MP Diane Abbott apologetic over Twitter race comments
Shadow Health Minister Diane Abbott today apologised for any offence that was possibly caused by the comments she yesterday made on Twitter, following claims that they were racist.
Abbott said that she didn’t mean to generalise after writing that: ”White people love playing ‘divide & rule’”. The comments came as a response to a criticism of the use of “black community leaders” by the media after the murder trial of the two men that killed Stephen Lawrence.
Labour’s Chuka Umunna confirmed that party leader Ed Miliband has already told Ms Abbott that her remarks were “unacceptable”. Making her own statement, Abbott apologised for any offence that was possibly caused and said that she understood that people might have interpreted her comments as making a generalisation about Caucasian people – behaviour that she doesn’t agree with.
Abbott, who was the first black woman in history to be sworn in as an MP, earlier tweeted about how her remark was “taken out of context”. The comments were just a small part of a conversation on Twitter regarding, as mentioned, media coverage of the well-publicised Stephen Lawrence murder trial.
The comments sparked criticism from other users of Twitter and the MP updated her page to say that the Tweet was taken entirely out of context. The Labour Party had to release a statement clarifying that it entirely disagreed with the tweet as it is wrong for anyone to make generalisations about any culture, race, or creed.