I’m a gay Jewish man, but how would you know that unless I had told you?

I’m a young black lad from South London, but I can’t hide my black skin from you, can I?

Pointing this out has ridiculously gotten Diane Abbott suspended from Keir Starmer’s Labour Party. It is hard to adequately express the contempt I have for Keir Starmer, who is so far up the alimentary tract of Zionist interests that he deliberately conflates such comments with anti-semitism. This is not only a gross insult to a lifelong equalities campaigner who fights racism in all its guises, but also an insult to Jewish people that suffer genuine anti-semitism and value the support of campaigners like Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn. I would go so far as to suggest that the act of suspending Diane Abbott for differentiating different forms of racism is in itself more ant-semitic than anything Diane Abbott has ever said and done.

It is well worth listening to the whole of this 30 minute Reflections episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002fwpv

The supposedly controversial segment starts around the 18 minute mark.

Lindsey German adds additional context, in her weekly Counterfire briefing:

The scapegoating of black MP Diane Abbott was another low point last week. As it happens, I listened to her interview with the BBC’s James Naughtie on Thursday morning before she was suspended. I was totally taken aback a few hours later when Labour decided she had been anti-Semitic in her comments. She was nothing of the sort. She did not repeat her claims of two years ago, which got her suspended for the first time. Instead, she clearly said that anti-Semitism and anti-Traveller racism were real but talked about the differences between those and anti-black racism. She did so in terms of visibility. There should be no doubt about this: stop and search for example is targeted at black and to a lesser extent Asian kids. Black and Asian people suffer abuse on public transport, on the streets and from the police because they are visibly black.

I would go further than this important point: you cannot understand anti-black and Asian racism in this country without looking at the racial division of labour at work and the history of slavery and imperialism to which Britain was central. This brings us on to wider definitions of racism where of course many people on the left differ. But we should understand racism as a material reality which is not simply about moral imperatives. Of course racism is morally wrong and should be opposed in all circumstances. But the arguments of Marxists go further: it is deliberately created and recreated in order to divide working-class people and to dehumanise its victims. It is therefore anathema to any idea of collective action or socialism – and why it tends to break down where people do take collective action to change the world, for example on the Palestine demos.

Our rulers are happy to place opposition to racism under the general rubric of diversity. That in itself doesn’t address the bigger questions: why racism is also connected to class, why some racism is much more pervasive and damaging. Any racism is terrible for those who experience it. But the institutional anti-black racism and Islamophobia in Britain go to the heart of education, policing, employment, and much else. Diane has been attacked for daring to imply there is a hierarchy of racism. But in reality the daily oppression of working-class black and Asian people is much more far-reaching, and deliberately so, throughout society than other racial oppressions.

Diane Abbott is right to point to that.  As a working-class black woman who has experienced racism all her life she should be supported not sanctioned. And it’s about time we had a serious discussion about racism and how it works in society – not least within the Labour Party – rather than outbursts of moral outrage which end up attacking an MP who has received more racist abuse than any other.

We are living in dark times, but through solidarity and courage we still have Power in the Darkness!

It is hard to believe that this was released in early 1978. I was just 15. The intervening years have seen some progress at times, but we have seen that progress steadily eroded again, and most damningly by this current Labour government!!

Power in the darkness
Frightening lies from the other side
Power in the darkness
Stand up and fight for your rights

Freedom, we’re talking bout your freedom
Freedom to choose what you do with your body
Freedom to believe what you like
Freedom for brothers to love one another
Freedom for black and white
Freedom from harassment, intimidation
Freedom for the mother and wife
Freedom from Big Brother’s interrogation
Freedom to live your own life, I’m talking ’bout

Power in the darkness
Frightening lies from the other side
Power in the darkness
Stand up and fight for your rights

“Today, institutions fundamental to the British system of Government are under attack
the public schools, the house of Lords, the Church of England, the holy institution of Marriage, even our magnificent police force are no longer safe from those who would undermine our society, and it’s about time we said ‘enough is enough’ and saw a return to the traditional British values of discipline, obedience, morality and freedom.
What we want is

Freedom from the reds and the blacks and the criminals
Prostitutes, pansies and punks
Football hooligans, juvenile delinquents
Lesbians and left wing scum
Freedom from the niggers and the Pakis and the unions
Freedom from the Gipsies and the Jews
Freedom from leftwing layabouts and liberals
Freedom from the likes of you”

Power in the darkness
Frightening lies from the other side
Power in the darkness
Stand up and fight for your rights