This will be an interesting one to watch
MP Diane Abbott 'sorry' over Twitter race comments
Diane Abbott Diane Abbott was Westminster's first black woman MP
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* Profile: Diane Abbott
Shadow Health Minister Diane Abbott has apologised for comments she made on Twitter, amid claims they were racist.
She said she had not meant to generalise when she wrote: ''White people love playing 'divide & rule'".
Silly off the cuff, crass comment....from a person who should know better.
What makes you laugh...is the people that complain about the PC situation when refering to racism towards black community, now getting all PC themselves, and asking for resignations, because it is directed at them..lol
indeed...see above...I have said a silly and crass statement...there was no reason at all for her to use the word white. As said....above...of all people she should of known better and thought before she typed !! She has quite rightly been slapped down.
It was a silly crass comment with racist overtones. The fact she was generalising in that manner is wrong. I can not see why anyone has to preface the colour of the skin. As clearly ststed she of all people should have known better.
A silly comment, IMO, however, she should have known better.
If it was a white politician who said it, we all know what the outcome would be............
What's good for the goose.........
This was a racist comment and she absolutely should be brought to account because of it.
The football related race debate, and this one, show up clearly that as a nation we are a pretty uneducated and crass bunch of people.
Both debates are aurrounded by tribalistic supporter with no rational thought whatsoever. In the football case, it is the supporters of the football club who are standing full square behind their Club and player despite the almost universal condemnation from everywhere else. In the case of Diane Abbott it is the left wing alliances who cannot accept that one of their own could have possibly done anything wrong.
There are big differences in the two cases but if anything Abbotts statement is worse because she is drawing on the historical context of white masters dividing the slave families and clearly she still has this mindset. She has now removed the tweet and offered the typical non apology (as Suarez has) but really it is just not good enough.
Dianne Abbott does quite often put her foot in her mouth. Still quite like her though. She says what she thinks without first running it past focus groups and party whips. Refreshing in this day and age. In this instance all she had to do was preface her 'white people love playing divide and rule' comment with the single word 'some' and noone could have argued with her. Not one person, because as soon as you include 'some' her statement becomes demonstrably true.
She should know better than to make sweeping, generalised comments, but I don't believe she's racist, because I don't generally believe racism is about simple prejudice or the misuse of language. It's not about a person's dislike for the skin tone of another. It's about power and control. It's an assertion of a priveleged position, predicated on the alleged superiority of one race* over another, that has become idealised and institutionalised in a way that maintains that priveleged position to the exclusion of others who may one day challenge it, a priveleged position black people do not enjoy in the main in an overwhelmingly white society where real power is vested in white, middle-class, middle-aged men.
*replace race with sex/gender and black people with women if that helps anyone get what I'm on about?
She used the present tense only to then say she was talking about the past.
Hard to say if she is actually a racist or not as I don't know her, but I'm not at all comfortable with what she said.
If a white tory MP had said "black people love it when we play divide and rule" they would have been sacked.
Diane Abbott not being sacked is basically a case of double-standards.
Is Diane Abbott a racist? I have no idea but she has a history of making such comments
Is what Diane Abbott said racist? No not really
Do I give two hoots? No not really
Is what Diane Abbot said racist under the laws that she and other left wing PC types voted for? Absofeckinglutely and that is why she should be sanctioned for it.
American Black men love playing Basketball
Afro Carribbean men black men love Reggae music
English White men love football and cricket
are those statement racist or are they personal opions based on what we have read and believe ?
