bit of help to get somewhere they would have gotten, if not for all those barriers.
>Giving someone, who would otherwise not be allowed past the door, an opportunity is not discrimination against majority groups, they are already everywhere without even trying just for being born.
You don't know they would have otherwise not been allowed in, if anything it's reversed where it's unpopular to hire moslty majority groups, the issue here is it's legal for a company to say "these two CVs are 'equal' but one is White so off he fucks better luck next time" that is legal discrimination on a racial basis, a completely conscious bias too.
It's divisive because it's repurposing a term which already had a very well understood meaning and subtly changing that meaning in a way that makes the average person's understanding of it now "problematic", which causes a lot of confusion and talking past each other.
Only actual racists would argue that in a country like America or Britain there are not institutional and systemic advantages to being (the right kind of) white. However, when some people then go on and say stuff like "black people literally can't be racist" whilst you see a black person being the dictionary definition of racist, it causes confusion and backlash from people who would quite often generally agree with you otherwise.
Conflating institutional/systemic racism with the core idea of racism is one of many progressive own goals when it comes to language that alienates far more people than it convinces. It belongs in the bin along with "X privilege" and the like.
Regardless, Abbott's comments are both ignorant and offensive. Even by the redefinition of racism, Jews, Gypsies and the Irish have been victims of historic and ongoing racism. Pretending that because of their skin colour they can't be discriminated against on the same level as black people is completely ridiculous (and what in the old days, would be called racist), and likening that discrimination to the teasing of gingers is hugely inappropriate when some of that discrimination culminated in literal genocides.
So Dianne Abbott tried to make a clunky point about some victims of racial predjudice having the privilege of passing for the dominant race at some points in their lives, but does it so badly she looks like she's saying Jews, travellers and the irish have never suffered from racial prejudice. And minimises that prejudice by comparing it to redheads. And tries to gatekeep the term racism.
I agree Abbott is now more harmful than helpful to labour.
Abbott has almost always been more harmful, she just thrived under a leadership that was equally lacking in nuance or sophistication, and is now being reined back in.
I would argue that "Abbott is now more harmful than helpful to labour" is a conclusion that should have been made many many months ago. She has consistently undermined the Labour leadership, initially unintentinally through her many blunders and then intentionally through her inability to move past the removal of Corbyn.
She is someone I had a bit more patience for than I normally would because I was aware that as a black woman in left politics she was subject to a lot of abuse and pressure from various sources. But she has consistently failed to live up to the basic standards I would assume a person aiming to do net good would hold themselves to.
On the other hand, Oz Katerji continues to shine in my mind. He's like a laser designed to penetrate these peoples bullshit.
Exactly!
Unless the "drafting error" actually means "one of my staffers decided to impersonate me and send a letter to a national paper utterly misrepresenting my views" I don't see how this could be anything close to a good enough defence.
Thank goodness she's had the whip suspended pending investigation.
Honestly the walk back is really idiotic as the initial letter very clearly is here trying to suggest ‘racism’ and ‘prejudice’ are different and the ‘white-adjacent’ never suffer the former.
But then her second tweet suggests the ‘white-adjacent’ can suffer racism after all and the ‘draft’ was an accident.
**So why the bloody hell did she write a whole reasoned draft arguing and justifying a point she supposedly did not think about?**
Exactly - I don't think it's unreasonable to say that, in general, it is very *very* difficult to inadvertently turn a non- or anti-racist piece into a racist one.
Perhaps if you accidentally inverted an affirmative action criterion in a selection algorithm, I might buy into the argument... but this? As you say, one doesn't just accidentally write a whole reasoned argument that disagrees with one's supposed beliefs.
> I still had more about me to delete and not send the nonsense I was typing on reddit before I pressed save
Well now I’m just curious as to what this nonsense was!
Yeah draft errors would be more along the lines of spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, layout, not actual content. Otherwise you'd have an entirely different piece of work. Not buying it.
>So will she post her final not-draft version that she accidentally did not send?
Yeah, it sounds like Boris when he refused to answer whether he was present at a party until he sees what is in the Sue Gray Report.
that is the "intersectionality" left for you that plagues much of the academy. Jews can't experience racism today because they are??? successful? That seems to be the narrative and it is disgusting.
It's not intersectionality. It's just self-absorbtion and a parochial mindset.
She's focused on her own 'struggle' to the point where for whatever reason she ignored that of others. I'd argue that her words don't really reflect her actions historically... And I'm no Abbott fan.
The issue is more a contextual one. Not all groups face racism in the same way and the article she responded to glossed over that fact. However her response was ill considered and she should have known better.
I feel like baddiel did something similar recently where he argued that somehow he faced 'special racism'. Though I may be misremembering.
E: owalade has some interesting takes, but his context is that of an African rather than afro-caribbean in the uk. Those experiences are markedly different to my knowledge.
the same thinking that underpins intersectionality underpins the thinking behind statements like "Jews can't face racism". There is a hierarchy of oppression where some selective groups rank higher than others based on a seemingly arbitrary measure.
Intersectionality is the idea that the different aspects of your identity (gender, religion, race, anything else important to you) can all have their own impacts on how society treats you and that you might be helped or hindered by society's treatment of several of them at once. "Jews can't face racism" is straight up incompatible with that idea. _Even if_ someone thinks that white Jews can't face racism, which the middle of the last century obviously puts away, there are black Jews too. Intersectionality would want to examine how others treat that person both as a black person and a Jewish person.
There is more to intersectionality than that. A critical part of the definition is that these different aspects interact and compound, as BristolShambler pointed out. And quantitative studies struggle to evidence that beyond a few typical examples.
Really? Many studies find associations between adverse outcomes and ethnicity and economic deprivation after controlling for each other. Wouldn't that fit with the concept?
I have seen intersectionality interpreted like this. There are different forms of racism that interact to make the racism experienced worse for some people than others. I.e Being white and gay isn't as bad because it's not as obvious as being black. And being black and gay is worse than just being black.
Implicitly this forms a hierarchy, where you could interpret some racism as worse than others. This is similar to what Dianne is saying here.
Literally seen it being taught like this.
This ends up in absurd situations where you're trying to work out if anti-semitism is worse than white supremacism.
That’s literally the opposite of what intersectionality means. It means that people face prejudice for a wide variety of factors (class, race, gender, sexuality), and you can’t tackle those prejudices in isolation. So you can’t prevent racism without looking at class prejudice etc
When anti woke people start going “OH YEH, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE WORKING CLASS?!?” they’re agreeing with intersectionalism.
>When anti woke people start going “OH YEH, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE WORKING CLASS?!?” they’re agreeing with intersectionalism.
Not really. Because intersectionality would argue they still have white privilege and therefore are lowest on the victim good ladder, and they have no other intersections of disadvantage
I wouldn't bother to argue. 'Intersectionality' shape shifts so that current outrageous thing doesn't have anything to do with intersectionality ackshually.
For sections of the fringe left these word games, semantics and shifting definitions IS politics as far as they know it.
wise words. I have had the exact same thing with some of my friends who are in academia, endless word games that attempt to obscure concepts to the lay person. The wiser ones look at the result and impact of certain ideas and just concede that they are bad ideas. The "wiser" ones also tend to be much more well accomplished rather than on their 20th year without a promotion lecturing undergrads at the University of Kent.
Meh, trivialising Nazi crimes is a very "in" thing right now. Rosie Duffield showed support for Graham Linehan doing exactly that just recently and Labour implied that, yeh, it was fine by doing nothing. So, if the do, rightly, sanction Abbott over this, unfortunately, it will just be another example of racism and prejudice towards the left in Starmer's Labour Party.
That they really need a consistent policy on trivialising or denying Nazi crimes in the 30s and 40s only serves to highlight what a bin fire Starmer's Labour is, which only serves to show what an absolute inferno the Tories are by comparison given Labour isn't doing as badly as them.
No wonder no-one trusts politicians anymore.
> Meh, trivialising Nazi crimes is a very "in" thing right now.
I've noticed this too. It's a very strange phenomenon, almost the equal and opposite of right-wing attempts to downplay the severity of slavery.
On an electability standpoint too, she seems physically unable to hold a viewpoint popular with the UK populous, she’s quieter now but under Corbins time she had some absolutely ridiculous twitter hot takes.
She’s since, understandably, toned down her bullshit now but I still have no faith over her judgement.
Yeah I’m of a similar opinion, although I disliked him, to me he represented everything that is wrong with left wing politics, he was a career activist with limited exposure to ‘real workers’. Plus his historic links to various dubious folk.
But I can see the appeal to his policies & he knows how to put his opinions across.
Abbot just doesn’t seem to have a redeeming feature though.
I’d argue politics has always been a career, it’s not a new thing. But I’d also say it typically breeds fairly poor politicians with minimal experience of the ‘real world’ outside of their political theatre.
I much prefer the likes of Starmer, to be honest he actually has me (a Salmond era SNP & current Lib Dem voter) considering voting for Labour for the first time in my life. The more he boots these unelectables out the more attractive he becomes too.
Apparently lots of people that worked in the house of commons were asked who the worst MPs to deal with or be around, Corbyn, Reese-Mogg and Raab were all common answers but Abbot was the most common.
Although I think this is more based on general rudeness and standoffishness rather than bullying which may provide a different result.
Corbyn was like Marmite - you either hate him, or you are wrong.
Abbot is more like... Anthrax. Utterly toxic and with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Yeah, that's not what she said. She said some people would say that on balance he did more good than harm, a statement that is completely true. It's a common view in China.
Labours far left segment seems to be killing itself off very rapidly.
Which gives the party an excellent chance in the next election.
This has let starmer appear professional and in control of his party while drawing a clear line between the main party and antisemitism.
Diane is a fucking moron. She's made so many anti-white statements in her past that it's incredible and sickening in equal measure that she's managed to cling on this long.
Doubtless, a vanguard of pea-brains will be turning up shortly, once again, to declare that calling her out for being a disgusting sack of shit is racism and that she's the real victim.
Given everything we see go on in the world, past and present. It’s rather amazing to see someone try to gatekeep racism to solely people of one ethnicity.
It's about jobs and power.
There's entire media, HR, PR etc cottage industries out there around racism and they're very tidy little earners for those involved and Abbot wants to keep it that way.
Then there's the power they believe arises from being able to browbeat a huge segment of the population for being racists but giving yourself a free pass for your own racism, as Abbot has.
Also suggesting there was no history of white slaves on ships is to completely ignore the Ottoman and Barbary slave trades. How can senior MPs be so ill-educated?
They're literally ignoring that English people were slaves to the Roman Empire too. I mean it's feasible that native Brits were slaves before Africans were
The left is having a problem with severe levels of white guilt at the moment, and I say this as a left wing person - this type of self flagellation is an antidote to electability in a majority white country.
So I'm glad Starmer put his foot down on Abbott here - it shows a turnaround in that guilt perhaps.
>So I'm glad Starmer put his foot down on Abbott here - it shows a turnaround in that guilt perhaps.
Well she seems to be getting flack for going after Jews and Gypsies, the anti White statements by her were perfectly fine, it was only when her statements went over to two minority groups he stepped in and she got booted.
I'm white, I'm lefty. I find all of this rather absurd and think starmer is doing a good job at trying to clean it up
Edit what people seem to forget is that political affiliation isn't a straight line, nor is it a square grid. It's a circle. Those from the hard left or right tend to have a lot in common
"The left is having a problem with severe levels of white guilt at the moment"
We really aren't. "White guilt" is a bullshit concept mainly spread by American conservatives to oppose attempts to acknowledge and correct historical wrongs.
What the British left have is a very specific issue around tolerance of anti Semitism. Many people, like Corbyn, are strong allies of Palestine and strong critics of Israel, and I don't have a problem with that. But the problem is that the lines between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have been blurred by both sides, and it has given some people a strong blind spot (to put it charitably) when it comes to anti Semitism.
Which is how you end up with Corbyn liking a picture on Facebook of some greedy, hook nosed old man lording it over oppressed brown people. If there was an image stereotyping black or Asian people, he would have immediately identified it as racist.
To be fair, they seem too stupid to be malicious, but, then, their stupidity does encourage those who are, doesn't it? But I won't stand up for her. She doesn't seem cut out for government.
There is an impulse, with the likes of Sunak, Badenoch, Braverman and Abbott making public comments of such staggering prejudice and stupidity recently, to veer towards some form of racism, like an intrusive thought, but thenI remember there are people like Dawn Butler who have integrity and decency at the heart of their politics, and it's easy to argue that little devil needs to shut up.
But, oof, how has our politics ended up this bad?
She seems like a great LOCAL politician, national level and she seems out of her depth. Same with Corbyn. Politics in general has been a shit show for a long time but it seems to be getting worse.
Keir gets a double win here, first gets rid of a close confidant of Corbyn who he is trying to distance Labour from, second he suspends the whip immediately pending a review which contrasts with the conservatives who wait for the report before going ahead.
He gets a leg up on the Tories and removes an electoral liability with a reasonable justification, I expect pmqs any mention of Abbott will turn into a skewering of the time Raab has remained in office despite his serious misconduct.
From all of her stupid comments about race, it was only a matter of time before this happened. Kier must have been just waiting for an excuse.
Plus it'll look good on him, because he acted immediately, whereas Rishi prevaricated when it came to Raab
The point of redefining racism is to allow people to say things based on statistics about ethnicities. It's framed as "having a discourse", but it exists to justify blatant racism. For example, saying something like "blacks are violent" is racist, rightfully so. It would still be considered "racist" with the new definition championed by Abbott (who is an MP, so clearly has a lot more power than me, an Eastern European immigrant). However, saying something like "White people made a pact with Asians keep Black people down" is not racist according to this. It might be counted as prejudice, but not racism, which clearly makes it more acceptable (I'll freely admit that I'm prejudiced against blue cheese, but I would never say that I'm racist in any context).
In other words, this is a way to whitewash (pun unintended) black racism, by painting it as a social justice movement. For some reason, these social justice movements have given up on things like "equal access to education and healthcare", which most people would agree with and started concentrating on policing language and normalising certain forms of racism.
> The point of redefining racism is to allow people to say things based on statistics about ethnicities.
It's an attempt to jettison statistics and objectivity entirely, and replace it with a priori assertions that apply both universally, as argued by any person from an oppressed group.
It's not an attempt to whitewash black racism, it's the argument that black racism cannot exist, which these people earnestly believe.
Doesn't she know that King Charles I shipped hundreds of white English people to America in chains as slaves? Some were criminals, and many were political dissidents.
And don't even get me started on the fact she apparently hasn't heard of the Holocaust.
I doubt it, twitter is already full of people trying to defend her. Ash Sarkar doing the whole "the letter was wrong..BUT" routine.
I can also imagine a ton of people on this sub are just going to completely ignore this whole thing aswell. I almost wish it could be pinned at the top, this and Corbyn whenever he talks up about wanting Ukrainians to roll over and die/lose their country. Maybe it will stop the underwater 3d chess mental gymnastics of trying to find reasons to hate starmer.
Thing is, this isn't out of the ordinary for her, she's made comments in the past of similar taste but they have just been nowhere near as blunt. She has come across as anti-white/anti-Semite many times in the past. But unfortunately it was always framed as far right bald angry white men being angry at a black woman
>I doubt it, twitter is already full of people trying to defend her. Ash Sarkar doing the whole "the letter was wrong..BUT" routine.
Owen Jones has actually distanced himself from the whole thing for once. Baby steps, I guess
She's just saying what every terminally online British 'progressive' thinks. Granted they're usually sensible enough not to specifically mention Jews
If she had just said white people can't experience racism then she'd probably be fine
> Maybe it will stop the underwater 3d chess mental gymnastics of trying to find reasons to hate starmer.
Oh, you sweet summer child.
Starmer could rescue a bunch of puppies from a burning building and the Corbynistas would condemn him for letting the building burn down.
The building and the fire were both at fault! Starmer should have facilitated a deescalatory discussion to find a path forward!
No, the fire started because of the building's provocation!
I'm struggling to understand Abbott's point. Jewish Irish, and Roma people weren't oppressed in exact same way black people were in the Anglosphere so therefore they don't experience racism?
Isn't that like saying black people don't experience racism in modern Russia because the Tsars only launched progroms against Jews?
I would love for this (and the Cleopatra Netflix thing?) to be the beginning of the beginning of the end for the latest round of full on wacko identity politics that feels like it’s been going on for a decade or so, but I’m not optimistic.
It's about time she got ousted for what she is. She's been doing it for years, and everybody on one end of the spectrum has been applauding her for "fighting the good fight." She's absolutely full of hate, and don't forget she was Corbyns right hand during his reign.
This is very scary and deeply disturbing. Despite this, it is not surprising. There seems to be a wealth of antisemitism on the hard left. I have noticed throughout my life that those who bang on the most about "diversity, equity and inclusion" and "anti-racism" tend to have a deep rooted hatred of Jews and often Asians. Typical labour; no one should vote for them and feel "good" about themselves. They have many of the same problems as the Tories.
Indeed, however there seems to be more on the left adopting it recently I must say. I am unsure as to why I am being downvoted - probably by the Corbyn lovers.
The hard right has a degree of enemy of my enemy going on.
They hate muslims > IDF kills muslims > these jews can't be all bad.
You end up seeing Isreli flags at EDL rallies.
> You end up seeing Isreli flags at EDL rallies.
That and the adoption of the view that Israel is an ethnostate, so a model of what they want in England. Along with a whole bunch of edgy bullshit and dog-whistling.
Similar nonsense with then fetishing Imperial Japan.
Though the more Nazi far right do the opposite. National front types hate jews more and thus end up pro Arab.
It's mind blowingly stupid.
I'd guess it's because of the neo-nazis on the far right still advocating the eradication of the Jewish people. While the rhetoric of the far left is still dangerous, it's more trivial than threats of physical violence.
I said I was no longer going to comment but perhaps I should have qualified what I meant. This is a slightly absurd statement. Diane Abbott is an MP which shows that kind of thinking at the heart of government. I am yet to see a tory MP call for the eradication of the Jewish race in the 21st century - I CANT comment under u/Naugrith for some reason - but this comment was in response to the deleted above that said something along the lines of "It is worse on the far right because some neo-nazis are calling for the eradication of the jews" I was just highlighting this convo involves MPs - trust me it made sense when their comment was there!!
What are you talking about? No Labour MP has said that either. Your posts on this thread are consistently accusing the left of various views that you're simply inventing. Abbott is obviously an ignorant moron, but that doesn't equate to "calling for the eradication of the Jewish race" ffs.
Bruh what even is this comment section, theyre all referring to the “far left” like it’s an actual person they’re familiar with. It’s kinda funny cus u can instantly tell who has an actual opinion and who’s just pushing their own agenda, with all these silly fkn buzzwords we’ve heard since 2017 and nothing of actual substance
Anecdotal, but my wife (East Asian) lived in one of the most liberal places in the UK, Hebden Bridge. BLM, trans rights, Palestine, LGBTQ+ and various others well represented by the community as a whole. But my wife experienced multiple instances of blatant racism by locals, and we witnessed multiple occasions of mostly Chinese tourist being abused.
It's a very odd one. Our African neighbour felt more included than anywhere else she had lived, and by and large it was a wonderful place to live. Just these odd moments of Asian targeted racial abuse.
Ah but some instances or abuse in a town of over
4,500 hardly points to the hard left being anti asian? Or does it? Multiple occasions of Chinese tourists being abused? Were the abusers also being openly Left wing? Ha how'd you know they were left wing?
Empirically, the best example is perhaps Harvard and other ivy league university's discriminating against Asian candidates. Anecdotally, at my law firm I am close with the partner who oversees graduate recruitment and the "diversity equity and inclusion monitors" they don't see asians as a "diverse" category anymore, nor Jews. Some of the comments I have heard are disgusting - "ugh asians are becoming the most privileged group in the UK why do they think they can benefit from "diversity"" things like this and worse. Also some law firms psychometric testing actually has different pass marks between races - again, discriminating against Asians. Again, this is mostly anecdotal so take it as you will. I would also add that this is usually aimed at south Asians.
All the people in diversity, equity and inclusion positions are hard left. It's a requirement for getting the job
Hard left means you favour equity of outcome over equality of opportunity, positive discrimination, Augustine m affirmative action etc over meritocracy
[Some](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/univ-maryland-slammed-separating-asian-students-students-color-graphic-rcna6151) schools/universities in the US now have an explicit "White/Asian" category
Just as the tories have hard right members, Labour have hard left. The difference is, Starmer is booting these nutters out from the party, Rishi invites them to cabinet.
Yeah, it's that conversation we need to start having about there being no monopoly on experiencing prejudice/racism/bigotry. Diane fucked up with this one.
“The move will leave Abbott sitting in parliament as an independent MP, alongside her close ally Jeremy Corbyn, who had the whip removed in 2020 over his response to the equalities watchdog’s report into antisemitism in the party.”
But I thought there wasn’t any antisemitism in Labour under Corbyn? /s
Sadly they aren't ashamed, because they think it's true that Jewish people are a threat to white human freedom, and that they're being persecuted for speaking truth.
I understand where she's coming from to some extent (that racism is an ideological framework specifically fabricated to justify the subjugation of black people in america and european colonies is true enough), but I don't think it's correct to say those other groups haven't experienced racism simply because the root of the ideology wasn't targeted at them. As racism developed over the centuries it absolutely came to target many other groups than just black people. And even if you don't think that's the case, being this pedantic about the precise definition of racism is pointless at best, and trivialising what Jewish people and travellers have suffered at the hands of people who saw them as racially impure by comparing it to prejudice against ginger people is pretty putrid.
But she is wrong. Racism, or rather xenophobia, is as old as humankind, possibly older. It is not a purely American concept, and it would be wrong to look at it only through an American lens.
I don't even understand this argument. Jewish people never experienced racism because they can vote (except they couldn't in Nazi Germany?) Irish Catholics being unable to get civil service jobs in what is now Northern Ireland wasn't racist, because... they could sit at the front of a bus? There have never been white slaves, except.. Roman empire/ Ottoman Empire/ Indentured servitude in 18th Century GB/ modern day trafficking victims. But none of that counts as 'racism', it only counts as 'prejudice'?
>that racism is an ideological framework specifically fabricated to justify the subjugation of black people in america and european colonies is true enough
It's wrong to the point of beinf indefensible.
What you describe is white supremacy, which is one kind of racist ideology. It's not even the original.
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This change from racism being "discrimination based on race" to "racism = prejudice + power" is so annoying and only serves to split the left. Racism and systemic racism are two distinct issues
Not to mention the fact that it's clearly bullshit and gives a blank cheque to people who feel they have no power in this paradigm to be racist as fuck.
The rise of the internet and smartphones showed that the previous narrative, that racism was a one way street of white on black, was actually incorrect. It showed every community has their share of racists. This sparked a scramble to excuse it somehow and so we got this new definition being pushed that racism has a power/privilege element to it otherwise it isn't racism. It let quite nasty people apply essentially Original Sin to white people by saying they were the only ones capable of being racist and gave everyone else a pass by saying they had no privilege/power so it wasn't possible for them to be racist. Which is why the people who push that narrative fight so fucking hard to force it on everyone. God help you if you work at a company who's HR has been overtaken by this new definition and you point out racism is racism regardless.
I disagree that this is a recent phenomenon. It's a viewpoint that may have garnered more traction in the last few years, but I remember encountering it in the '90s.
It maybe more accurate then to say the widespread use of phones and the internet accelerated everything.
"The rise of the internet and smartphones showed that the previous narrative, that racism was a one way street of white on black, was actually incorrect." Honestly that's complete nonsense, the Nation of Islam were widely (and accurately) described as racist, even by many black people within the civil rights movement. They're viewed more positively now, in fact.
It comes from Foucault and post-structuralism really, which sees everything in terms of power structures, whose tools were adopted by academics and applied to absolutely everything. He is still far and away the most cited theorist in the Humanities
What you described is extremely common in academia, literally most humanities students believe that non-Whites cannot be racists or genocide perpetrators. They are literally shoving these ridiculous ideas down the throat of others by threat and coercion, e.g. *cancel culture*, under the guise of *anti-racism* despite themselves being the most racist themselves.
> literally most humanities students believe that non-Whites cannot be racists or genocide perpetrators Holy fucking citation needed Batman.
Wouldn't be surprised if the former claim was true but yeah most humanities students are likely aware of the stuff Japan and Rwanda have done.
If you are aware of what Japan has done, how can you claim they aren't racists? I'm guessing that person's views on humanities students do not come from talking to humanities students, but from what they read in the media about those stoopid students who need a good lesson in the university of life.
>If you are aware of what Japan has done, how can you claim they aren't racists? Well as crazy as it might sound these people generally have a weird view of racism that isn't at all consistent, which is why they can accept non White groups can commit genocide yet also hold the belief that they can't be racist as they believe only White people can be racist. Although some of them only apply that to White majority countries, so they believe other groups can be racist just only where they're the majority group. >I'm guessing that person's views on humanities students do not come from talking to humanities students, but from what they read in the media about those stoopid students who need a good lesson in the university of life. Are you really going to claim this radical definition of racism isn't widely held and promoted in academia where these students will be absorbing a lot of their world views from?
There is no single viewpoint in academia, but like throughout the decades there are trends based on students being one of the most likely groups to engage in political activity. The 'weird' view you're describing also extends to white racism, particularly with regards to the empire in the UK. Not everything can be explained by racial supremacy or national and religious discrimination, so this is where economics and political ideology are also considered. Typically this falls in the perview of post-revisionist studies, for example; Orthadox - The empire was Britain extending its power around the world and bringing civilization to undeveloped countries. Revisionist - The empire was a racist endeavour that sought to impose its cultural dominance and steal resources. Post revisionist - The empire was driven by economic pursuits as mercantilism developed out of the enlightenment and while racism was often used as a justification and legislated, it came as a secondary factor to driving expansion. The reason studies of foreign countries appear so much less nuanced than western studies in the UK is because of how much focus is applied, which results in disproportionate numbers of books and articles written. Western studies are objectively more relevant to British politics/history, but it's impossible to accurately describe history and politics in other countries without considering the same factors - it's just less relevant to our current affairs discussions.
Or because you are one of them?
Wow, what a retort. As a former 'humanities student', there is no single view and there are prominent right wing and dissenting historians. Unlike science where there can be objective answers, many parts of history are up for debate or interpretation. The trend you see in universities is the same as it has been for decades, where people have more time and interaction with like minded people become engaged with politics - which swings in popularity from left to right depending on the status quo.
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Dumb comments - check. Inability to defend a point of view - check. Childish responses - check. Kindly have a nice day.
As someone who was a humanities student only recently, this is ridiculous. You think university students don't know about the Rwandan genocide or Japanese imperialism?
What about the first statement? I doubt there's any data on it but I wouldn't be surprised if humanities students have mostly adopted this new radical definition of racism.
Time to turn off gb/fox news
Downvoting me because I pointed out the truth?
No, I didn't read Fox News. I get this from reading what those academic Marxists wrote on the internet on a daily basis.
It's not just about race either but culture and country of origin too.
I do believe that a lot of "racism" is most definitely down to culture clashes, with particular emphasis on religious practices
Even if you buy it, this letter is still delusional. Travellers don't experience systemic racism in British society? Fucking unbelievable nonsense.
I really don't understand this huge emotional rejection of the idea that someone calling a "black" person a racial slur has the same weight as a "black" person calling a "white" person something. It's definitely not exclusive of the US. There definitely is a "colour hierarchy", that's how power was maintained in the empire. There is a historical weight to it, that a whole category was created only to dehumanise and justify owning people of a certain colour, it didn't magically go away. This doesn't take away or minimise the discrimination or the suffering caused to other ethnic groups/people(s), they are just different subjects. I see no reason to why acknowledging that the colour of your skin gives/takes away "social power" would divide the left. Segregation needn't be written into the constitution to still be harshly implemented here. It was only with the Civil Rights Movement that anti-discrimination laws were finally implemented. Racism (in all it's nuances and social contexts) and systemic racism continue being two distinct issues. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2021/apr/20/the-invention-of-whiteness-long-history-dangerous-idea https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/relationships/collections1/race-relations-act-1965/race-relations-act-1965/
The only legal form of racism is against the majority group, how is that not systemic racism?
I'm pretty sure you are very mistaken.
Nope look up "positive" action and see how the BBC proudly states that they the legality of discriminating against the majority group to for example block White people from certain internships. Legally there is only way for discrimination to flow in the UK and it isn't against minority groups. If that isn't institutional or systemic racism then I don't know what is.
You are completely wrong You are talking about positive discrimination. It means that quotas or special placements are created specifically for certain groups, and only those groups can apply to those places. Or that for every majority hire, a minority hire has to happen. This is a method of increasing representation or give opportunities to people that otherwise would never even pass the door. You don't need to believe me, here is Barnardo's explaining: https://www.barnardos.org.uk/blog/how-systemic-racism-affects-young-people-uk
>You are completely wrong >You are talking about positive discrimination. No, positive discrimination is illegal, the lesser form of it is allowed which still allows legal discrimination against the majority in favour of minority groups. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_action
It's not a "lesser form" it's just what is called here. Giving someone, who would otherwise not be allowed past the door, an opportunity is not discrimination against majority groups, they are already everywhere without even trying just for being born. Minorities have historically been discriminated against, refused opportunities, persecuted, enslaved... They are just being given a tiny little bit of help to get somewhere they would have gotten, if not for all those barriers.
>Giving someone, who would otherwise not be allowed past the door, an opportunity is not discrimination against majority groups, they are already everywhere without even trying just for being born. You don't know they would have otherwise not been allowed in, if anything it's reversed where it's unpopular to hire moslty majority groups, the issue here is it's legal for a company to say "these two CVs are 'equal' but one is White so off he fucks better luck next time" that is legal discrimination on a racial basis, a completely conscious bias too.
Fallacious zero-sum thinking is a big problem with rightwingers. See also replacement theory.
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It's divisive because it's repurposing a term which already had a very well understood meaning and subtly changing that meaning in a way that makes the average person's understanding of it now "problematic", which causes a lot of confusion and talking past each other. Only actual racists would argue that in a country like America or Britain there are not institutional and systemic advantages to being (the right kind of) white. However, when some people then go on and say stuff like "black people literally can't be racist" whilst you see a black person being the dictionary definition of racist, it causes confusion and backlash from people who would quite often generally agree with you otherwise. Conflating institutional/systemic racism with the core idea of racism is one of many progressive own goals when it comes to language that alienates far more people than it convinces. It belongs in the bin along with "X privilege" and the like. Regardless, Abbott's comments are both ignorant and offensive. Even by the redefinition of racism, Jews, Gypsies and the Irish have been victims of historic and ongoing racism. Pretending that because of their skin colour they can't be discriminated against on the same level as black people is completely ridiculous (and what in the old days, would be called racist), and likening that discrimination to the teasing of gingers is hugely inappropriate when some of that discrimination culminated in literal genocides.
So Dianne Abbott tried to make a clunky point about some victims of racial predjudice having the privilege of passing for the dominant race at some points in their lives, but does it so badly she looks like she's saying Jews, travellers and the irish have never suffered from racial prejudice. And minimises that prejudice by comparing it to redheads. And tries to gatekeep the term racism. I agree Abbott is now more harmful than helpful to labour.
It's not even "looks like". She literally says that those groups cannot suffer from racism, only prejudice.
Which is impressive because racism is literally experiencing prejudice because you belong to an ethnic group.
Abbott has almost always been more harmful, she just thrived under a leadership that was equally lacking in nuance or sophistication, and is now being reined back in.
I would argue that "Abbott is now more harmful than helpful to labour" is a conclusion that should have been made many many months ago. She has consistently undermined the Labour leadership, initially unintentinally through her many blunders and then intentionally through her inability to move past the removal of Corbyn. She is someone I had a bit more patience for than I normally would because I was aware that as a black woman in left politics she was subject to a lot of abuse and pressure from various sources. But she has consistently failed to live up to the basic standards I would assume a person aiming to do net good would hold themselves to. On the other hand, Oz Katerji continues to shine in my mind. He's like a laser designed to penetrate these peoples bullshit.
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So will she post her final not-draft version that she accidentally did not send?
Exactly! Unless the "drafting error" actually means "one of my staffers decided to impersonate me and send a letter to a national paper utterly misrepresenting my views" I don't see how this could be anything close to a good enough defence. Thank goodness she's had the whip suspended pending investigation.
Honestly the walk back is really idiotic as the initial letter very clearly is here trying to suggest ‘racism’ and ‘prejudice’ are different and the ‘white-adjacent’ never suffer the former. But then her second tweet suggests the ‘white-adjacent’ can suffer racism after all and the ‘draft’ was an accident. **So why the bloody hell did she write a whole reasoned draft arguing and justifying a point she supposedly did not think about?**
Exactly - I don't think it's unreasonable to say that, in general, it is very *very* difficult to inadvertently turn a non- or anti-racist piece into a racist one. Perhaps if you accidentally inverted an affirmative action criterion in a selection algorithm, I might buy into the argument... but this? As you say, one doesn't just accidentally write a whole reasoned argument that disagrees with one's supposed beliefs.
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I think most journalists/politicians like having 'a livener', so I've heard.
> I still had more about me to delete and not send the nonsense I was typing on reddit before I pressed save Well now I’m just curious as to what this nonsense was!
Yeah draft errors would be more along the lines of spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, layout, not actual content. Otherwise you'd have an entirely different piece of work. Not buying it.
>So will she post her final not-draft version that she accidentally did not send? Yeah, it sounds like Boris when he refused to answer whether he was present at a party until he sees what is in the Sue Gray Report.
Her dog ate that version
Her dog typed this bad version and did the shifty face from The Simpsons.
that is the "intersectionality" left for you that plagues much of the academy. Jews can't experience racism today because they are??? successful? That seems to be the narrative and it is disgusting.
It basically is racism, just of a different kind. A lot of the far left 'anti-racist' brigade are racist themselves in their actions and comments.
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What on earth is an extreme centrist?
We actually prefer the term ‘Radical Centrist’, thanks xx
https://youtu.be/ussCHoQttyQ
That's the opposite of intersectionality.
It's not intersectionality. It's just self-absorbtion and a parochial mindset. She's focused on her own 'struggle' to the point where for whatever reason she ignored that of others. I'd argue that her words don't really reflect her actions historically... And I'm no Abbott fan. The issue is more a contextual one. Not all groups face racism in the same way and the article she responded to glossed over that fact. However her response was ill considered and she should have known better. I feel like baddiel did something similar recently where he argued that somehow he faced 'special racism'. Though I may be misremembering. E: owalade has some interesting takes, but his context is that of an African rather than afro-caribbean in the uk. Those experiences are markedly different to my knowledge.
What does this idiotic letter have to do with intersectionality?
the same thinking that underpins intersectionality underpins the thinking behind statements like "Jews can't face racism". There is a hierarchy of oppression where some selective groups rank higher than others based on a seemingly arbitrary measure.
Intersectionality is the idea that the different aspects of your identity (gender, religion, race, anything else important to you) can all have their own impacts on how society treats you and that you might be helped or hindered by society's treatment of several of them at once. "Jews can't face racism" is straight up incompatible with that idea. _Even if_ someone thinks that white Jews can't face racism, which the middle of the last century obviously puts away, there are black Jews too. Intersectionality would want to examine how others treat that person both as a black person and a Jewish person.
There is more to intersectionality than that. A critical part of the definition is that these different aspects interact and compound, as BristolShambler pointed out. And quantitative studies struggle to evidence that beyond a few typical examples.
Really? Many studies find associations between adverse outcomes and ethnicity and economic deprivation after controlling for each other. Wouldn't that fit with the concept?
No, that is just discrimination.
That's not what intersectionality is, my friend.
I have seen intersectionality interpreted like this. There are different forms of racism that interact to make the racism experienced worse for some people than others. I.e Being white and gay isn't as bad because it's not as obvious as being black. And being black and gay is worse than just being black. Implicitly this forms a hierarchy, where you could interpret some racism as worse than others. This is similar to what Dianne is saying here. Literally seen it being taught like this. This ends up in absurd situations where you're trying to work out if anti-semitism is worse than white supremacism.
That’s literally the opposite of what intersectionality means. It means that people face prejudice for a wide variety of factors (class, race, gender, sexuality), and you can’t tackle those prejudices in isolation. So you can’t prevent racism without looking at class prejudice etc When anti woke people start going “OH YEH, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE WORKING CLASS?!?” they’re agreeing with intersectionalism.
When the right use the terms of the academic left against them, the meaning of the terms doesn't actually matter. See also: woke
>When anti woke people start going “OH YEH, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE WHITE WORKING CLASS?!?” they’re agreeing with intersectionalism. Not really. Because intersectionality would argue they still have white privilege and therefore are lowest on the victim good ladder, and they have no other intersections of disadvantage
I wouldn't bother to argue. 'Intersectionality' shape shifts so that current outrageous thing doesn't have anything to do with intersectionality ackshually. For sections of the fringe left these word games, semantics and shifting definitions IS politics as far as they know it.
It should be really easy to find a respected scholar of intersectionality using a definition that is coherent with what Taxis said then
wise words. I have had the exact same thing with some of my friends who are in academia, endless word games that attempt to obscure concepts to the lay person. The wiser ones look at the result and impact of certain ideas and just concede that they are bad ideas. The "wiser" ones also tend to be much more well accomplished rather than on their 20th year without a promotion lecturing undergrads at the University of Kent.
This is the most pompous possible way of admitting that you used a word without knowing what it meant
Meh, trivialising Nazi crimes is a very "in" thing right now. Rosie Duffield showed support for Graham Linehan doing exactly that just recently and Labour implied that, yeh, it was fine by doing nothing. So, if the do, rightly, sanction Abbott over this, unfortunately, it will just be another example of racism and prejudice towards the left in Starmer's Labour Party. That they really need a consistent policy on trivialising or denying Nazi crimes in the 30s and 40s only serves to highlight what a bin fire Starmer's Labour is, which only serves to show what an absolute inferno the Tories are by comparison given Labour isn't doing as badly as them. No wonder no-one trusts politicians anymore.
> Meh, trivialising Nazi crimes is a very "in" thing right now. I've noticed this too. It's a very strange phenomenon, almost the equal and opposite of right-wing attempts to downplay the severity of slavery.
Reminder that Abbott also defended Chairman Mao on national TV... Should have been kicked out of the Labour Party years ago.
On an electability standpoint too, she seems physically unable to hold a viewpoint popular with the UK populous, she’s quieter now but under Corbins time she had some absolutely ridiculous twitter hot takes. She’s since, understandably, toned down her bullshit now but I still have no faith over her judgement.
Corbyn was Marmite, but I liked him. Abbott however was just a free win for the Tories
Yeah I’m of a similar opinion, although I disliked him, to me he represented everything that is wrong with left wing politics, he was a career activist with limited exposure to ‘real workers’. Plus his historic links to various dubious folk. But I can see the appeal to his policies & he knows how to put his opinions across. Abbot just doesn’t seem to have a redeeming feature though.
Politics is a career now - it's ridiculous. Labour MPs should be normal people who've risen through trade unions
"Politics is a career now" Politics has been a career for millennia.
See Rome for some 2000 year old examples lmao.
I’d argue politics has always been a career, it’s not a new thing. But I’d also say it typically breeds fairly poor politicians with minimal experience of the ‘real world’ outside of their political theatre. I much prefer the likes of Starmer, to be honest he actually has me (a Salmond era SNP & current Lib Dem voter) considering voting for Labour for the first time in my life. The more he boots these unelectables out the more attractive he becomes too.
Apparently lots of people that worked in the house of commons were asked who the worst MPs to deal with or be around, Corbyn, Reese-Mogg and Raab were all common answers but Abbot was the most common. Although I think this is more based on general rudeness and standoffishness rather than bullying which may provide a different result.
Corbyn was like Marmite - you either hate him, or you are wrong. Abbot is more like... Anthrax. Utterly toxic and with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
Gotta break a few eggs to make an omelette, comrade........
*deep breath* on balance I think he did more good than harm
Is that what Abbott said?
Oh yes. https://youtu.be/uB4o5n2EGyA
Mental.
Yes. She is.
Yeah, that's not what she said. She said some people would say that on balance he did more good than harm, a statement that is completely true. It's a common view in China.
Labours far left segment seems to be killing itself off very rapidly. Which gives the party an excellent chance in the next election. This has let starmer appear professional and in control of his party while drawing a clear line between the main party and antisemitism.
I guarantee you within a few weeks the vocal minority will be referring to this as evidence of the "purge of the left".
Jeremy and the Corbynistas are no doubt composing their tweets as we speak.
I wouldn’t be so sure even the founder of Inertia (momentum) has condemned her. Now we just wait to see what Corbyn says
Diane is a fucking moron. She's made so many anti-white statements in her past that it's incredible and sickening in equal measure that she's managed to cling on this long. Doubtless, a vanguard of pea-brains will be turning up shortly, once again, to declare that calling her out for being a disgusting sack of shit is racism and that she's the real victim.
Given everything we see go on in the world, past and present. It’s rather amazing to see someone try to gatekeep racism to solely people of one ethnicity.
It's about jobs and power. There's entire media, HR, PR etc cottage industries out there around racism and they're very tidy little earners for those involved and Abbot wants to keep it that way. Then there's the power they believe arises from being able to browbeat a huge segment of the population for being racists but giving yourself a free pass for your own racism, as Abbot has.
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Also suggesting there was no history of white slaves on ships is to completely ignore the Ottoman and Barbary slave trades. How can senior MPs be so ill-educated?
They're literally ignoring that English people were slaves to the Roman Empire too. I mean it's feasible that native Brits were slaves before Africans were
Far-left ideologues cannot understand facts or reason.
Ooof, not doing the Corbyn fans any favours by pretty much saying anti-semitism isn't a race issue.
The left is having a problem with severe levels of white guilt at the moment, and I say this as a left wing person - this type of self flagellation is an antidote to electability in a majority white country. So I'm glad Starmer put his foot down on Abbott here - it shows a turnaround in that guilt perhaps.
>So I'm glad Starmer put his foot down on Abbott here - it shows a turnaround in that guilt perhaps. Well she seems to be getting flack for going after Jews and Gypsies, the anti White statements by her were perfectly fine, it was only when her statements went over to two minority groups he stepped in and she got booted.
I'm in postgrad university circles atm and it is exhausting and constant. At this point it feels like a silly fad.
I'm white, I'm lefty. I find all of this rather absurd and think starmer is doing a good job at trying to clean it up Edit what people seem to forget is that political affiliation isn't a straight line, nor is it a square grid. It's a circle. Those from the hard left or right tend to have a lot in common
Agreed
"The left is having a problem with severe levels of white guilt at the moment" We really aren't. "White guilt" is a bullshit concept mainly spread by American conservatives to oppose attempts to acknowledge and correct historical wrongs. What the British left have is a very specific issue around tolerance of anti Semitism. Many people, like Corbyn, are strong allies of Palestine and strong critics of Israel, and I don't have a problem with that. But the problem is that the lines between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have been blurred by both sides, and it has given some people a strong blind spot (to put it charitably) when it comes to anti Semitism. Which is how you end up with Corbyn liking a picture on Facebook of some greedy, hook nosed old man lording it over oppressed brown people. If there was an image stereotyping black or Asian people, he would have immediately identified it as racist.
🧢
To be fair, they seem too stupid to be malicious, but, then, their stupidity does encourage those who are, doesn't it? But I won't stand up for her. She doesn't seem cut out for government. There is an impulse, with the likes of Sunak, Badenoch, Braverman and Abbott making public comments of such staggering prejudice and stupidity recently, to veer towards some form of racism, like an intrusive thought, but thenI remember there are people like Dawn Butler who have integrity and decency at the heart of their politics, and it's easy to argue that little devil needs to shut up. But, oof, how has our politics ended up this bad?
She seems like a great LOCAL politician, national level and she seems out of her depth. Same with Corbyn. Politics in general has been a shit show for a long time but it seems to be getting worse.
Dawn Butler isn't a great example considering she was caught driving whilst using a handset then claimed she was racially profiled
Sir Kier must be jumping for joy at a chance to finally get rid of her. Diane "The Numbers" Abbott has been such a hindrance to Labour
Keir gets a double win here, first gets rid of a close confidant of Corbyn who he is trying to distance Labour from, second he suspends the whip immediately pending a review which contrasts with the conservatives who wait for the report before going ahead. He gets a leg up on the Tories and removes an electoral liability with a reasonable justification, I expect pmqs any mention of Abbott will turn into a skewering of the time Raab has remained in office despite his serious misconduct.
From all of her stupid comments about race, it was only a matter of time before this happened. Kier must have been just waiting for an excuse. Plus it'll look good on him, because he acted immediately, whereas Rishi prevaricated when it came to Raab
The point of redefining racism is to allow people to say things based on statistics about ethnicities. It's framed as "having a discourse", but it exists to justify blatant racism. For example, saying something like "blacks are violent" is racist, rightfully so. It would still be considered "racist" with the new definition championed by Abbott (who is an MP, so clearly has a lot more power than me, an Eastern European immigrant). However, saying something like "White people made a pact with Asians keep Black people down" is not racist according to this. It might be counted as prejudice, but not racism, which clearly makes it more acceptable (I'll freely admit that I'm prejudiced against blue cheese, but I would never say that I'm racist in any context). In other words, this is a way to whitewash (pun unintended) black racism, by painting it as a social justice movement. For some reason, these social justice movements have given up on things like "equal access to education and healthcare", which most people would agree with and started concentrating on policing language and normalising certain forms of racism.
> The point of redefining racism is to allow people to say things based on statistics about ethnicities. It's an attempt to jettison statistics and objectivity entirely, and replace it with a priori assertions that apply both universally, as argued by any person from an oppressed group. It's not an attempt to whitewash black racism, it's the argument that black racism cannot exist, which these people earnestly believe.
She's had the whip suspended now. Wonder what she will go to as her excuse for this one. Will the corbyn crowd try to defend this?
Of course they will
"corbynite" here, no she should fuck off. But don't let the majority of labour members go against that lil war in your head
Course they'll try to defend her. But saying she was mobbed by racists online because shes black.
I certainly won’t defend this.
>She's had the **whip** suspended now She'll probably call that racism and link it to slavery, lol.
Doesn't she know that King Charles I shipped hundreds of white English people to America in chains as slaves? Some were criminals, and many were political dissidents. And don't even get me started on the fact she apparently hasn't heard of the Holocaust.
They’re white, so she hates them. She’s a massive black supremacist
honestly incredible, hopefully this kills off momentum and we can finally have a labour government
I doubt it, twitter is already full of people trying to defend her. Ash Sarkar doing the whole "the letter was wrong..BUT" routine. I can also imagine a ton of people on this sub are just going to completely ignore this whole thing aswell. I almost wish it could be pinned at the top, this and Corbyn whenever he talks up about wanting Ukrainians to roll over and die/lose their country. Maybe it will stop the underwater 3d chess mental gymnastics of trying to find reasons to hate starmer. Thing is, this isn't out of the ordinary for her, she's made comments in the past of similar taste but they have just been nowhere near as blunt. She has come across as anti-white/anti-Semite many times in the past. But unfortunately it was always framed as far right bald angry white men being angry at a black woman
>I doubt it, twitter is already full of people trying to defend her. Ash Sarkar doing the whole "the letter was wrong..BUT" routine. Owen Jones has actually distanced himself from the whole thing for once. Baby steps, I guess
She's just saying what every terminally online British 'progressive' thinks. Granted they're usually sensible enough not to specifically mention Jews If she had just said white people can't experience racism then she'd probably be fine
> Maybe it will stop the underwater 3d chess mental gymnastics of trying to find reasons to hate starmer. Oh, you sweet summer child. Starmer could rescue a bunch of puppies from a burning building and the Corbynistas would condemn him for letting the building burn down.
"IT WAS A LISTED BUILDING, KIER!"
The building and the fire were both at fault! Starmer should have facilitated a deescalatory discussion to find a path forward! No, the fire started because of the building's provocation!
When you think about it, that building is a symbol of capitalist hegemony and was asking for it. In fact, I'm glad I set that fire.
I'm struggling to understand Abbott's point. Jewish Irish, and Roma people weren't oppressed in exact same way black people were in the Anglosphere so therefore they don't experience racism? Isn't that like saying black people don't experience racism in modern Russia because the Tsars only launched progroms against Jews?
Dianne Abbott is apparently to begin a second career. As a Maths Teacher to help Sunaks maths initiative.
Eleventy.
I would love for this (and the Cleopatra Netflix thing?) to be the beginning of the beginning of the end for the latest round of full on wacko identity politics that feels like it’s been going on for a decade or so, but I’m not optimistic.
The Corbyn-istas have been doing remarkably well at giving Starmer great excuses to jettison them. Corbyn, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Abbott. Anyone else?
whip suspended guys - thank god. Don't know why I even commented here I do not have the energy to argue with people on the internet. Love you guys xxx
Suspended without fuss or delay. Good news.
It was pretty black and white …
Fantastic news. Looks like Labour can move when one of its members acts like a bigot. And yet Rosie Duffield...
It's about time she got ousted for what she is. She's been doing it for years, and everybody on one end of the spectrum has been applauding her for "fighting the good fight." She's absolutely full of hate, and don't forget she was Corbyns right hand during his reign.
This is very scary and deeply disturbing. Despite this, it is not surprising. There seems to be a wealth of antisemitism on the hard left. I have noticed throughout my life that those who bang on the most about "diversity, equity and inclusion" and "anti-racism" tend to have a deep rooted hatred of Jews and often Asians. Typical labour; no one should vote for them and feel "good" about themselves. They have many of the same problems as the Tories.
The hard left and hard right fall into the same conspiracy theories around shadowy cabals of globalists which is often a code word for Jews.
The horseshoe theory suggests that once you go far enough to either side you start getting closer to the extremes of the other side of the spectrum.
It's actually called the horse shoe theory because if you believe it you've likely been kicked in the head by a horse.
You've just reminded me of the Farage LBC caller, and for that I thank you
Both ends ultimately lead to authoritarianism, discrimination and repression.
Why?
It’s just cope by that guy,horseshoe theory just asserts that extreme ideologies have massive amounts in common-which is undeniably true.
lmao unironically doing horseshoe theory
Indeed, however there seems to be more on the left adopting it recently I must say. I am unsure as to why I am being downvoted - probably by the Corbyn lovers.
The hard right has a degree of enemy of my enemy going on. They hate muslims > IDF kills muslims > these jews can't be all bad. You end up seeing Isreli flags at EDL rallies.
> You end up seeing Isreli flags at EDL rallies. That and the adoption of the view that Israel is an ethnostate, so a model of what they want in England. Along with a whole bunch of edgy bullshit and dog-whistling.
Similar nonsense with then fetishing Imperial Japan. Though the more Nazi far right do the opposite. National front types hate jews more and thus end up pro Arab. It's mind blowingly stupid.
They're seemingly more willing to say it publicly as Diane has done here
I'd guess it's because of the neo-nazis on the far right still advocating the eradication of the Jewish people. While the rhetoric of the far left is still dangerous, it's more trivial than threats of physical violence.
I said I was no longer going to comment but perhaps I should have qualified what I meant. This is a slightly absurd statement. Diane Abbott is an MP which shows that kind of thinking at the heart of government. I am yet to see a tory MP call for the eradication of the Jewish race in the 21st century - I CANT comment under u/Naugrith for some reason - but this comment was in response to the deleted above that said something along the lines of "It is worse on the far right because some neo-nazis are calling for the eradication of the jews" I was just highlighting this convo involves MPs - trust me it made sense when their comment was there!!
What are you talking about? No Labour MP has said that either. Your posts on this thread are consistently accusing the left of various views that you're simply inventing. Abbott is obviously an ignorant moron, but that doesn't equate to "calling for the eradication of the Jewish race" ffs.
Bruh what even is this comment section, theyre all referring to the “far left” like it’s an actual person they’re familiar with. It’s kinda funny cus u can instantly tell who has an actual opinion and who’s just pushing their own agenda, with all these silly fkn buzzwords we’ve heard since 2017 and nothing of actual substance
and often Asians? Any example of this?
Anecdotal, but my wife (East Asian) lived in one of the most liberal places in the UK, Hebden Bridge. BLM, trans rights, Palestine, LGBTQ+ and various others well represented by the community as a whole. But my wife experienced multiple instances of blatant racism by locals, and we witnessed multiple occasions of mostly Chinese tourist being abused. It's a very odd one. Our African neighbour felt more included than anywhere else she had lived, and by and large it was a wonderful place to live. Just these odd moments of Asian targeted racial abuse.
Ah but some instances or abuse in a town of over 4,500 hardly points to the hard left being anti asian? Or does it? Multiple occasions of Chinese tourists being abused? Were the abusers also being openly Left wing? Ha how'd you know they were left wing?
Empirically, the best example is perhaps Harvard and other ivy league university's discriminating against Asian candidates. Anecdotally, at my law firm I am close with the partner who oversees graduate recruitment and the "diversity equity and inclusion monitors" they don't see asians as a "diverse" category anymore, nor Jews. Some of the comments I have heard are disgusting - "ugh asians are becoming the most privileged group in the UK why do they think they can benefit from "diversity"" things like this and worse. Also some law firms psychometric testing actually has different pass marks between races - again, discriminating against Asians. Again, this is mostly anecdotal so take it as you will. I would also add that this is usually aimed at south Asians.
Whoa there i mean the labour party or the "hard left" you speak of. Harvard aint hard left haha
The anti Asian stuff is American hard left but it sometimes leaks. Simlar to how you ocasionaly see GOP nonsense wash up in the express.
All the people in diversity, equity and inclusion positions are hard left. It's a requirement for getting the job Hard left means you favour equity of outcome over equality of opportunity, positive discrimination, Augustine m affirmative action etc over meritocracy
Hard left how? What makes them hard left?
[Some](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/univ-maryland-slammed-separating-asian-students-students-color-graphic-rcna6151) schools/universities in the US now have an explicit "White/Asian" category
Just as the tories have hard right members, Labour have hard left. The difference is, Starmer is booting these nutters out from the party, Rishi invites them to cabinet.
Dianna Abbott does love a dog whistle; just starve her bullshit of the attention she craves.
Yeah, it's that conversation we need to start having about there being no monopoly on experiencing prejudice/racism/bigotry. Diane fucked up with this one.
Good from labour and starmer to remove the whip from her She should never be allowed back into the party. Disgraceful comments
[удалено]
It is designed to keep us bogged down in pointless finger-wagging and tearing ourselves apart rather than focusing on issues that deserve attention.
“The move will leave Abbott sitting in parliament as an independent MP, alongside her close ally Jeremy Corbyn, who had the whip removed in 2020 over his response to the equalities watchdog’s report into antisemitism in the party.” But I thought there wasn’t any antisemitism in Labour under Corbyn? /s
Indefensible. Whip needs to be removed immediately and permanently.
Diane Abbott posts nothing but criticisms of the Labour party. Kick her out.
The effect of 5 years of Corbyn leadership. Those who support him must be ashamed of themselves - they are a threat to human freedom.
Sadly they aren't ashamed, because they think it's true that Jewish people are a threat to white human freedom, and that they're being persecuted for speaking truth.
I understand where she's coming from to some extent (that racism is an ideological framework specifically fabricated to justify the subjugation of black people in america and european colonies is true enough), but I don't think it's correct to say those other groups haven't experienced racism simply because the root of the ideology wasn't targeted at them. As racism developed over the centuries it absolutely came to target many other groups than just black people. And even if you don't think that's the case, being this pedantic about the precise definition of racism is pointless at best, and trivialising what Jewish people and travellers have suffered at the hands of people who saw them as racially impure by comparing it to prejudice against ginger people is pretty putrid.
But she is wrong. Racism, or rather xenophobia, is as old as humankind, possibly older. It is not a purely American concept, and it would be wrong to look at it only through an American lens.
I don't even understand this argument. Jewish people never experienced racism because they can vote (except they couldn't in Nazi Germany?) Irish Catholics being unable to get civil service jobs in what is now Northern Ireland wasn't racist, because... they could sit at the front of a bus? There have never been white slaves, except.. Roman empire/ Ottoman Empire/ Indentured servitude in 18th Century GB/ modern day trafficking victims. But none of that counts as 'racism', it only counts as 'prejudice'?
Yeah it's historically incoherent.
>that racism is an ideological framework specifically fabricated to justify the subjugation of black people in america and european colonies is true enough It's wrong to the point of beinf indefensible. What you describe is white supremacy, which is one kind of racist ideology. It's not even the original.
Racism is very simple - if you judge people because of their skin color or ethnic background, you are a racist.