The Diane Abbott row shows how impoverished Britain’s conversations about race have become | Jason Okundaye

We should be able to discuss the different ways in which minorities are racialised in a thoughtful – and sometimes confronting – wayThe late broadcaster and campaigner Darcus Howe and Tottenham MP Bernie Grant once fell out over a hot-seat discussion on the former’s current affairs programme, The Devil’s Advocate, broadcast on Channel 4. Grant had provoked backlash from the Black press for discussing state-funded “voluntary repatriation” (a return of migrant and migrant descendant groups to their country of heritage) at a fringe event at the Labour party conference in 1993. Provided an opportunity by Howe to walk back on these comments, he doubled down, suggesting that Black people had “no future in Europe”.Howe viewed Grant’s position as retrograde, and questioned how a British MP could advocate for a future outside Britain. Grant would complain to Channel 4 about the programme, fearing that it had ruined his political career. But it did not. Despite being abandoned by his Black parliamentary colleagues and only finding mixed support against major rebuke, he remained a respected political figure, and Labour MP, until his death in 2000.Jason Okundaye is an assistant newsletter editor and writer at the Guardian. He edits The Long Wave newsletter and is the author of Revolutionary Acts: Love & Brotherhood in Black Gay BritainDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. Continue reading...

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