your voice in the Labour Part "I support Labour Party Black Sections. If they weren't there the Labour leadership would be let off the hook because they wouldn't have to answer the charges that the black communities are levelling at And we are going to fight for rights of lesbians and gay men agallisi those We are doing this within the ambit of the Labour Party's policy. That is very important. Nowadays there is a lot of talk about zealots, and you'd think we weren't carrying out party policy Let me say that everything were doing within the manifesto we published last May — on which we had an increased majority "When we talk about defending the black communities we are talking first of all about allowing the black people the space, the right, and the resources to defend themselves.
We gave the Tories a bloody good licking at the last election. We increased our maThe government has decided that the only way they are going to win seats is I don't even think they believe they are going to win them in the inner cities. But they are going to use racism to frighten those people who live outside the inner-cities, in marginal constituencies. Those are the Bernie Grant, Diane Abbott, Linda Bellos and Those who live in our halls.
The object of the exercise is to bring up these bogie people to scare floating — the same people the Labour bians Party is trying to catch with all the brutalised razzmatazz of Neil Kinnock walking within London. down the road arm in arm with Glenys The party is into positive images of Kin. nock and Glenys, but the positive images Haringey puts forward are of lesbians and gay men. That is the kind of •sons with party policy.
But the government and the media to make out that proper policies which have been democratically arrived at are loonie. They are trying to turn our policies against inequality exampie, because into a laughing stock, so they come up For instance, a couple of weeks ago La headline that Haringey council had decided to abandon the nursery rhyme Bah Bah Black Sheep and substitute the words Bah Bah Green Sheep. (It's funny, but I'll
That is what we are talking about. That is why we need to give people the resources to defend themselves.
To defend the black communities have to defend other munities under attack. For example we nave to make sure that when a Labour government comes to power all those sers who have been incarcerated in tall are leased. We've got to the lesbians and , who are an i estal part of the le- are catered: ple are to get a fair deal, that means unions were discriminating black people by their very policies.
When we talk about detence ot the black communities we also need to look at the labour and trade union movement. We need to look at the whole history of racism.
Malcolm X who said that unless we know where we come from we don't ensure know where were going. And unless we undersiand where raciam comes from даук, we are not going to be able to tackie it. ordinary against think it was Socialist Action 5 Dec 1986