The clever thing about so much of what happens in this country is that it happens with subtlety, and the issue of race and cultural identity is an area where some of that subtlety finds its most nuanced expression. We all know that the murderers of Stephen Lawrence are racists. They personify racism in its most crass and brutal form. We know that TV programmes such as Alf Garnett and Bless thy Neighbour were racist and we have learnt that the Metropolitan Police were or are institutionally racist. But are all white people racist as is implied by Diane Abbott's tweet.
The killing of Stephen Lawrence and the events that have followed it, represent many of the essential characteristics of the embedded nature of racism in the UK. The appalling hate expressed in the act and the recordings that the police made during their investigations are its most extreme manifestation. Then there is the overt racism of the police officers involved in the initial enquiry and the institutional racism that defended their practise. But perhaps the most disingenuous aspect, is the way in which Stephen Lawrence has become an icon of our (the white community's) absolution and redemption. By eulogising the work and struggle of Stephen's parents it seems as if we are trying to absolve ourselves of our complicity in sustaining the culture that killed him and that has kept his killers safe for a generation, and for some of them it will be longer. The conviction of two of his murderers is not evidence that Britain has finally become an intrinsically multi-racial and culturally inclusive society, it is evidence that we were ashamed of what had happened and have done our best to make amends for the Lawrences. But what we should never be allowed to believe, is that convicting them deals with the culture that killed him.
Stephen Lawrence was killed by racist thugs, who were protected by their friends and families and racist policemen; who in turn were employed by a racist institution, that was sustained by the racist beliefs of a society that believed that street crime was a problem for the black community. We might want to believe that Stephen Lawrence's murder couldn't happen again or that racially motivated policing doesn't unfairly affect the black community. But it is an expression of our racism that people die, get stopped and are arrested because they are black. It is also an expression of our racism that we still accept that this is acceptable or deny its existence. But our racism doesn't stop there and a much more subtle example of how racism works in this country was demonstrated during the last election.
The interlinking and articulation of the issues of racism and immigration has a long and well documented history. The Duffy Gate, scandal that arguably cost Gordon Brown the election, was a classic example of the extent to which racially ambiguous beliefs have come to be accepted as legitimate. Gillian Duffy's association of mass immigration and the exploitation the benefit system may or may not make her a bigoted woman but they were views that were based on a racially stereotyped perception of eastern European immigration. What was most revealing about the response to this was not that Gordon Brown had referred to her as a bigoted woman, but rather that there was universal acceptance that there was nothing wrong with anything she had said. And what has been almost as shocking, has been the way in which Gillian Duffy has been feted as a heroin of the working class. It is this acceptance, that is indicative of the extent to which racial stereotyping is a norm that has become acceptable within our society.
And now the media has turned its attention on Diane Abbott for having the courage to state what is actually obvious. That an essentially white community is embedded within its culture and that is able to maintain its dominance by dividing and stereo-typing its minority communities.We have done it with the Jewish Community, the Irish Community and are still doing it with the Muslim and Black communities. Its nothing new, its recognised in the literature and as Stuart Hall has demonstrated, it is dominated by representations of black people as good or bad or as co-operative and unco-operative. You can all guess which category Diane Abbott falls into.
As a black MP, Diane Abbott has managed to survive in a society that is nowhere near as inclusive as it believes it is. Some things have improved, but the racism that killed Stephen and allows some of his murderers to stay free is sustained by the actions and acceptance of all of us. We all hear racist comments and then pretend we haven't, we all have racists in our families and do not condemn them. All that Diane has done is to speak up for a community that still experiences racism on an everyday basis. She has challenged the complacency of a dominant white community and been slapped down by a party that fails to understand that the struggle against racism has barely begun and that is now far too ready to tolerate racism in its support.
So to return to the implication behind Diane's tweet - that white people maintain their cultural hegemony through division and rule and that as such all white people are racist. Self evidently we are not all the kind of racist thug that kills and nor are we all the kind of racist whose practice would affect the conduct of a police investigation. I personally do not believe that stigmatising immigrants is an effective way of dealing with the debt crisis. However, I have never been stopped and searched and neither has my son, but I know that if I were a black man this would not be the case. But this injustice and the myriad other forms of discrimination that that are an integral characteristic of a multi-faceted black Britain have not stirred my outrage - I have remained a passive beneficiary of my community's cultural dominance. So does my tolerance of this injustice make me a racist? On occasions it probably does because even the passive tolerance of racism allows it to flourish and as it flourishes the community that is an integral part of who I am retains its hegemony.
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