It’s hard to escape the conclusion that, in its pursuit of power, Labour is willing to abandon women like me
Watching the painful interview of Faiza Shaheen on Newsnight on Wednesday after her deselection from the Labour party, I was reminded of the wise words of Toni Morrison: “The very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being … None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
And there always is. The past week of Labour’s election campaign has become a very ugly distraction of blatant anti-Black racism and Islamophobia. Racism more often than not becomes a spectacle for those with no skin in the game, and that is exactly what the humiliation heaped on Shaheen – a young, working-class Muslim woman – has become.
Shaista Aziz is a journalist, writer and former independent councillor for Oxford city council