Prejudice and its comforting camouflage
The furore over Diane Abbot’s recent remarks about prejudice set me thinking: What does political correctness actually contribute to the elimination of prejudice in our society? Does it really help, or is it just a comforting camouflage for the real problem?
Perhaps the most interesting thing about all the noise around Diane Abbot was that it scarcely scratched the surface of the key issues – issues not of conformance with popular speech norms but of actual abominable prejudice.
Of course, no-one with a modicum of sanity believes Diane Abbot has an ounce of prejudice in her. Some commentators heated themselves up by seeming to say that, but it wasn’t an argument they could possibly sustain. No, what the happy mob of accusers were enjoying getting worked up over was simply the fact that she had the cheek and courage to talk about this stuff at all.
Labour Party jumped on the bandwagon
The Labour Party recently suspended Abbott for doubling down on comments about racism she had apologised for two years ago after they resulted in her first suspension. That Labour should have joined the baying mob is absolutely astonishing, to me at least. One would expect our dear old British socialist party to have both more sense and more compassion.
However, this little essay isn’t aimed at politics or politicians. It’s been stimulated by a political brouhaha, but I’m hoping that it can be more relevant than that.
As someone of the relatively mature age of 79, and having worked in many countries, I’ve come across quite a lot of prejudice, of course. There’s a lot of it about and it’s by no means confined to antisemitism, islamophobia or prejudice against one skin colour or another.
Wherever there are human beings, there is prejudice – some obvious, some astonishing (like the example I met in Edinburgh years ago – an otherwise apparently sane Protestant who had convinced himself that all Catholics were “evil”).
Examples of deep prejudice and its horrific consequences are rife – from the Third Reich through 20th Century Uganda and Rwanda to, for example, Myanmar and China.
Will adjusting language really help?
Nor is it a modern phenomenon. It stains huge swathes of History. Do any of us really believe that it will be eliminated by simply adjusting the terms we use to describe one another?
If I meet a man who absolutely hates Celtic supporters, will I change his mind by insisting that he call them “green gentlemen”? If there is a racial prejudice problem in a neighbourhood, as there are in many, will we cure it by making sure that when throwing their stones the young rioters refrain from foul language and shout, instead, “Here’s a present for you, dear neighbour!”
The examples may seem fanciful, but they’re here to make a serious point: The language and the labels are NOT the issue. The prejudice is the issue, and that hides deeper than words – largely untouched by clever linguistic tricks.
We need more Diane Abbotts, not fewer
Surely society needs a better medicine than nomenclature. We need a better therapy than suppression of the subject matter. We need more people like Diane Abbot speaking up, searching for real solutions to prejudice in all its forms.
