Stoke Newington was the first place I ever called home. My parents were proud constituents of Diane Abbott’s and her election from my community always left me with a sense of pride, and it still does. Reading her comments in a letter in the Observer first sparked anger and confusion, but left me with nothing but disappointment (Labour suspends Diane Abbott in attempt to stifle fresh antisemitism row, 23 April).
The MP, for whom my parents first voted for way back in 1987, is a symbol of hope and resilience, a Black woman who has defied the odds. I have always admired her, and still want to, but for her to trivialise the struggles of Jewish people in such a way is inexcusable.
No, my ancestors did not have to sit on the back of the bus in pre-civil rights America, and were allowed to vote in apartheid South Africa, but I find both facts irrelevant. Jews, and Travellers and the Irish, have suffered in their own countless ways. It is not a top trumps of suffering. Oft-maligned communities should support and empower each other, not tear each other down. My family came to the UK from Białystok, Poland, a city where more than 99% of Jews were exterminated, specifically for their race. Throughout my life in the UK I have experienced antisemitism in many forms – from casual “cheap Jew” comments to Nazi insignia brandished in my face. To compare those experiences to the struggles of redheads is incomprehensible.
While I find Diane’s apology insincere and her “initial draft” excuse laughable, I do hope that she is able to learn from this experience. She is clearly a good person with her heart in the right place. I just hope she is able to open her heart (and eyes) to the suffering of others without having to define it. I would encourage her to visit a Jewish museum or memorial to try and better understand her comments and how hurtful they are.
Name and address supplied
• Perusing the content of Diane Abbott’s letter, I’m flummoxed that we must still revisit this discussion, especially with Labour politicians. There is no possible benefit from peoples who have suffered racism playing “racism top trumps” by seeking to minimise or negate the suffering of other races. What for?
That I mourn the racism suffered by my family as Jews does not diminish my horror at racism against other groups. For the avoidance of doubt, the price paid by my family (not distant family in ancient history, but the murders of my uncles and grandparents) was wholly dissimilar to prejudice against redheads. And as David Baddiel has often tried to illuminate, the genocide was not against their religious beliefs (they were irreligious and secular); it was against their race.
Prof Daniel Altmann
London
• Anti-racism must be indivisible, and the sharing of experience must start from that fundamental principle. It is also incumbent on white people, and the institutions the affluent among us invariably dominate, to cede the space necessary for minority communities to discuss, organise and resist racism in its many forms. The space within which black people can discuss racism and its impact is already narrow, and tightly policed by the white-dominated media and political institutions that now condemn Diane Abbott. I fear we are about to witness the political ruin of a MP who has done more to combat racism than most.
Perhaps if the ground on which Abbott and all people of colour were able to reflect on race, power and inequality was more generously given, missteps like this would be less likely to occur. I hope that in the haste to convict her, all of us might reflect on our relative access to power.
Mike Cowley
Leith, Edinburgh
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