What’s the difference between prejudice and racism? Diane Abbott had the Labour party whip withdrawn back in April last year because she wrote a letter suggesting that Jewish, Irish and Traveller people had never been “subject to racism”, only to prejudice. She wrote:
“They undoubtedly experience prejudice. This is similar to racism and the two words are often used as if they are interchangeable.
“It is true that many types of white people with points of difference, such as redheads, can experience this prejudice.
“But they are not all their lives subject to racism. In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and Travellers were not required to sit at the back of the bus.”
In the modern age of online abuse and threats, the two terms have grown closer together. As a redhead myself, I find it odd to be included in the list, but then I’ve never been threatened with any kind of violence because of having red hair and freckles.
Diane Abbott was persuaded to apologise for the letter she wrote but it didn’t really help. She’s been an MP since 1987. Before that she served on Westminster City Council. My daughter pointed out the other day that Diane Abbott has been active in politics almost as long as she, my daughter, has been alive. And for as long as I can remember she has also been the butt of all kinds of jokes in satirical programmes and the like. She’s had to be a strong woman forever.
And now there have been rumours of a deal for her to have the whip reinstated as long as she agrees to stand down from her Hackney seat, where she has a majority of 33,188, at the next election. This despite the fact that her supporters on the left want her to stand again for parliament. Her political future then remains unclear. She’s almost certainly been active in the Labour party longer than those who want to tell her how to think … as is the case for Jeremy Corbyn as well, of course.
It’s a funny old world.
Yesterday I read something about a new documentary about Gene Wilder. The article began by telling us the generations of viewers first got to know him as Willy Wonka. That maybe be so, but I’ve never seen the film of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” although I remember him from Mel Brooks’ films such as The Producers, Young Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. All those films are well worth watching, by the way!
I went on to read about how the film of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” was initially something of a flop despite a four-star review which declared the adaptation the finest kids’ picture since The Wizard of Oz. Apparently parents bristled at this Wonka, a mercurial oddball delighting in bad things happening to bad apples. “One kid disappears in a chocolate tube, another one blows up, one shrinks down. Mothers thought it wasn’t good for their children, and it died in the box office. It was only revived with the home video sales.” But that’s exactly what happened in the original book. Did those parents never read the story to their children? Probably not!
And I found myself thinking about other children’s literature. What about Enid Blyton? Not Noddy and Big Ears, although calling a character Big Ears has come in for some criticism, nor even the golliwogs. And not The Magic Faraway Tree, although again there is the oddly (perhaps offensively) named Moon Face. No, I was thinking of some of her short stories, moral tales of people getting their comeuppance.
One in particular springs to mind, a story I must have read at primary school about a boy who threw stones at a swan. Admonished by some other children, he laughed at them and grew bolder, throwing his stones from closer quarters. The “good” children, returning from their walk found him nursing a broken arm. He had gone too close to the swan’s nest and she had lashed out with her strong wing, protecting her cygnets from harm. The “good” children helped the “wicked” boy to get medical assistance but there was definitely an element of it-serves-you-right in that tale.
And what about the original fairy tales? The wolf in “The Three Little Pigs” originally fell down the chimney into a cooking pot in the house built of bricks and was eaten by the piggy siblings!
Hmm!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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