BLACK WOMEN have told The Voice they feel less safe following racist comments made by leading Tory party donor Frank Hester.
Earlier this month The Guardian reported that Hester, an entrepreneur who has reportedly donated £10 million to the party, said during a 2019 meeting at his company’s headquarters that Hackney and Stoke Newington MP Diane Abbot made him want to hate all Black women and that she should be shot.
The reported comments prompted a swift backlash from politicians and people commenting on social media.
Hester has since apologised for what he describes as his “rude” remarks directed towards the Hackney and Stoke Newington MP insisting that his comments “had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.
Following the news of Hester’s comments, the long-serving MP expressed fears for her safety. In a statement, she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “It is frightening. I live in Hackney and do not drive so I find myself at weekends popping on a bus or even walking places more than most MPs. I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talking like this is worrying.”
What makes me feel deeply unsafe is the blatant disregard for the seriousness of these misogynoir threats and the legitimate fear we live in.
Debra
She also said the “fact that two MPs have been murdered in recent years makes talk like this all the more alarming”.
When The Voice reached out to Black women via social media to find out whether they shared Abbott’s concerns for their safety given Hester’s comments about ‘hating all Black women’, hundreds replied.
Among them was Elizabeth who said: “I’ve lived in the UK since I was 4, and honestly I cannot think of a time where I’ve ever felt safe completely. But Brexit – which I couldn’t vote in as I was 17 at the time- was the first time as a late teen/ adult I felt a change in the UK. It’s been going downhill ever since. I’m in the middle of changing industries so I can work remotely and finally leave this country. My older sister has the same plan.”
‘No consequences’
One reader, Natalie said: “I already suffer from anxiety because of my chronic illness so this has sent me over the roof. If there is no accountability for racist acts especially from the MPs and prime minister that are supposed to serve us then essentially they are saying it is ok to attack because there are no consequences. The same energy and punishment there is for being anti-semitic it should be the same for Black people facing racism. If not you are leaving people vulnerable.”
Maxine said: “I feel disheartened by the lack of support for a trailblazer like Diane Abbott. It does not make me feel safe in the hands of those leading the country at all.”
Another reader, Nikki, wrote: “We only know how he felt because of what he said. How many more are thinking the same? How many others are feeling that way and voicing it at home or among others who feel the same in forums/spaces we’re not privy to?”
While Debra wrote: “Frank Hester’s abhorrent misogynoir rhetoric and incitement of terror on Black women sadly doesn’t evoke a feeling of shock.
“I have become numb to this level of hatred and like many black women, I have been forced to adopt coping mechanisms to survive the unkindness and vitriol we are too often faced with.
“What makes me feel deeply unsafe, however, is the blatant disregard for the seriousness of these misogynoir threats and the legitimate fear we live in. When our leaders adopt tactics to deny what is a deeply entrenched hatred towards black women, who do we rely on for protection?”
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4 Comments
Very sad. Expect to see a huge exodus of black women to africa and the carribrean in the next coming years. Whats the point living in this country if you are constantly been attacked because of your ethnic heritage
I wonder how many of these black women have white partners?
Me thinks crocodile tears.
Racism has always been an issue for us black people, nothing new under the sun, we just need to pack our bags and leave the country, the racism has gone from the streets straight to the institution which is even worse because that means we have no control at all which was part of the governments plan.
The clear, and present skin-colour discrimination to His Majesty’s African skinned women; and African-skinned women within the Labour Party, comes from the preferential treatment, and disparity afforded by Sir Kier Starmer, and the Caucasian-heritage Labour MPs, to the minority LGBTQIAP2S Lobby Stonewall, and to the minority ethnic Caucasian-Jewish heritage Lobby: who enjoy a far more privileged position within the current Labour Party, compared to the marginalised position African-heritage women still hold within the Labour Party.
It in the last three years, three of Sir Kier Stamer’s African-heritage women: the Rt Hon Diane Abbott MP, the Rt Hon Kate Osamor MP, and the Rt Hon Marsha De Cordova MP, have been treated appallingly badly by Sir Kier Starmer’s Labour Party: and their skin colour is correctly believed to have influenced the rude manner in which these Labour women have been treated.