What, exactly, has Diane Abbott said that’s so wrong – wrong enough to get her suspended (again) from the Labour Party? Her observation, that the prejudice that Travellers or Jewish people encounter – or indeed redheads – is different from the racism that black people experience seems like a statement of the obvious. Consider her actual remarks:
“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. 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.”
Well, so there are. And Ms Abbott knows, because she’s black. Few Jewish people and no travellers are. Of course, it may be apparent to some people who is Jewish or traveller and who isn’t. I, for instance, can usually tell who’s a traveller, but that’s because I’ve been accustomed to seeing them in Ireland most of my life. They are, I may say, very different from Roma who actually are ethically distinct: travellers are mostly just a variant of Irishness. As for Jews, many of my friends and colleagues who are Jewish don’t look, at least to me, different. If you wear special clothes or hair – if you’re an Orthodox Jew who dresses in that distinctive fashion – you will be readily identifiable, but that’s rather more to do with culture and religion than ethnicity, no?
If you’re Kemi Badenoch your ethnicity – and the attitudes that this elicits – is evident instantly, no matter what she wears or how she talks. What’s wrong with saying so?
If you’re Irish, it’s usually evident when you open your mouth. But if you’re black, you’re black. It’s not a matter of how you dress – though some black people will dress differently, depending on where they or their families are from. If you’re Kemi Badenoch your ethnicity – and the attitudes that this elicits – is evident instantly, no matter what she wears or how she talks. What’s wrong with saying so? Why the insistence that prejudice must be racial rather than cultural/religious/social, though of course there may well be a racial component to it too – just not to the extent that being black is.
The reason Ms Abbott got herself suspended from the Labour Party in the first place was because her initial remarks appeared to suggest a “hierarchy” of racism.
She had written that Jewish people and travellers were “not all their lives subject to racism” in the same way that black people were.
Labour under Sir Keir Starmer has pursued a policy of “zero tolerance” towards anti-semitism after the complaints of anti-Jewish prejudice within the party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Angela Rayner’s response to Ms Abbott’s suspension was that “there is no place for anti-Semitism within the Labour Party”. But that’s exactly the point... she wasn’t being anti-semitic in any sane sense of the term.
Sadiq Khan has observed that "There is no hierarchy when it comes to racism. Racism is racism”
But is it?
The mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, gave his own take on the question when he said in 2023: "It's really important that everyone understands that there is no hierarchy when it comes to racism. Racism is racism – whether it's against Jewish people, travellers or anybody else.” But this blanket term has ended up comprehending other disparate categories, not entirely helpfully.
Ms Abbott’s suspension on the basis of anti-semitism is hard to square with her actual observation: “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 don’t know why people would say that.” Two years ago, in an article for the Observer, she drew a distinction between the “prejudice” that Jews, Irish and travellers – and redheads – encounter, (though in the case of travellers, those two categories may overlap - lots of travellers are redheads) and the racism that black people live with. That sounds about right. Certainly in Ireland, very real prejudice against travellers has nothing to do with ethnicity; there’s lots of other baggage there.
This is not to say that anti-semitism is not genuine and troubling ; a report co-authored by Penny Mordaunt and published last week made clear its pervasiveness. And no one, I think, has ever suggested that Diane Abbott is anti-semitic in that sense. But what she’s saying is that racism based on skin colour is distinct from other prejudices.
I repeat, what’s wrong with that?
