Silas Loom
Hated by both sides
It is not. Hope that helps.
Hierarchies of racism address actual racisms, not hypothetical ones.
Diane Abbott suspended as Labour MP.
- Thread starter trashpony
- Start date
It is not. Hope that helps.
Hierarchies of racism address actual racisms, not hypothetical ones.
Dystopiary
putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon
No. It's saying that all racism is shit. "All lives matter" is dismissing racism.
None of those things characterise theories of multiple racisms, and none of them was what Abbott was saying. Noting that racisms are different is not putting them in a hierarchy. The experience of being black in the UK is different to the experience of being black in France, even. It’s not that one racism is somehow better in one country than the other. But they need to be understood differently — historically, culturally, politically, sociologically — in order to be addressed in their own context.
I don’t think it was dismissive of other types of racism at all. It was just saying that experiencing one type of racist phenomenon doesn’t make you an expert in a different racist phenomenon. Being at the receiving end of anti-semitism is different to being at the receiving end of anti-black racism. The social processes you employ to address one will not address the other. The problematisation of race/ethnicity/culture/religion is different in each case, and so the solution you need is different.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
It's possible to discuss differences between kinds of racism or prejudice without arranging them in an order, though. And politically (Abbott is a politician after all), it is surely preferable to do so.
Silas Loom
Hated by both sides
I don’t see how the text below can be characterised as “noting that racisms are different”. She’s saying, quite baldy, that “white-seeming” people experience lesser forms of prejudice, rather than racism.
I think you’re defending a position which you would like Abbott to have held, contrary to the evidence.
Attachments
Forgive me if I’m going to be cautious about condemning Abbott’s understanding of racism over a summary of her words by The Mirror and a Tory MP almost 30 years ago. Particularly when Abbott is subsequently reported as saying, "My argument is not that they shouldn't employ white nurses, but they should employ local people” and the article also note, “The MP had said in the Hackney Gazette that black nurses, hit by racism and lack of career development, were the first to lose their jobs.”
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
The quoted words are bad enough, though. I assume The Mirror didn't make up those quotes as they'd be in trouble legally if they had.
She has form for expressing ideas very clumsily, but the comment about Finnish nurses never having touched a black person is beyond crass. Imagine it being said of a Nigerian nurse that she has never touched a white person and so isn't suitable for a job with white people.
You’ve inserted the word, “lesser”. Abbott never put it in a hierarchy. That article says that the prejudice experienced by Irish, Jewish and Traveller people is “similar” to racism, but it is different.
Yes, the phrasing is extremely clumsy. I certainly don’t think it is at all helpful to try to ringfence the word “racism” as being specifically for visual difference in the way that Abbott is doing it. Because the word “racism” has been reified into a label that is simply attached to a “bad” person or “bad” action through an essential feature of the label itself, the result is that people read through her words exactly as you have done — that “prejudice but not racism” is somehow not as bad as racism. And besides, the danger of ringfencing the word in this way is that it ironically reifies race itself in exactly the way that anti-racism seeks to prevent. But clumsy as this all is, it is not dodgy.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Sure. To be a bit more serious for a second I think an actual hierarchy ie rank from one to whatever would obviously be ridiculous and totally strip out any context. Equally though to assert all racisms are equally bad would be to deny that historically anti- black racism in the UK at least has been worse than anti-white racism - to deny that is getting a bit ALM in my view.
It’s crass but it isn’t “racist”, particularly given the implied context — Abbott is trying to make a point about the fact that local people are not being employed by the very hospital that the local community is serving, despite their superior cultural understanding of those patients. Abbott isn’t essentialising Finns as being “other” and she isn’t reproducing any kind of systemic prejudice against Finnish people.
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
Abbott was applying a somewhat niche interpretation of racism that is not that uncommon in certain corners of left academia. It's an interpretation that makes a distinction between the terms 'racism' and prejudice. I don't agree with any of this, in fact I think it's bollocks, but I also understand that it's not a viewpoint that comes from a 'bad' or a racist place.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't agree about the 'othering'. She is othering white people from black people in that quote, just as someone would be othering black people from white people if they said the equivalent thing about a Nigerian nurse touching a white person.
The wider issue at hand may well have been a just one. I don't know. But that way of addressing it is divisive and counterproductive.
Quite. My point isn’t to defend the academic underpinnings of Abbott’s prejudice/racism distinction, because I don’t agree with it. My point is merely that Abbott’s comments weren’t “dodgy”.
You are viewing it that way because you are approaching it from the perspective of the white person. But Abbott doesn’t actually care about the white nurses being offered jobs. She cares that the black nurses are being removed from those jobs. If the local black nurses hadn’t been fired out of what Abbot saw as racist motives, and the Finnish nurses had just all been additions to the workforce, I very much doubt you’d have seen Abbott making a single comment about it.
But we won’t know, will we? Because it was 30 years ago and our source is a tabloid newspaper who cherry-picked her quotes, and a Tory politician whose opinion the Mirror was more interested in than Abbott’s.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't think so. I'm viewing it from the point of view of someone who thinks the comments were crass, divisive and counterproductive, and would provide ammunition to racists who might seek to prevent black people from taking particular jobs using the same rationale. If you were to turn the races around, you'd have something Nick Griffin might say.
And this does link to Abbott's ideas about racism expressed in the more recent letter. She considers racism to be a particular form of prejudice that can't be experienced by white people. Given that, it's not such a surprise when she talks in that way about Finnish nurses. There's a very unhelpful essentialism running through it.
Silas Loom
Hated by both sides
It’s a very unhelpful place for Jews and Roma. I’m happy to call it “bad”.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
That there is a difference between racism and prejudice is just clear and obvious. Racism is more than mere prejudice, it is backed up by a power structure that uses and gains from it. This is how it is fundamentally different from prejudice against, say, redheads (even though that can be argued to be based on racial, anti-celtic, prejudices) - they are not systematically discriminated against.
Abbott's view is deeply crude and does imply a 'hierarchy of racism' but that doesn't mean that it is wholly wrong. Discrimination against different groups will be different (shock horror). Some of that discrimination can be seen to be worse than others at particular times and places. There's nothing wrong with recognising that - as long as you still recognise that the 'not quite as bad at the moment' racist expressions are also still very bad and fundamentally part of the same problem.
Abbott's view is deeply crude and does imply a 'hierarchy of racism' but that doesn't mean that it is wholly wrong. Discrimination against different groups will be different (shock horror). Some of that discrimination can be seen to be worse than others at particular times and places. There's nothing wrong with recognising that - as long as you still recognise that the 'not quite as bad at the moment' racist expressions are also still very bad and fundamentally part of the same problem.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Except that Jews have been systematically discriminated against for, what, centuries, culminating in the Holocaust.
I don't think it is helpful to make the word 'racism' do so much work, though. Racism in its most parsimonious definition is simply prejudice based on a certain conception of a person's 'race'. It is different in different places, clearly. In Cuba or Brazil, it works very differently from, say, the UK or the US. Its roots lie in power structures and historical injustices. Those vary from place to place, clearly. The Han Chinese can be very racist towards other races within their part of the world, none of whom are necessarily 'black'.
At best, this kind of theorising is too culturally specific to be useful in providing an overview of racism in the world. And so what use is it?
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Of course they have, thats why I wholly agree that they face racism, I'm not saying otherwise at all.
Plumdaff
joy in people
Would people object to the idea that the Met Police employ too many white officers who lack understanding of and do not live in the communities they serve?
I've worked in the NHS in inner London. I still work in an NHS organisation that doesn't reflect its community. It's genuinely a problem that we fail to recruit and retain staff from some parts of the community. It is a factor in systemic racism and inequality. We even had some equalities act exempt posts to target some communities in some teams I worked in in East London.
I think she's obviously wrong about Jewish, Roma and other Travelling people not experiencing racism. But I find her comments about nurses fairly obvious tbh however much a tabloid might try and drum up a scandal.
Eta. I can think of at least one workplace where a lack of Jewish staff / Jewish cultural awareness was a significant and regular problem.
I've worked in the NHS in inner London. I still work in an NHS organisation that doesn't reflect its community. It's genuinely a problem that we fail to recruit and retain staff from some parts of the community. It is a factor in systemic racism and inequality. We even had some equalities act exempt posts to target some communities in some teams I worked in in East London.
I think she's obviously wrong about Jewish, Roma and other Travelling people not experiencing racism. But I find her comments about nurses fairly obvious tbh however much a tabloid might try and drum up a scandal.
Eta. I can think of at least one workplace where a lack of Jewish staff / Jewish cultural awareness was a significant and regular problem.
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littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Hmmm. Most of my dad's carers are African women. Is that a problem? Do they lack an understanding of my dad's needs because they are African and he isn't? If it's not ok to even ask that about African nurses and carers (and I think it is very much not ok), how is it ok to ask the same thing about Finnish nurses?
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
So it would be okay to argue that white British communities should be served by white British people and not black people?
If that would not be okay what is the distinction?
Plumdaff
joy in people
There's a distinct difference between discussing individuals and groups / systems. Especially when you're thinking about recruitment policy for a large public sector institution.
And all NHS staff, regardless of background, should consider how their cultural background and assumptions interact with those of their patients, absolutely. To give an example, I've had to raise the appropriateness of offering to pray with a patient with some colleagues from backgrounds where that would only be considered positive and caring.
Silas Loom
Hated by both sides
Surely the cultural awareness was the essential problem? And if the community in this case were Hasids/Charedi*, your average assimilated British Jew would probably need to pick up nearly as much cultural awareness on the job as a gentile.
* Just guessing, as you said Inner London.
Plumdaff
joy in people
Thankfully no one's making such a simplistic argument.
Plumdaff
joy in people
Cultural awareness is definitely part of the issue, but not entirely.
emanymton
A cat politely sat on the flaming gardener.
If I was a right winger that is exactly the arrangement I would make in response to your post.
Plumdaff
joy in people
Right wingers do tend to cynically simplify complex and nuanced arguments and discussion, yes.
Silas Loom
Hated by both sides
I think the bit that is left over is a reasonable ask in policing, but medicine doesn’t have the same issues about legitimacy and representation.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Sure.
However, Abbott specifically zoned in on the whiteness of the Finnish nurses. Her arguments are simplistic essentialism of a really crappy kind.
This is where Abbott's style of hierarchies comes unstuck. It is far too simplistic to encompass prejudice against Eastern Europeans, for example, such as that shown by Boris Johnson in the last election - speaking their funny languages and eating their funny food. These have exact echoes with the prejudices experienced by previous identifiable immigrant groups. Where there should be mutual understanding and solidarity, what is there in Abbott's view of things?
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