Overblown

The Diane Abbot issue has been somewhat deliberately overblown and misunderstood from the start.

In the European context - and the phenomenon will vary both socially and geographically - if a black person enters a relatively quiet local bar in a comparatively non-diverse neighbourhood, the first thing that the patrons inside will tend to notice is the colour of their skin. This may not set off waves of prejudice, but that can happen enough times to be significant and extremely wounding.

I think that is the essence of what Diane Abbot was trying to communicate and although it is true that Jews and Irish travellers may not experience this to anything like the same extent, it was a major political blunder to mention them as a straight comparison, not least because the 'racism' faced by other groups is often qualitatively different and sometimes even more likely to lead to toxic ideological violence anyway.

Jews, for example, are collectively stigmatised as a source of societal evil. Antisemitism is about the use of the E word in reference to Jewish communities or collectives, and whatever forms of racism Diane Abbot has experienced, I would suggest it was tonally distinct. 

Anyway, the Labour Party would have been ill-advised to de-select her. There are far worse positions being adopted by other candidates, not least in my old London constituency in Tower Hamlets.