Diane Abbott is a shining example of the politeness chokehold, and it needs to break.
Keep calm and carry on. Wartime propaganda that entrenched its way into British consciousness, and over 80 years later it’s a part of the way of life. Where proverbs from across Africa include messages like “The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.” in Britain we get “Keep Calm and Carry On.”
There will be no burning it down here, no matter how cold you might be, because here you must be polite. You must be respectable. You must say yes sir, and no sir, and I’m ever so sorry that I exist sir, I do hope it didn’t inconvenience you. Whatever head of the insidious hydra beast it is that gets us, or if we’re struck by more than one - classism, misogyny, homophobia, racism, ableism - it doesn’t matter how we’re treated, we must always, always remain polite.
If you’ve missed the news, Frank Hester, who is one of the largest donors to the Conservative Government, has been quoted by The Guardian newspaper as saying the following about MP Diane Abbott:
“It’s like trying not to be racist, but you see Diane Abbott on the TV, and you’re just like, I hate, you just want to hate all Black women because she’s there, and I don’t hate all Black women at all, but I think she should be shot.”
Since then, the police have said they’re “looking into it”, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has refused to entertain the idea of returning his donation, and they have used public time and funds to debate in Parliament if what this white man said was racist enough to cut ties with, or if the Conservative Party are happy to stay associated with him and his values. If I’m totally honest, I am not sitting here and explaining to anyone all the problems with this - it should be glaring. And I have enough faith in the intelligence of the majority to believe most people can see the glaring issues.
But what I will speak on is this. During that mass waste of taxpayer money, Diane Abbott attempted to stand and speak 46 times. Let me say that again. 46 times. Not once was she given the floor. 46 times she had to politely stand and indicate she would like the honour of speaking as the person whose life was threatened. 46 times she had to react politely as they declined her the opportunity, as men - many of whom were white - spoke over her. And had she been given the privilege of them lending their ears, she would have very politely had to say her piece. In their denial of her, she has had to meet that with grace.
Because if she shows how she really feels? The longest serving Black lawmaker in Britain, who has faced violence and abuse on a scale no other MP in this country has ever come close to experiencing, who has been shown time and time again what this country thinks of her despite giving near enough 4 decades of her life to its service? If she showed how exhausted she is, how the resilience she has had to wear like a soldier going into battle has weighed heavy on her soul, how angry she is that she is doing nothing but existing in a body covered in deep melanin and people dehumanise her because of it, how frustrated she is that her work is almost never the story we’re telling because this hate speech has followed her entire career? If she let any of that really show, it wouldn’t matter what she is saying or what she is feeling, it wouldn’t matter why she is feeling it, all that would matter is she’s not being polite anymore. And she would be torn to shreds for it. The outrage that she dropped her politeness at the door would be far greater than it has been towards the white man who said she should be shot.
Because whilst the elite can say what they want with little to no consequences, the same is not true of the rest of us. They’ve tricked us into thinking of each other as the enemy instead of seeing that it is them. They’ve made it us against us, instead of us against them.
And so when Black people get angry at these systems of oppression, and the racism that is still prevalent at all levels of our society, and when we demand better, and when we say it’s getting harder and harder every day to like this country, to not feel hate ourselves, many of the white working class don’t hear what we’re actually saying, just that we aren’t being polite when we say it. And so we are villainised, painted as aggressors, painted as ungrateful, painted as outsiders coming here and demanding it change.
And when the white working class are angry that they’re working 2 jobs and still getting nowhere, that they can’t afford the gas and electric, that they can’t make a weekly shop any more frequently than every 3 weeks because despite the fact they’re slaving away the money just doesn’t stretch - if they do anything other than keep calm and carry on, they’re spoken about as uneducated. They’re spoken about as chav’s, as though their class is their problem, and not a consequence of systems designed to keep those at the top protected.
And when disabled people are furious that it’s clear this government don’t see any value in us, when we’re angry that every year sees new policy that makes it clear they’d rather we just died, when we’re furious that we have to jump through hoop after hoop, bending over backwards, exposing the most vulnerable parts of ourselves for judgement just to see if we might possibly be given a tiny bit of help to survive? We are benefits scrounger’s, we’re lazy, we’re milking the system.
They have convinced a whole nation that if politeness is disregarded by the oppressed, the broken, the beaten and the damned then we need not listen to what they say. We need not hear their struggle. We need only to condemn. We have been socialised to believe people must put up with whatever hideousness they are thrown, and they must switch off their emotions about it, and they must watch their tone, and they must not make anyone else uncomfortable when they bring up the problem. Only if all these politeness checkboxes are checked, can we consider listening to what they’re saying. And listening doesn’t mean anything will change, but it should appease them for a little while right?
Because for as long as we see each other as the enemy, as long as we see each other as the ones breaking the social contract, the less time we’re spending looking at the root of all our issues. And the less time we spend looking at that, the less likely we all realise it’s the same damn root. And for as long as we’re fighting with each other, they’re free to carry on kicking us whilst we’re down.
The politeness chokehold is where power lies. We need to break out of it. We are angry - let us be angry. We have every right to be. This country is near unbearable right now. People are working to make CEOs richer whilst they hardly get by, working so many hours they haven’t got time to live, but it’s okay because they can’t afford to eat tonight anyway and to be honest they run a bit warm usually so they don’t need the heating on. People are desperate for work and there isn’t any, people need support and there isn’t any. People are dying waiting for medical services because our pride and joy the NHS is on its knees. Racism is rife throughout our society, misogyny is killing women at an alarming rate, disabled people are treated as subhuman, and anti-lgbtq+ rhetoric is on the rise.
We all have a right to be angry. To be furious. To scream from the rooftops that we want change, we deserve better. It’s time to take back our power, to stop being polite. With all earnestness, fuck Keep Calm and Carry On. We are children of the village, it’s time we got to feel its warmth.