If calling for Diane Abbott ‘to be shot’ isn’t racism, then what is?

For the past 24 hours, Chante Joseph has heard people say that a comment about wanting a Black woman shot isn’t racist. For years, she has been told racism doesn’t exist in the UK. Enough. This is gaslighting on an institutional scale, she says

Like clockwork, the political elite have come out in droves to denounce any claims of wrongdoing (Getty/iStock/PA)

Imagine for one minute you are in your kitchen, just minding your own business making a cup of tea and listening to the news, and someone comes on saying that a Black woman should be shot.

Imagine now you are a Black woman in your kitchen and how this could make you feel. Then imagine how it feels to be told this has “nothing” to do with the colour of your skin or gender.

That is the “parallel universe” position I and thousands of other Black women found ourselves in on Tuesday. Black men will have heard it too. So have other men and women from different ethnicities – from white to right across the spectrum.