Anna Lo stays in job and fights rising racism in Northern Ireland

A positive story among the horrors of the European turn to the right. The UK's only parliamentary politician of Chinese origin — the Alliance Party's Anna Lo – has defied racists in Northern Ireland and will stay on in her job. Lord knows we need people like her.

It was bad enough that a Christian pastor in Belfast, James O'Connell, condemned the entire Muslim people of the world as following a "satanic" religion that was "spawned in hell".

Northern Ireland's First Minister, Peter Robinson, then inflamed the situation by agreeing with the rabble-rousing pastor by saying he would only trust Muslims to "go down to the shops". One wonders if he'd trust the loyalist mob who did go down the shops and chased Anna Lo out of Connswater shopping centre. Then there's Dineen Walker, Newtownabbey deputy mayor and Democratic Unionist Party member, calling Anna a racist. Which "satanic" dimension are these people inhabiting?

Imagine being a Muslim today in Northern Ireland. It must feel as if the First Minister has just painted a big target on you.

Name one religion or belief system that isn't a nightmare when it descends into fundamentalism.

The world is at war in various hotspots, we no longer love our neighbour ... it is the unholiest of messes and demagogues will always try and whip up hysteria against an entire group defined as "other". All other social and economic factors from which they themselves benefit are buried in a slurry of hatred: no challenge to the unneccessary austerity or the recession brought about by bankers' excesses which continue today. No serious measures to retrieve the billions in tax lost to evasion and secreted off-shore that should have been spent on health, housing, job creation.

Ed Miliband could do with learning from Anna Lo instead of capitulating to the Ukip agenda following their win in the European elections.

Anna Lo's defence of minorities dates back to even before she became the first ethnic politician to be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2007. Not just the Chinese, who were subjected to a mail-out from the loyalist marchers who rerouted their parade past her home in the year of her election, but Poles, Romanians, Roma and anyone in need of an honest politician.

Speaking on Channel 4 News, Anna called out the racism of personal insults she's been subjected to. She criticised the "outrageous" anti-Muslim comments of Pastor O'Connell followed by Peter Robinson's "ludicrous and negative comments about a whole race, about a whole religion" in a climate of rising racism. In answer to whether the First Minister had made it worse, she said: "That was my concern and my anger, seeing the rise in racism in Northern Ireland in the last six months, and for him to come up with such comments supporting … such negative sweeping comments about the Muslim community." She thought he should make a public apology and retraction in response to public anger or else resign.

Widespread support and a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #istandwithanna has persuaded her to stay and continue her work.

Robinson may well have breached the rules of Stormont's Code of Conduct. Even Ian Paisley's son, Kyle, has called him "a condescending ignoramus", (although this was somewhat marred by his description of the DUP politicians' cowardice as "yellow". Still, it's the thought — or lack of — that counts). Decent politicians should give this brave principled woman maximum support — she is a model for us all.

Caleb Selah and Lenny Henry: TFYS radio show on Soundcloud

From Caleb Selah: "Recently this man accidentally became the TFYS's neighbour. Lenny may have done a few dodgy things on the tellybox but everyman has to earn a crust. I like the Brummie a lot, he has put many smiles on my face, given work to friends. It has been suggested by a politician that he should return to a black country. He's from the Black Country. UKIP must not be underestimated, first Lenny, then Craig Charles and then Lemmy from Motorhead will all be attacked by these stupid, cowardly wastes of blood and piping. Fuck You UKIP and Lenny, live long and prosper…"

Read more and listen to Caleb Selah's The Fuck You Sound show.

Trigger warnings required on white churnalists protecting po' coloured folk

Dear lord …! A working-class BAME woman of colour, I am evidently a child in need of white commentators protecting me with "trigger warnings" on book covers in case my delicate sensibilities are offended by sexist, homophobic, racist content.

"Look, here I am, the good fairy, here to protect you while, incidentally, shutting you up." See how this works? I don't need "protection" from the arts: I need it from purported leftists who use us as career fodder.

Perhaps the New Statesman's own Tipper Gore should revive the Parents Music Resource Center (making me Frank Zappa versus the Mothers of Prevention) which campaigned to slap warning stickers on music that scared them.

Are we to cut a swathe through the culture and label film, music and print with "read with caution" stickers … or "may contain nuts"? Do I lack the resilience and analytical powers to read Sax Rohmer's yellow peril archetype Fu Manchu, or the critical faculties to watch DW Griffiths' Birth of A Nation without fainting in the aisle?

"Is it a book you would wish your wife or servants to read?" Are we now "no-platforming" Mark Twain?

Am I allowed to make up my own mind or should the cultural commissars do it for me?

Who are the literature police who will decide what warnings go where? Oh, let me guess.

As the world grows nastier, the more some culture pundits attempt to infantilise us, to Disneyfy the culture that reflects our world. We must all be treated like trauma victims in a therapy group. However, art allows exploration not only beyond our own experience but of the experience of others: the world beyond our own personal space. It's an effective and empowering way of equipping us to deal with the real horrors to come.

This is the value of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Charles Shaar Murray says, "My parents stopped monitoring my reading by the time I was 14. After that, they assumed that I was sufficiently mature to deal with anything I was likely to find on the page — or, for that matter, on the screen. Hell, my late sainted mother even walked me into Polanski's Cul De Sac before I was legally of age for X films."

It's a rule of politics to think long and hard before taking on powers which you would not wish to see being used by your opponents. Here's a nice litttle dystopia for you. Imagine UKIP in government … or, more credibly, in charge of your local council library and plastering their stickers over everything.

Trigger warnings on literature will ultimately be like Asbos, a badge of honour for writers with integrity. It's a stupid idea only the worst half-wit click-bait controversialists would promote. Philistine commentators willing to wreck the culture for a few career points should be let nowhere near it.

In the words of Phil Polley, "Suggest a sticker applied to forehead of all newborns 'Warning: Life - May Not include Trigger Warnings'"

Laurie Penny responds

Anna Chen's live dates coming up in London

Political poetry in London — Anna Chen at Campaign Against Climate Change

Looking forward to performing poetry at the Campaign Against Climate Change cabaret 6-11pm, Sat 31 May at the old Amnesty HQ, 25 New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3EA. £10 & £7
https://www.facebook.com/campaigncc
https://twitter.com/campaigncc
http://www.campaigncc.org/events/2014/Cabaret

Wednesday 21st May 4pm, another China Diaspora in Britain talk for USC students in Bloomsbury.

Sisters: poem from the Fabulous Ninja Gurl about feminism and politics as sleight of hand

Put the blame on BAME, why don'tcha?

Yelling that you stand up against social injustice does not mean that you do. One of the things that has shocked me the most about my time in the left is how various characters can say and write one thing, and then do the exact opposite, like words don't have meaning.

It's a flimsy Potemkin village of left postures, a sleight-of-hand art mastered by a largely white Oxbridge elite who tell others to check their privilege while failing to do so themeselves; who loudly defend victims while slyly substituting themselves for such and booting out the incumbents; who insist they tell the truth while twisting the narrative out of shape.

Whiny and self-serving, brooking no challenge or debate, it is the art of perpetuating oppression while posing as liberator and utterly gobsmacking in its cheek.

I always thought the role of the revolutionary was to make visible the invisible. That goes for hidden power relations as well as flesh and blood human beings.

Face value and lip service are tools of the trade when you take the public for a ride. Perhaps the inability to discern between actions and words does indeed make you a sucker.

Cue drumroll: on a silver salver, may I present to you a blue pill and a red pill … Your choice.

Sisters (first draft)
by Anna Chen

The siren sisters call,
"Help her. Help her."
Help who?
"Help the woman of colour.
We'll tweet and link
if not our arms then our charms:
I am the good fairy, look at me."

But I am a woman of colour.
"We are all women of colour now."

No, I AM a woman of colour.
"Not sure your type qualifies.
That's almost white but not quite.
Help her. Help the woman of colour
except for the ... what is it you are again?"

But I AM a woman of colour.
"Then help yourself."

Okay.
I would like to thank all the white sisters
who say they could not give a shit
or who say they do, without whom ...

I am the fabulous Ninja Gurl who dances among you
blowing kisses and raspberries,
turning cartwheels and juggling flames.
"Is there a draught in here? Shut that door,"
say the dames atremble
that some ghostly elephant has thundered into the parlour
and pissed on their parade.
You are chilly and chilled in your icicle tower
and can freeze me out at a hundred paces.
Your thousand-yard stare is as close as you can bear
my ashy traces in the sand.

I am not insubstantial, a helpless damsel in distress
who you can pet like a mouse,
neither am I an industry powerhouse, of use.
In your dark lens I am let loose, the barbarian at the gate
who you secretly rate,
but who you fear would play buzkashi,
pounding your carcass into dirt under my horse-hooves.
I, subspecies, stinking of animal skins,
ripping carcasses with graveyard teeth, blood on my breath,
who's fought in battle for our cause,
dived off sheer cliffs and hobbled
on smashed spine back to health.
No wonder you won't let me in.
I am the wind under your roof,
the fierce blast shaking your ballast,
that rattles your windows.
And how are you enjoying the view?

Every Cinderella should have such sisters.

In the shadows, in the cracks beneath the crags,
While you file your copy, I file my teeth to jags.

Case study of experience in the British left.

Chinese Britons could swing the general election vote in some constituencies

Sonny Leong and Ed Miliband

As the British local and European elections heave into view, watched closely for how likely the 2015 general election is to yield victory for feudal baron David Cameron or milquetoast Ed Miliband, here's my South China Morning Post column from last year in which the Chair of Chinese for Labour Sonny Leong explains why non-white voters may hold the balance of power in some constituencies.

Does this mean the end of racial discrimination against BAME Brits ? Or could it also partly explain why the white male establishment is hell-bent on protecting its last gobby bastion of crude race dominance, Jeremy Clarkson and the Top Gear team at the BBC?

City scope: Ready to be counted
Anna Chen in London
13 October 2013

With the numbers of ethnic-minority voters exceeding the electoral majorities of sitting members of parliament in 168 constituencies, it is being suggested that minorities hold the key to the outcome of Britain's next general election, in 2015. Britain's ethnic-Chinese population, meanwhile, has reached almost half a million, and Chinese voters exceed in number the MP's majority in 36 seats. Political parties may well decide it is time to attend more to their interests.

In an era of no outright winners and coalition fudges, those 36 seats might mean the difference between power and limping along in opposition for five long years. Sitting MPs, fearful for their survival, now have to target communities within communities. There could be some interesting horse-trading with Chinese constituents.

Sonny Leong, chair of the Labour Party's Chinese for Labour, says, "The Chinese have reached a certain size where they can be power brokers. The ethnic minority is an important group that no political party can ignore."

Leong alludes to a certain complacency that has existed until now. Labour was long able to take ethnic votes for granted, but politics have become less tribal and voters no longer adhere blindly to family tradition when choosing which party to put their cross next to. Just because Grandpa voted for a party all of his life doesn't mean his independent-minded grandchildren will back the same one.

More than ever, issues and policies determine who gets votes and, for Chinese, educational opportunities and immigration issues tend to be priorities. Every Chinese here is likely to know of someone affected by immigration clampdowns. For Labour that could be good news, electorally; for the parties who form the current coalition government - the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats - recent accusatory, anti-immigration ad campaigns do not bode well for gaining Chinese votes, especially as the MPs of both are still overwhelmingly white.

Unlike in other Western democracies, in Britain Chinese have practically no parliamentary representation, other than one member of the House of Lords, the baby-faced Baron Wei of Shoreditch, of whom few had heard before Prime Minister David Cameron made him policy "tsar" for his Big Society initiative in 2010.

Just as little has been heard of him since he resigned his tsar-ship in May 2011 (because nobody had told him it didn't come with a pay packet).