U.K. Labour Lawmaker Suspended for Suggesting Jews Don’t Face Racism

The Labour Party has suspended a member of British Parliment pending an investigation into a letter she wrote in The Observer seemingly downplayed the racism faced by Jewish, Irish, and Romani people. The BBC reported MP Diane Abbott’s suspension on Sunday morning. In the letter, which was responding to a Guardian column criticizing claims that racism “only affects people of colour,” the lawmaker wrote that while Jews and other white minorities “undoubtedly experience prejudice... similar to racism... [but] they are not all their lives subject to racism.” She added: “In pre-civil rights America, Irish people, Jewish people and [Romani] were not required to sit at the back of the bus. In apartheid South Africa, these groups were allowed to vote. And at the height of slavery, there were no white-seeming people manacled on the slave ships.” The letter sparked widespread backlash from Jewish groups and Labour leaders. Abbott later apologized for her comments and the “anguish” they may have caused, tweeting, “I wish to wholly and unreservedly withdraw my remarks and disassociate myself from them.” The MP further claimed “the errors arose in an initial draft being sent.”