The intense discussion about Diane Abbott’s comments on Twitter yesterday raised a number of important issues about ‘race’ in Britain. At first sight – in just 140 characters – Abbott dismissed all of the White community in the UK as intentionally acting to fragment the power of non-White communities by dividing their loyalties. Here, it seemed, was an example of Black racism against White people. The subtext of the debate was the possibility that, for 25 years, a racist (anti-White) had infiltrated her way into the heart of the (White) Establishment. What else might she have done, undetected, left to her own devices?! The fear that this might be true prompted both calls for resignation, as well as scrambles to provide evidence that it wasn’t the case – track record, previous support for equality and fairness across society. Today, the debate has died down and it seems Abbott’s record has saved her.
Nonetheless, the discussion has left much for those concerned with ‘race’ and diversity to consider. Certainly, Abbott’s tweet was too all-encompassing to be defensible. She was also responding via a media that is inherently visible, rather than invisible. And we all know that when politicians want to express a real opinion (remember Gordon Brown’s gaffe in the election?), invisibility is often preferable. But the difficulty with the point she made – and the discussion of which it was part – is that, in140 characters, it is impossible to reflect the highly complex reality of ‘race’ and racism.
Abbott’s tweet responded to Bim Adewunmi’s wish that the media would pay more attention to the diversity in the ‘Black community’ and finally avoid the stereotypical presence from ‘ex-gang-member-now-reformed’ individuals. Behind this formulaic approach of the media is, of course, a formulaic understanding of news stories. The Stephen Lawrence case is a ‘black’ story and therefore needs a ‘black’ commentator. Who best represents ‘blackness’ today? Apparently, mostly male, reformed gang members. (As an aside, this begs the question of the status of the thousands of other black people in the working and middle-classes for whom gang membership is as foreign as it would be to Ed Milliband or David Cameron. Are they not ‘normal’ black citizens?). Yesterday, we saw a parallel to this ‘black on black’ approach to stories in PR, with Labour’s use of MP Chuka Umunna as the person best equipped to appear on camera for the party. Abbott’s tweet is a story about ‘black’ politics but ‘black’ politics can seem threatening. Umunna is of mixed Nigerian, Irish and English descent, a completely different background to Abbott’s Jamaican heritage, but no matter. As shadow business secretary, in his smart suit and with his British accent, he can be seen by white people as a ‘safe’ black MP. His was the voice of reasonable black politics that align with the Establishment, rather than challenge it, ameliorating the effect of Abbott’s statement and re-establishing the status quo.
Abbott’s tweet also directly referred to an aspect of racism that is frequently ignored in the presentism that marks political environments across the world. Race and racism are socially constructed over time. They are historically variable; in the present, they are informed by and contain the shadow of history. Abbott’s tweet, then, is not completely inaccurate. Read as a statement about all White people in the present, it is clearly unjustified. But read as a reflective consideration of the systems that shape society (of which PR is one), and have emerged over time, the notions of social inequity and perpetuated dominance of Whiteness that underpin it are closer to the truth than we might like to think. Statistics demonstrate over and over again that people from non-white communities are treated less fairly, enjoy fewer privileges, and are more challenged by poverty and discrimination than most white British citizens.
What, then, can we learn from Abbott’s tweet? She reminds us that social media must be handled with care. She (along with Adewunmi) also reminds us that PR is part of a broader system that currently is not fair to everyone who lives in Britain. The institutional work that PR does, consolidating the position of commercial and third sector organisations as well as the explicitly political work undertaken on behalf of government, contributes to the relative positioning of different groups and individuals in society. In arguing for its right to exist as part of a democracy, PR claims a moral and ethical role, as well as a commercial one. In which case, we must ask ourselves how we, as individuals, act to ensure the effects of our work generate greater equity than inequity, realistic rather than stereotypical representations, and ultimately feed into a more fully-functioning society.
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