The race row that never was, swiftly followed by the apology that never was. Yes, Twitter’s five-minutes hate today was directed at Diane Abbott for her ill-judged tweet: “white people love playing “divide and rule” We should not play their game #tacticsasoldascolonialism.
The Labour MP initially defended her comment stating that her tweet was taken out of context and referred to “the nature of 19th century European colonialism. Bit much to get into 140 characters” (to which the question begs: ‘Why try then?’ Swiftly followed by the answer: because I’m Diane Abbott).
However after a ‘stern dressing down’ from Ed Miliband (as one tweeter put it: about as scary as a stern dressing gown from the Labour leader) Abbott backed into the wet, shallow ground occupied by many a red-faced politician, as she resorted to the weasly line: ‘I apologise if any offence was caused’.
Personally, I would have been happier for the condemned to take to Sky News and recite David Cameron’s one sentence commandment for all forms of social media: “too many tweets makes a twat”, swiftly followed by a bow and an immediate return to her day job of flicking globules of paper at Michael Portillo.
Yes, today’s furore was another dog-with-a-bone moment for the Twitterati, most of whom probably missed the juicy argument lurking right beside them.
Diane Abbot made her tweet while sat firmly on the wrong side of an argument with freelance journalist Bim Adewunmi about the use of term ‘black community’. Writing in the Guardian after the debacle Adewunmi sets out her assertion.
“a) Something deemed to be a “black issue” is on the news agenda; b) Without fail, “community leaders” and the now standard “ex-gang member” are wheeled out to be interviewed…I hardly ever recognise any of the so-called “community leaders” on these programmes – I doubt many ordinary black people, i.e. those they purport to represent, ever do.”
By not viewing ‘the black community’ as one homogeneous population Diane Abbot somehow concluded that Adewunmi was “playing into a divide and rule agenda”; a risible and idiotic suggestion if ever there was one.
Even without the ugly colonialist echoes, it’s not hard to find fault with the entire premise of Abbott’s argument. Ethnic communities yes, local communities yes, national communities yes; you can even have music communities – but monolithic communities ordered solely by colour of skin? I think, nay hope not.
Abbott’s argument hinges on a binary, separatist mentality between colours. The events of this week have proved our society is fighting hard to move away from this ugly order.
