Diane Abbott MP.... Racist?

[ArcticBlue]

No surprise that she said it, all black people are ignorant bigots.

DISCLAIMER (for the benefit of the thick wanker who complained to the police about racist remarks in the past and got NSC into trouble): Obviously I don't really think all black people are ignorant bigots, I am merely descending to Abbot's crass level in order to make a point.

Good grief. Somebody bothered to do that? Was it Patrice Evra by any chance?

(This is also a joke. for the want of a longer explanation)

 

[clapham_gull]

But the Tory MP, it depends in what context they were wearing them.

Obvious no sinister motive and obviously not racist, but context is important too. Simply it can be against the law, depending on the context.

Remarkable ignorance.

 

[Easy 10]

She just isnt very good, I am amazed how she has hung on for so long, well its because she is black, but a really poor politician.

But love the way Andrew Neil absolutely owns her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=-5uMbMJ2EUQ

One of the comments on that video

"Is there a piece of fried chicken stuck to the ceiling ?"

I tried not to laugh. Really, I did.

 

[Captain Sensible]

Obvious no sinister motive and obviously not racist, but context is important too. Simply it can be against the law, depending on the context.

Remarkable ignorance.

True. Its against the law in France. So they were idiots and or ignorant.

I dont know why we are comparing the two really.

Abbotts's comments were just racist end of.

 

[melias shoes]

Tweeted the following:

"White people love playing "divide & rule" We should not play their game #tacticasoldascolonialism"

I wasn't aware that I did. I just wonder what the reaction to this would be if she was white and made these comments about black people?

Yes, that is most definitely racist. Plastic socialist who tells us to have a state education while sends her children to private school.

 

[The Merry Prankster]

At its core, racism is the belief that people are inherently superior or inferior because of their membership of a particular race.

Diane Abbott's tweet that 'white people love playing 'divide and rule' We should not play their game #tacticsoldascolonialism' is certainly something that I would count as racial stereotyping, just as 'black guys love fried chicken' or 'Asians love to bootleg western technology' would fall into that category. Although using broad strokes is standard fare with Twitter and its 140 character limit, painting with such a broad brush about any race, or people of a particular ethnicity or skin colour, looks rather unsophisticated and is politically dangerous, as Abbott is very aware of now.

It falls short of being racist, in itself. That's not to say categorically that Diane Abbott is racist or isn't racist. But her tweets in themselves are not racist. For example, there is no sense that she feels black people are inherently superior or white people are inherently inferior.

As with what happened in the Gus Poyet TalkSport interview, it is easy to remove a couple of sentences from their context and have them appear to be much worse than they are in context. In a Twitter conversation with her friend over whether to be open about divisions between black people and the people who claim to represent them, Abbott is saying some people (white folk) have a winning strategy which they will have no qualms about using and black people should not make themselves vulnerable to it. In many ways it can be read as a bit of a backhanded compliment to white people, as shown by her further tweet: "Ethnic communities that show more public solidarity & unity than black people do much better #dontwashdirtylineninpublic." She's trying to get black communities to follow the lead of others and act smarter. Hardly a claim that blacks are superior, is it?

Had to wait 156 posts to say THIS.

 

[The Merry Prankster]

Racism vs s Blog

Worth reading.

 

[Buzzer]

Racism vs s Blog

Worth reading.

I read that very carefully and don't think that it does anything than serve as a mealy-mouthed excuse. THere's a similar article in tomorrow's Morning Star. "Careless oversimplification"? Really? She had 34 letters left in that tweet. More than enough for the word 'some' to prefix white people or 'colonial' or God forbid she could have clarified it in a further tweet. She didn't, of course. The irony of it all is that the original debate centred on arguing that 'black people' are not one homogenous race but she pisses all over the moral high ground by using the '..all white people' line.

I'm not that offended by her as I've always found her nothing more than a self-publicising greedy hypocrite but the attempts to nullify (justify?) her stupid comments in articles such as this are pathetic IMO. Why they can't see that it's just a very well-timed advert for the Diane Abbott roadshow, I don't know.

 

[clapham_gull]

I read that very carefully and don't think that it does anything than serve as a mealy-mouthed excuse. THere's a similar article in tomorrow's Morning Star. "Careless oversimplification"? Really? She had 34 letters left in that tweet. More than enough for the word 'some' to prefix white people or 'colonial' or God forbid she could have clarified it in a further tweet. She didn't, of course. The irony of it all is that the original debate centred on arguing that 'black people' are not one homogenous race but she pisses all over the moral high ground by using the '..all white people' line.

I'm not that offended by her as I've always found her nothing more than a self-publicising greedy hypocrite but the attempts to nullify (justify?) her stupid comments in articles such as this are pathetic IMO. Why they can't see that it's just a very well-timed advert for the Diane Abbott roadshow, I don't know.

Well at least she was consistent and fair, seemingly believing both are homogenous

.. actually I don't think she believes that to be honest. I just think she's got a slightly outdated view of race relations where she thinks that (sometimes) the best form of defence is attack.

On television she comes across as extremely rude and patronising, although I've never met her in person.

Toby Young does annoy me more. I'm no idea why that is relevant, but I just felt like saying it.

 

[Buzzer]

Well at least she was consistent and fair, seemingly believing both are homogenous

.. actually I don't think she believes that to be honest. I just think she's got a slightly outdated view of race relations where she thinks that (sometimes) the best form of defence is attack.

On television she comes across as extremely rude and patronising, although I've never met her in person.

Toby Young does annoy me more. I'm no idea why that is relevant, but I just felt like saying it.

Harriet Harman annoys me more. Ian Duncan-Smith can go in that pot too. Blair, Balls, Liam Fox and especially the two smuggest bastards in politics: Frank Dobson and Paddy Ashdown.

 

[Pevenseagull]

The Dutch were never in Rwanda.

twas Belgique

either way, they're both good on that chips and mayonnaise innovation

 

[clapham_gull]

Harriet Harman annoys me more. Ian Duncan-Smith can go in that pot too. Blair, Balls, Liam Fox and especially the two smuggest bastards in politics: Frank Dobson and Paddy Ashdown.

I'll raise you a Boris Johnson. Not for his politics, just his opportunism. Makes a comment about something, then you unearth something from a few years ago that completely contradicts it. I'm not entirely sure he believes in anything at all.

On the Labour front, definitively Blair. Another opportunist. .

 

[Brovion]

At its core, racism is the belief that people are inherently superior or inferior because of their membership of a particular race.

Diane Abbott's tweet that 'white people love playing 'divide and rule' We should not play their game #tacticsoldascolonialism' is certainly something that I would count as racial stereotyping, just as 'black guys love fried chicken' or 'Asians love to bootleg western technology' would fall into that category. Although using broad strokes is standard fare with Twitter and its 140 character limit, painting with such a broad brush about any race, or people of a particular ethnicity or skin colour, looks rather unsophisticated and is politically dangerous, as Abbott is very aware of now.

It falls short of being racist, in itself. That's not to say categorically that Diane Abbott is racist or isn't racist. But her tweets in themselves are not racist. For example, there is no sense that she feels black people are inherently superior or white people are inherently inferior.
...

I disagree. She said that all white people are colonialists, greedy people who like to divide and rule in order to exploit and steal the wealth of other countries. That's not a nice characteristic, but its what white people do. Abbott thinks whites are inherently morally inferior to blacks.

Good grief. Somebody bothered to do that? ...

I dunno who, but yes they did and NSC was shut down for a while and Bozza was threatened with legal action. When it re-opened there were dire warnings that we were under surveillance and that any racist comments, even light-hearted or 'fishing' ones, would be dealt with severely. If this thread had appeared in the immediate aftermath of 'racegate' it would have been locked long ago, not because of anything that's been said (although my comment, even with the 'Disclaimer', might have fallen foul of the 'fishing' rule), but simply because there was potential for someone to make a racist remark and it was better to be safe than sorry. Sad times.

 

[User removed 4]

At its core, racism is the belief that people are inherently superior or inferior because of their membership of a particular race.

Diane Abbott's tweet that 'white people love playing 'divide and rule' We should not play their game #tacticsoldascolonialism' is certainly something that I would count as racial stereotyping, just as 'black guys love fried chicken' or 'Asians love to bootleg western technology' would fall into that category. Although using broad strokes is standard fare with Twitter and its 140 character limit, painting with such a broad brush about any race, or people of a particular ethnicity or skin colour, looks rather unsophisticated and is politically dangerous, as Abbott is very aware of now.

It falls short of being racist, in itself. That's not to say categorically that Diane Abbott is racist or isn't racist. But her tweets in themselves are not racist. For example, there is no sense that she feels black people are inherently superior or white people are inherently inferior.

As with what happened in the Gus Poyet TalkSport interview, it is easy to remove a couple of sentences from their context and have them appear to be much worse than they are in context. In a Twitter conversation with her friend over whether to be open about divisions between black people and the people who claim to represent them, Abbott is saying some people (white folk) have a winning strategy which they will have no qualms about using and black people should not make themselves vulnerable to it. In many ways it can be read as a bit of a backhanded compliment to white people, as shown by her further tweet: "Ethnic communities that show more public solidarity & unity than black people do much better #dontwashdirtylineninpublic." She's trying to get black communities to follow the lead of others and act smarter. Hardly a claim that blacks are superior, is it?

Ok, the vast majority of street robberies in london are carried out by blacks, that statement neither implies moral superiority of whites or inherent criminality of blacks , its just the truth, but prior to the Diane Abbott statement you and a lot of others on here would have been all over it like a rash , with sneering accusations of racism. If I am racist then she is racist ,it's finally been revealed that the emperor is wearing no clothes, and no amount of wriggling and tying yourself in knots with talk of "backhanded compliments to whites" will change that, I am not racist , I hold no brief for the racial superiority of any race , I simply believe in the same " public solidarity & unity " for the white working class that she espouses for blacks.

 

[BigGully]

Ok, the vast majority of street robberies in london are carried out by blacks, that statement neither implies moral superiority of whites or inherent criminality of blacks , its just the truth, but prior to the Diane Abbott statement you and a lot of others on here would have been all over it like a rash , with sneering accusations of racism. If I am racist then she is racist ,it's finally been revealed that the emperor is wearing no clothes, and no amount of wriggling and tying yourself in knots with talk of "backhanded compliments to whites" will change that, I am not racist , I hold no brief for the racial superiority of any race , I simply believe in the same " public solidarity & unity " for the white working class that she espouses for blacks.

Very well put.

Nearly so good it has shut down the debate ;-)

 

[The Merry Prankster]

I read that very carefully and don't think that it does anything than serve as a mealy-mouthed excuse. THere's a similar article in tomorrow's Morning Star. "Careless oversimplification"? Really? She had 34 letters left in that tweet. More than enough for the word 'some' to prefix white people or 'colonial' or God forbid she could have clarified it in a further tweet. She didn't, of course. The irony of it all is that the original debate centred on arguing that 'black people' are not one homogenous race but she pisses all over the moral high ground by using the '..all white people' line.

I'm not that offended by her as I've always found her nothing more than a self-publicising greedy hypocrite but the attempts to nullify (justify?) her stupid comments in articles such as this are pathetic IMO. Why they can't see that it's just a very well-timed advert for the Diane Abbott roadshow, I don't know.

It was more the point about certain types of honkies seeming to try to nullify years of oppression, racism, murder etc. by gleefully jumping on what is a small misdemeanour (omission of "some", generalisation). Outraged Masters of the Universe doesn't work for me.

 

[User removed 4]

It was more the point about certain types of honkies seeming to try to nullify years of oppression, racism, murder etc. by gleefully jumping on what is a small misdemeanour (omission of "some", generalisation). Outraged Masters of the Universe doesn't work for me.

I really don’t think there has been a lot of outrage to be honest mate, just a lot of people pointing out that it was a sweeping generalisation in a way where a white cabinet member would have been crucified and the BBC would’ve been leading for weeks with the story.
I for one am not outraged because I know full well that this sort of attitude is prevalent among a lot of black people, which is fine, everyone is entitled to an opinion, sometimes they’re even justified.
What I am however is amused at the attempts to put a positive spin on something which is basically impossible, to the extent of goldstone rapper even trying to claim it was in some way a “backhanded compliment” to whites, laughable to be honest.

 

[piersa]

Pot. Kettle. Black.

is that racist?

 

[daveinprague]

Not my own words, but certainly my sentiment.

New Statesman - What the Diane Abbott metastorm was really about


<<"If it had been the other way around," is the general thrust of these arguments. Well if it had been the other way around, it would have been the other way around. If it had been the other way around, everything would have had to have been the other way around. We would have to be living in a country where black people dominated and white people didn't; where black people had all the jobs but sp......ectacularly untalented black columnists would be writing about how unfair it was, somehow.

As well as all that, you have to suspect that if it had been the other way around, the same faces so outraged and appalled by Abbott's comments would be finding ways to justify what had been said, to claim that it wasn't really all bad.

All this comes in a week when we've been seeing the horribly real consequences of actual racism, with two of the killers of Stephen Lawrence having been brought to justice. This pointless charade about Abbott would be a tacky sideshow at the best of times; in the context of seeing what real racism does, it's even more pathetic.

 

[aolstudios]

Not my own words, but certainly my sentiment.

New Statesman - What the Diane Abbott metastorm was really about


<<"If it had been the other way around," is the general thrust of these arguments. Well if it had been the other way around, it would have been the other way around. If it had been the other way around, everything would have had to have been the other way around. We would have to be living in a country where black people dominated and white people didn't; where black people had all the jobs but sp......ectacularly untalented black columnists would be writing about how unfair it was, somehow.

As well as all that, you have to suspect that if it had been the other way around, the same faces so outraged and appalled by Abbott's comments would be finding ways to justify what had been said, to claim that it wasn't really all bad.

All this comes in a week when we've been seeing the horribly real consequences of actual racism, with two of the killers of Stephen Lawrence having been brought to justice. This pointless charade about Abbott would be a tacky sideshow at the best of times; in the context of seeing what real racism does, it's even more pathetic.

This. Thanks for a thoughtful post. Puts it all in proportion