That Corbyn fella...

Simply, I don’t see how you can blanket dismiss one perception of racism and accept another.

Because there is evidence of antisemitism in (for instance) the words of the painter of that shitty mural, the social media posts of a council candidate etc.

Dog whistle accusations just require a glib (mis)interpretation, and a presumption of intent.

I don't think you know what dog whistling means if you're claiming the Tories have not been guilty of it.

uh huh.

Maybe they have maybe they haven’t. I’m sure it’s not a criticism that will ever persuade or move opinion ... because it relies on bias presumptions of intent.

If only someone like Shami Chakrabarti had written a report on this two years ago. Oh wait, she did, than Corbyn ignored the recommendations.

.

In your opinion, which is what matters to an individual. To other people the right-wing dog-whistle stuff is extremely personal and very obvious. In much the same way as people not conversant in anti-Semitic tropes can see the mural and not understand what the problem is.

But it's the Jews making the complaints, not the establishment.

As I said upthread, pointing fingers at others like the Tories is a distraction from the issue.

This is surely a great opportunity for Labour to affirm and make a public point to show that there is substance behind their slogans and not to get defensive and regard it a a stick beating them

Do you not find the timing questionable? An ancient comment dragged up now and stirred into a frenzy? Never mind the bad faith of people not interested in ever voting for labour suddenly bothered about internal reform!
I agree with your last point though, it would be great if it was stamped on hard from the top. I think the defensiveness has come more from normal people going ‘but I’m not anti-Semitic???’.

Surely if a party is on the brink of power it is in everyones interest in how it is run. The Labour party or any political party doesn't exist solely for its members.

For Jews and those who have followed this, the timing is obvious and a logical result of two years of slow build up with constant antisemitic issues being consistently brushed off by the Labour leadership. We have had enough and the timing argument is pretty insulting and as I said previously (I'm a broken record) smacks of the suggestion of a Jewish conspiracy, which is an antisemitic trope

To other people the right-wing dog-whistle stuff is extremely personal and very obvious.

Then I hope reasoning their argument shouldn’t be difficult, evidence won’t be short and they won’t need to guess at intent or elude to coded language.

Allude.

Yes, that. Ta.

Do you not find the timing questionable? An ancient comment dragged up now and stirred into a frenzy?

The timing is questionable, but only in the sense it has taken so much time for Corbyn to apologise for his comment on the mural. He was asked about it three years ago and brushed it off.

But it's the Jews making the complaints, not the establishment.

And

On a personal level, what I have found most depressing about antisemitism in Labour is the ready assumption that Jews would so readily sell short millennia of persecution for an easy political hit. Our history is not a bargaining chip. It is a threat we have faced from generation to generation in some form or other. In the last century, most calamitously

I don't doubt these statements at all, there is a problem of anti semitism in the labour party and I don't think Jews complaining about it are doing so with some kind of political motive with the timing. However I've no doubt that other people who can see these complaints as something that can be focused on intently at certain times and used for political gain will do so with no real regard to using your history as their bargaining chip.
I also think dismissing pointing out that the whole political system, and society as a whole is awash with institutionalised racism as whataboutary doesn't really help anybody. Yes it should be tackled at a local Labour level, and at a national Labour level, but also at a whole of government and further afield too. Getting your own house in order is important, especially as it's what you have most control over, but you need to look outside and see what's happening on the rest of the street too as a tidy living room isn't going to help much when next door is burning down.

#pushingmetaphorstoofar

I don't really know what your point is. Yes there are other issues in the world, is there a problem in the labour party? You seem to think so. So deal with it, stop talking about other peoples issues cause you have lost the moral high ground if you haven't dealt with your own issues. Noone is blind or ignoring other things. Thanks for letting me know that other people are also racist, I really needed you to tell me that other people are also antisemitic and racist too. Really good of you to let me know

being ticked off about anti-semitism in the labour party as well as the tacit inaction of the media to highlight similar ongoings in all levels of public life are not mutually exclusive.

I wasn't trying to be antagonistic (why I left it alone on Facebook the other night, seems a better place to actually discuss things here)
I'm not trying to tell you what you already know about racism. I'm trying to say that when attempting to deal with an issue that is more widespread than just the labour party, it's not unhelpful to look further afield than the labour party when doing so. Ignoring the issue and saying "the tories are worse" is wrong, but as is focusing solely and intently on Labour until it is "fixed" when it's more widespread. I do think there is a problem in the labour party, whether that problem is more or less intense than the population as a whole I'm unsure, but either way a problem is a problem.
I've voted Labour before and definitely would under Corbyn again, I support him but am not a Labour member, it's not my personal problem to deal with before I talk about other issues.

Fine but when I call out someone for being antisemitic, or Islamophobic or anything else I don't say 'stop being antisemitic, ohh and by the way I realise its also a problem in wider society so please don't feel like I'm singling you out because I do realise that loads of other people are racist too and that you are a small racist part of a larger racist problem'. If you are asking us to do that then I think your point is...well I don't really think that you have one.

Either way, though I would like to vote for Labour, I don't think that there is a place for Jews in the Labour Party at the moment and I haven't for a good while and so won't do so. I know that many other Jews feel the same and I hope the leadership deal with it.

Anyway I'm not gonna go on about this anymore because its pretty exhausting.

Fine but when I call out someone for being antisemitic, or Islamophobic or anything else I don't say 'stop being antisemitic, ohh and by the way I realise its also a problem in wider society so please don't feel like I'm singling you out because I do realise that loads of other people are racist too

Of course not, you'd be talking to the person doing the racism. That's a different situation from discussing the prevalence of institutional racism in a political organisation, and ideally politics as a whole while you're at it. I'm not trying to disagree with you, but think that while the problems are real, they have been somewhat hijacked for political gain.

What I think your take is missing, if that doesn't sound patronising, is what many, many long standing Labour voters are really, really pissed off with - and it is pushed on here - is the "who the fuck else are you going to vote for". We had it with Blair and Iraq, and now we have it with Corbyn.

Corbyn now being accused of hanging out with the wrong kind of Jewish folks.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/apr/02/stop-jeremy-corbyns-trial-by-media-over-antisemitism?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I don’t think you can dismiss fears that the British right-wing media might not have the general public’s best interests at heart as an anti-Semitic trope. Particularly when the Jewishness (or not, as is mostly the case as far as I can tell) of the proprietors has zero to do with the complaints.

gotta say that I rate him for going to the Jewdas Seder. I know a bunch of them and they are excellent

^ And quite a few prominent Jewish voices on Twitter also saying similar things this morning.