‘The shameful reality is that some people do have a problem with Marvin Rees because he has black heritage’

At first I smirked and rolled my eyes when I read on Bristol 24/7 that Lester Holloway, editor of the UK’s only Black national newspaper, had described Bristolians as “turnip-munching racists” in response to mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees losing out on becoming parliamentary candidate for Bristol North East. But then I began to think.

Reading some of the comments in response to this story elicited a similar smirk and rolling of the eyes at first. Outrage. People on the defensive. Out and out hostility. And then, there it was: subtle racism! A throwaway remark about Turnip lives mattering made casually, trivialising the Black Lives Matter movement in the process.

Now to be balanced about this, I don’t happen to believe that Marvin Rees lost out to Damien Egan because of his black heritage. Nor do I believe that Labour party members across branches in Bristol North East are a bunch of turnip-munching racists. But buried deeply within Holloway’s reactionary remark is an essence of truth screaming out at me to be spoken.

Sadly, shamefully in fact, the reality is that some people do have a problem with Marvin Rees because he has black heritage. That is a hard thing for us as a nation to admit to and say out loud, let alone face up to and tackle.

https://twitter.com/LesterJHolloway/status/1686140243013992450?s=20

I’m not black, I’m white, so I’ll never be able to fully understand the lived experience of a black person in this country. Some black people reading this may even feel angry that a white person is writing these things down and consider it to be ignorant, out of touch virtue signaling, especially as I have been quite critical publicly about Marvin Rees as a politician over the years. But I do have lived experience of my own which enables me to empathise with how it might feel for them.

While reading Diane Abbott’s official biography recently I remember being particularly drawn to her recollections as a young girl in primary school where she was one of only two black pupils in the entire school. She was full of life and had friends, but they never invited her to birthday parties, she recounts. She didn’t understand why at that time but of course as an adult it all makes sense.

As someone who was otherised myself from a very young age, labelled as gay, called “batty man” because I was so quiet and feminine, I can totally relate to those feelings of confusion, isolation, and not belonging which were also experienced by Diane Abbott at primary school.

Even now as a 35-year-old trans woman who understands herself and her relationship with the world fairly well, I ask myself “is it cos I’m trans?” every time I face some sort of rejection whether it’s in my personal or professional life. So I can empathise completely with black people wondering whether they or someone they care about didn’t get that promotion or that position because of their race.

It is fair to say that all politicians are likely to face criticism and confrontation but the evidence is there in plain sight for us all to see that black politicians face far more abuse than their white counterparts. It’s even worse if you’re black and female as I discovered when reading the biography of Britian’s most abused MP, Diane Abbott.

https://twitter.com/LesterJHolloway/status/1686305873042255872

So, with this in mind, I don’t feel outraged or offended that Holloway thinks I’m a turnip-munching racist by association. His reaction is a trauma response. A trauma response in response to centuries of subjugation, enslavement and its legacy of systematic racism which continues to exist to this day.

As a country we need to face up to our past and to the overt racism which has quickly become covert in just one or two generations. We need to face up to the reality that many of us are still racist, some without even being conscious of it.

I live in the hope that after a few generations the damaging legacy of racism will be confined to the history books. With the rise of far right ideology perniciously infiltrating our politics and public life via the internet that challenge is very real.

Every single one of us who values the principles of social justice and equality for all, regardless of our racial, sexual, religious or political differences, needs to stand shoulder to shoulder in solidarity now more than ever to ensure that the progress made during and after the civil rights movements of the 1960s, which is at real risk of being undone, wasn’t made in vain.

This is an opinion piece by Liv Fortune, a resident of Montpelier 

Main photo: Marvin Rees

Read next:

• Rees shortlisted for world’s best mayor award
• Damien Egan beats Marvin Rees to become Labour’s Bristol North East candidate
• ‘Marvin Rees could still make it to Westminster – but in the Lords not the Commons’

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