Racism and all the bad -isms - #2724 by sandsoftime >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Perhaps it is because that definition that she apparently subscribes to explicitly contradicts the definition in Labour Party policy and rulebook - and doing so is undermining the Labour Party’s ability to address racism, which is itself explicitly enumerated as unacceptable conduct.
Her own party has been working with that definition of racism for over a decade.
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Anyone who’s actually read the report will realise that Tolley spent about the first 10-15 pages of a 48-page report emphasising just this…
Did I miss that she’s expressed this before now?
It’s a pseudo-intellectualism and for anyone that has read any history knows is false.
Defining people as races is her first mistake. Categorising people in such a way is dangerous. It can be argued that Jews are not a race (a religion), but it can’t be argued they don’t experience racism.
A basic knowledge of WW2 demonstrates that. It would be like trying to argue underlying hatred of a white power group towards black people is different to their hatred of Jewish people. One is racism the other simply prejudice.
Given the several years of education within the Labour Party about antisemitism and dangers of downplaying it. Her letter is plain dumb.
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So when the Catholics and Protestants were bombing each other in Northern Ireland, was that racism?
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I find the whole usage of the term ‘race’ a terrible and terribly inexact social construct. How can we have a grouping of ‘black’ which would include Australian Aborigines, black Africans, African Americans etc where Australian Aborigines for instance, have far more in common, genetically speaking, with Southern Asians (Indians) and SE Asians?
The problem is that the word ‘racism’ is armed, whereas a word like ‘ethnicism’ isn’t. If we are going to start nit picking on the application of the word Racism, then we perhaps need to shift to giving the word ethnicism more teeth.
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Similar to BAME, LGBGQT etc. Here’s a group of people who are all very similar. Quite literally not.
Thats the opposite to what I was suggesting.
In WW2 the nazis explicitly defined Jews by race and not religion. They explicitly stated that they were inferior/parasitic race.
As I said notion of separate races is slippery slope (its wrong to do so). Irrespective of how Jewish people are classified (religion/culture/ethnicity). It is undeniable they were and have been subject to racism.
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In the case of Diane Abbot, whether Anti-Semitism is racist or religious prejudice misses the point a bit
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Labour cannot piss about with Anti-semitism. It isn’t fair that they get so hammered on this when the Tories largely get away with the most rank racism. But there you are. Jews and Jewishness are a no go subject. Just leave it alone.
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If you are an acolyte of Corbyn and, if we’re honest, someone Starmer would rather not have in the party, why do that? Are you thick?
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Finally, and most egregiously, she compared it with having red hair. Fucks sake. I must have missed that bit where the Nazi’s killed six million gingers.
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Don’t think so.
But she is an extremely loose cannon type oddball, and has been in the news multiple times for examples of it.
Just a thought. Do we think that there seems to be a bit of an obsession with putting people, or placing ourselves within boxes / categories these days?
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Weird isn’t it. We’re supposed to be highlighting diversity and encouraging it, not pretending everybody’s the same.
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I understand the BaME one, as a way of denoting people who aren’t white. Although it’s falling out of favour a bit now.
LGBTQIA+ is a weird one though. Aside from just being really cumbersome, it’s the plus on the end that gets me. It’s like the acronym just got really passed off and went “Fuck this! Everyone else. You can be a plus”
Interesting but very valid point.
So many demands for inclusivity, but outrage if you describe them as anything outside their chosen box.
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I think the reason is that most of the people that it is applied to don’t like it. In the US they use the term “people of color” which I find a horrible turn of phrase - it sounds like saying that anyone who isn’t classed as white has something wrong with them.
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Inclusivity doesn’t mean ignoring differences. It means recognising, welcoming and including them.
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I guess that’s because you are roughly the same age as me?
When I was young I remember how ‘coloured people’ was used by the older generations, and how we were taught this was not the language to use. So now, when I hear people talking about ‘People of Colour’ it really jars with me, for the reasons you have said.
Language and conventions change over time, so I suppose we just have to get used to it.
It’s interesting that when the term “Negro” was discontinued (due to it’s connotations of slavery) many older people objected as they didn’t like being described as “black” and self identified as “Negro”. African-American seems to be more popular, I suppose as it is fairly neutral as Italian-American and Irish-American have been used for years.
In fact “Negro” remained in the census as recently as 2010.
The concept of race comes largely from Victorian science. Like measuring bumps on the head it’s been discredited (as a biological construct)
That flawed science got twisted throughout history (Nazis, Japanese, South Africa etc). Because of the connotations in scientific community race is not used to describe a people.
That’s why most of the time people refer to ethnicity rather than race.
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