It was when our office manager handed over a really kind handwritten letter from a viewer this week that I was reminded about the reality of being a black woman with a public profile.
As she handed me the letter, she noted that she makes sure that most letters don’t reach me after she has read them, obviously, but that she wanted to ensure I saw this one because the sentiment was so heartfelt and kind.
The “obviously” part of the conversation was loaded with a million unspoken realities which do not need to be uttered. It’s understood that a lot of the letters I receive can be full of anger, with a side of racism, and dollop of sexism for good measure. It’s the reality for a lot of women with a public profile, but even more so for black women.
My sister having to filter my social media profiles to restrict what I could see when I came out of the I’m A Celebrity jungle is a good example, as is the avalanche of hate we receive at Loose Women when there is an all-black panel.
Which is why, when allegations of Tory donor Frank Hester’s racist and sexist comments about the MP Diane Abbott went public this week, on the same day my letter was handed over, both were a timely reminder that for some sectors of society, being faced with an intelligent, educated, opinionated and powerful black woman is among the most disgusting and disgraceful sins they could possibly imagine.
They verbalise those thoughts accordingly: be that in a written letter, an email, a post on social media, or in Hester’s scenario, in front of a room full of people. The stench of an inflated sense of self-importance and privilege so thick and putrid, it can leave you choking in disbelief.
It’s almost the same level of disbelief felt about those who chose to close their eyes and stick their fingers in their ears and deny (on TV) the very thing that was staring everyone in the face when they read the words allegedly uttered by Hester: “makes you want to hate all black women” and “should be shot”. If it barks like racism and sexism, wags its tail like racism and sexism, a simple mathematical equation would find the probability is the words were both racist and sexist.
You see, there are many things he could have said he detests about Ms Abbott. He could have gone for: “makes you want to hate all MPs”, “makes you want to hate all Labour politicians”, gosh, even “makes you want to hate all people who hail from Hackney”.
None of the above is acceptable of course, but by choosing to highlight her race and her sex, he inadvertently highlighted the attributes he so detests about Britain’s longest-serving black MP – and neither of them have anything to do with her political stance, or her voting history. The kicker? He appeared to feel so comfortable with making those comments that he openly shared them with a room full of people. Therein lies the protective cloak of power and privilege.
But there’s so much more to unpack from this incident. That those in the upper echelons chose to defend the behaviour of one of their own and refused to call the comments what they were, unveiled some of humanity’s worst attributes. It reflects the fact that those who live in gilded towers do not sully themselves with real-world realities and therefore tend to care little for the trickle-down effect of certain words and behaviours.
Many black women with public profiles – some of whom are my friends – regularly deal with threats made against them, with some of the worst individuals charged with threatening behaviour. And once the fear is there, it stays with you. I’ve thought a lot about this over the last few days. I had to utter Hester’s words repeatedly this week because of my job, so I was reminded on many occasions of when I was judged as a result of my sex and the colour of my skin.
I’ve been in environments much-loved by the upper echelons where I’ve been mistaken as the “help” or a “paid-for date” before I even utter a word. It’s as though, sometimes, there are those who feel that black women ought to understand that their place is to be subservient and compliant and that any deviation away from that is unacceptable. The plantation mentality, for some, didn’t fade alongside the death of colonialism and Empire. For them, it is alive and well.