Geoff Wilson<\/a>\u00a0(1957-). Artist of 9 portraits.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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By : Senan\/Sezla<\/p>\n
Shadow health minister Diane Abbott was wrong on all counts when she said: \u201cWhite people love playing divide and rule\u201d. The so-called Twitter defence of being \u201cunable to express everything in 140 characters\u201d does not hold.<\/p>\n
Diane is wide of the mark even if she was referring to the period of slavery. It is absolutely vital to insist on the difference between the \u2018white masters\u2019 who enslaved all races, and the white working class who often showed huge solidarity, struggling for better conditions for all. Clearly grasping the class divide has never been Diane\u2019s cup of tea. When has she gone on the defence of the working class, white or black?<\/p>\n
But there have been calls for her resignation from all sides. For a tweet this is ridiculous. That\u2019s not to say there are not reasons to demand she quits. For example, many would argue she should have been asked to stand down as a Labour MP, elected to represent working class people, when she sent her son to a private school while her Labour government undermined state education.<\/p>\n
Outrageously Diane never came to the defence of black people in Hackney when their services were slashed out of existence by \u2018posh white boys\u2019, as she correctly calls the Con-Dems. And, during the August 2011 eruptions of anger in London she notoriously advocated a curfew \u2013 in effect an argument for bringing the military onto the street. Research has proved that it was anger over cuts and police harassment that fuelled these events.<\/p>\n
However, the portrayal of Diane in the media as an \u2018outright racist\u2019 is wrong and crude. And, crucially, it sews seeds of confusion about what racism is and why and how it must be fought. It could even create sympathy among the black and Asian population for her \u2013 sympathy which was in short supply given her record.<\/p>\n
Diane would be absolutely correct to direct an accusation of \u2018divide and rule\u2019 towards the ruling elite, who are mostly from white rich families. Warmonger Tony Blair called for black or Asian mothers to control their kids and report on them to the police.<\/p>\n
David Cameron got away with calling part of the community \u2018sick\u2019 referring to poor black people while the \u2018Black and Asian\u2019 MPs provided no explanation for the anger on behalf of people living in the most deprived boroughs in the country.<\/p>\n
There was no major outcry in the media when so-called historian David Starkey revived Enoch Powell\u2019s \u2018Rivers of Blood\u2019 racist speech on BBC\u2019s Newsnight on 15 August to caricature the rioting as \u2018black culture\u2019.<\/p>\n
The list is very long. However, Diane is not aiming her attack at these people, hence the outrage among all sections of working people.<\/p>\n
However, the media has picked on the tweet partly to divert or counter the media attention from reporting the conviction of Stephen Lawrence\u2019s murderers in the media. There is also an element of how Mark Duggan\u2019s death was a \u2018distraction\u2019 from Murdochgate in the way the media vultures feed on Diane\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n
The big-business owned media seems happy to focus on nationalism and racism, issues that can sew division and atomisation of society. But it took a vibrant thousands-strong student demonstration before they caught up with growing unemployment and the EMA theft \u2013 they are still refusing to dedicate enough time to talk about the effect of the cuts and youth unemployment, etc.<\/p>\n
When it comes to issues of organised workers\u2019 action such as strikes and occupations, protests outside government offices, etc, there is rarely sufficient column space. They even pass on momentous historical events. For example there was virtual media silence when more than 100,000 Tamil-speaking people marched through the streets of London in 2009 demanding a halt to the massacre of Tamils in Sri Lanka. Deaths in police custody<\/p>\n
This is just one example to expose the hypocrisy of the media. Murdochgate has revealed the connection to the ruling elite and the police, etc. But so far the vast majority are carrying on as normal. Even the disgraced former News of the World editor has found a cosy editorial job in the USA.<\/p>\n
As we fight the cuts, made by those who defend the interests of big business and the banks, we must also fight their mouthpiece in the media.<\/p>\n
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Sitter Diane Julie Abbott\u00a0(1953-), Politician. Sitter in 4 portraits. Artist Geoff Wilson\u00a0(1957-). Artist of 9 portraits. By : Senan\/Sezla Shadow health minister Diane Abbott was wrong on all counts when...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":230,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=229"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229\/revisions\/231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/senan.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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