Britain’s ruling Conservative Party was under pressure Tuesday to return more than 10 million pounds to a donor who reportedly said that Diane Abbott, a leading lawmaker, should be “shot” and that by looking at her he was “killing all black women.” wanted to hate. ”

According to a study by The Guardian NewspaperHealthcare technology entrepreneur Frank Hester made these comments in 2019 during a meeting at the offices of his company, The Phoenix Partnership. He has apologized but has not confirmed the Guardian’s account of what he said.

Mr Hester said on Monday that he “accepts that he was rude about Diane Abbot at a private meeting several years ago, but that his criticism had nothing to do with her gender or skin colour,” in a rack released by his firm for misspelling her last name.

The statement added that he had called Ms Abbott twice “to attempt to apologize directly for the pain he has caused her, and that he deeply regrets his comments”, and that he “wanted to make it clear that he considers racism a poison’. which has no place in public life.”

According to the Guardian, Mr Hester said at the meeting: “It’s like you’re trying not to be racist but you see Diane Abbott on the TV and you think, I hate it, you just want to hate all black women because she’s there. , and I don’t hate black women at all, but I think she should be shot.

The first black woman elected to parliament, Ms Abbott, 70, is a prominent figure in British politics and spoke on home affairs for the opposition Labor party under its previous leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

In anticipation of this, she was suspended from the Labor Party in Parliament last year an investigation into a letter she wrote to a newspaperr calling for racism against black people to be distinguished from prejudice against other groups.

In a statement published on TuesdayMs Abbott described Mr Hester’s reported comments about her as ‘frightening’.

“I am a single woman and that makes me vulnerable anyway. But to hear someone talk like that is disturbing,” she said, adding that the fact that two MPs “have been murdered in recent years makes statements like this all the more alarming.”

One Labor MP, Jo Cox, was Murdered in 2016 by a right-wing extremist, and David Amess, a Conservative MP, was murdered in 2021 by a radical Islamist who opposed British airstrikes on Islamic State.

Mr Hester has recently become the Conservative Party’s biggest donor gave £5 million to the party, bringing his total donations to £10 million in a year. With a general election expected later this year, the party resisted pressure on Tuesday to return the money.

A senior Conservative Party MP and minister, Mel Stride, told broadcasters that Mr Hester’s alleged comments were “clearly wrong” but that people should “move on”.

That could not allay the criticism from opposition politicians. Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labor Party, described the reported comments as “abhorrent” and told broadcaster ITV that Ms Abbott had been a “trailblazer” who has “probably faced more abuse over the years than any other politician then. sustainable basis.”

Mr Hester appeared to be “pretending that what was said wasn’t racist or had anything to do with her being a woman,” Mr Starmer said, adding: “I don’t believe in that, I’m afraid , and I think it’s time for the Tory party to call it out and pay back the money.”

Earlier, speaking in parliamentWes Streeting, a senior Labor MP, said the reported comments used “completely disgusting, racist and inflammatory language which has no place in our politics and public life.” Mr Streeting called on the Conservatives to return donations from Mr Hester, saying that “if they have any integrity at all they will return every penny.”

Some Conservative lawmakers were also critical, including Kwasi Kwarteng, who was briefly finance minister in the short-lived government of former Prime Minister Liz Truss. Mr Kwarteng told the BBC that the comments were “clearly racist and clearly sexist”.

Recent Conservative governments have done so contained a number of strikingly diverse cabinets and the party is led by Rishi Sunak, Britain’s first non-white prime minister.

But the party recently suspended one of its former lawmakers, Lee Anderson, after he claimed that ‘Islamists’ had gained control from the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, a Labor politician. On Monday, Mr. Anderson formally left the Conservative Party and joined Reform UK, the small right-wing successor to the Brexit Party once led by Nigel Farage, which campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union.

Critics have accused the Conservatives of tolerating anti-Muslim hatred. In a letter sent to the Conservatives last month, Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said that “Islamophobia in the party is institutional, tolerated by the leadership and by large sections of party members as is considered acceptable.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative business and trade secretary, said Mr Hester’s comments were, “as reported, racist.”

“Abbott and I disagree on a lot of things. But the idea of ​​linking criticism of her to being a black woman is appalling,” said Ms Badenoch, who is also equalities minister. in a social media post. “It is never acceptable to confuse someone’s opinion with the color of their skin.”

But she added that she welcomed Mr Hester’s apology and said there must be “room for forgiveness” if there was contrition over flippant comments.

For almost 100 years, a 17.5 meter long mural provided the backdrop to a high-end restaurant at Tate Britain. While the guests drank good wine and ate expensive dishes, they could glance at Rex Whistler’s painting, which depicted a hunting party through a fantastic landscape.

Few visitors to London’s art museum seemed to notice two small parts of Whistler’s scene, each spanning just a few inches: one shows a white woman, dressed in a flowing dress and hat, dragging a black boy by a rope, while the boy is unclothed. , terrified mother watches from a tree; the other shows the same boy chained to a collar, running behind a cart.

It wasn’t until 2020, following the murder of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, that anti-racism activists highlighted these sections on social media and demanded the mural’s removal. Soon, Tate closed the restaurant and administrators began to worry about what to do with the painting, titled “The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats.”

Their solution went on display on Tuesday when Tate Britain reopened the ornate room containing the work. Instead of dinners, the mural now surrounds a large video work by the black British artist Keith Piper which aims to highlight and explain Whistler’s racist images. Chloe Hodge, the exhibition’s curator, said Piper’s work would be on display for about a year.

With this new presentation, Tate Britain seeks to balance the demands of activists, who want offensive works of art to be removed from view, and conservative politicians and art lovers, many of whom want museums to avoid any hint of ‘woke’ attitudes. But by taking a middle ground between these positions, Piper said, he knew he and the museum could irritate both sides.

“A lot of people said this is a poisoned chalice,” Piper said.

Piper’s 22-minute dual-screen film, called “Vice Voce” after the Latin name used for oral exams at universities in Britain, dramatizes an imaginary conversation between Whistler (played by Ian Pink) and a university lecturer (Ellen O’Grady). In the first half of the film, the academic Whistler asks questions about the history of the mural, which the artist completed in 1927. The mood suddenly changes when she points out Whistler’s image of the black mother hiding in a tree.

“Who is this?” the teacher asks. “Oh, just a little humor,” Whistler replies.

The teacher has more questions for Whistler: about the racist depictions of black people in other works of art he made, and about the treatment of ethnic minorities in 1920s Britain.

In the video, Whistler is confused by the question. “This is all getting rather distasteful,” he says: “I thought you wanted to talk about my work.”

In Britain, discussions surrounding problematic works of art have focused less on an artist’s motivations and social influences, and more on whether a sculpture or painting should be exhibited at all. But the Whistler mural, which is painted directly onto the museum walls, is protected by British heritage laws, meaning Tate Britain cannot easily remove or change it even if administrators wanted to. And last year the British Conservative government published guidelines said museums should ‘preserve and explain’ problematic images or works of art that are part of a building.

Still, some art critics and members of Tate’s own young and diverse staff urged the museum to hide the mural behind a screen.

Hodge, the curator, said she chose Piper to respond to Whistler’s mural because she felt he would be “deeply involved” with the original painting and not produce “something reactionary.” She added that she expected the work to divide opinion. “We can’t commission work that will do everything for everyone,” said Hodge: “This is ultimately Keith’s own artistic response.”

Piper – founder of the Blk Art Group, a collective of black artists founded in England in the 1980s – has been exploring issues of racism and slavery in his art for decades. In his 1996 video work “Go west, young man”, a father and son discuss racist stereotypes; “The Codex of the Colored,” a faux-historical artifact Piper created in 2017, contains pots of black, brown, and cream paint to represent the ways plantation owners classified and controlled enslaved people.

Zehra Jumabhoy, a lecturer in art history at the University of Bristol, said she was surprised when Tate Britain chose Piper for the commission because “his early work was so angry”. If the museum had wanted to avoid the tensions surrounding the mural, there were safer options, she added.

Still, Piper was the obvious choice for some artists. Hew Locke, the prominent Guyanese British artist, said Piper’s art had the courage, historical accuracy and occasional wit required for the high-profile commission. Piper was “his own man,” Locke said, and wasn’t out to please anyone but himself.

In an interview in the cafe at Tate Britain, Piper said he had never eaten in the restaurant space where his work is now on display: “It was too expensive!” he said – and so had not seen the mural before the commotion.

But he wasn’t shocked to hear that racist images were hanging on the walls of Tate Britain, he said – such stereotypical figures were once commonplace in British art. What had surprised him, however, was how long it took for the museum to do something about the mural. While delving into the institute’s archives, Piper said, he found letters from visitors from the 1970s complaining about the painting.

While the way Whistler had portrayed black people was unacceptable, Piper said, he disagreed with those who had urged Tate Britain to remove the mural or hide it behind a screen. “My argument is that by going against it, it becomes an important witness to history, and by going against it, we learn things and hear things that we may not have heard before,” he said. “That is the important role of the arts and museums.”

After the interview, Piper walked into Tate Britain’s newest gallery to do a final check on ‘Vice Voce’. He chatted briefly with Hodge, who said some other Tate Britain staff had come by to view the piece. While they liked it, they said, some expected the film to “condemn Rex Whistler more.”

Piper looked surprised. “Isn’t it judgmental?” he asked.

Hodge paused. “Well,” she said, “there are always two sides.”

The images were disturbing: three large red swastikas. A menacing warning that reads: “I HATE BLACKS.” And a graphic threat of a school shooting.

The graffiti was found last week on a boys’ bathroom stall at a preparatory high school for an elite college in Manhattan. On Monday, authorities said the vandalism was being investigated as a potential hate crime. The police counter-terrorism unit is also working with the school and no arrests have been made.

The discovery has unnerved students and teachers at Beacon High School in Hell’s Kitchen. After the graffiti was found on Thursday, officers went through the building. Some teens left class to meet with counselors. Employees received a flood of concerned calls and emails.

The shocking episode is the latest in a series that has roiled New York City high schools in recent months in the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas. A raucous demonstration at a Queens high school became a major flashpoint in the fall after officials said a pro-Israel teacher targeted students. And this month, several teachers in Brooklyn reported anti-Semitic And Islamophobic incidents at their high school.

Beacon Principal Johnny A. Ventura said in a series of emails to families that the school was working with authorities to ensure student safety. He called the screed in the bathroom “deplorable and unacceptable.”

“As a black Latino, my first emotions when I heard and saw this were anger, and then sadness that someone at our school would choose to write this,” Mr. Ventura wrote. “We embrace diversity and inclusion at Beacon. A threat to one of us is a threat to all of us.”

Beacon is one of the city’s larger high schools, with just under 1,500 students. The school has a significant Jewish population and about 15 percent of the students are black.

Outside the school, two police vehicles were stationed at the entrance Monday morning as teenagers arrived. Several students said in interviews that the graffiti was deeply disturbing.

“I was shocked,” said Ava Baranowski, 15, a sophomore.

Ava said she still felt “pretty safe” at school. To some students it seems like a joke. But it is really serious,” she says. “I think a lot of people were afraid to come to school on Friday.”

Despite rising friction at several schools in the city, several Beacon students said they had not seen major tensions among their peers. Some added that their history teachers had discussed the war in class. Madeline, 16, a sophomore from Beacon who declined to give her last name, said her classmates seemed united and had taken care of each other after the Oct. 7 attacks.

Responding to criticism that the Department of Education was doing too little to address the war, the city’s schools chancellor, David C. Banks, said in January that school principals would receive mandatory training in March on “navigating difficult conversations.” .

Nathaniel Styer, spokesperson for the Department of Education, said the chancellor has “repeatedly made it clear that all forms of prejudice and hatred – including anti-Semitism – have no place” in schools.

“Education and appropriate consequences must be central to addressing bigoted beliefs and misconceptions that students may bring to school,” he said.

As the graffiti investigation continues, Beacon will have an increasing police presence. Students were banned this week from wandering the school’s corridors and stairwells without the supervision of a staff member. Teachers and students will also have to use the toilets one by one.

Victor Rampen, 16, a sophomore at Beacon, heard about the graffiti Friday morning and said he expected a more visible response, such as metal detectors. He added that he wished more had been done in the immediate aftermath.

“I think that’s a little concerning,” Victor said.

“I don’t think it would ever actually happen,” he said of the threats. “But I still think necessary steps need to be taken.”

Mr. Ventura, the director, told families that “the bigger plan has to be some kind of campaign against hate,” which could include the creation of an anonymous reporting system.

Police said there were no security cameras in the bathroom where the graffiti was found, but officers were examining footage from cameras in the hallway. The principal asked any students who have information about what happened to come forward.

He also apologized to the parents. In his first message on Thursday afternoon, Mr. Ventura mentioned only that graffiti of a swastika had been found in the bathroom. He said staff immediately contacted police and worked to quickly remove the markings “because we knew it would be very traumatizing.”

But some families were left confused about the nature of the vandalism as they learned more from their children.

On Sunday, Mr. Ventura acknowledged that the graffiti’s mention of a school shooting — which included a pointed threat toward black students — was “sadly omitted” from his earlier emails.

“We understand the importance of transparency in these matters,” Mr. Ventura wrote.

The rating for “Mary Poppins,” the beloved children’s musical about a nanny with magical powers released 60 years ago, has been raised to PG in Britain for using “discriminatory language,” according to the British Board of Film Classification.

The change in rating follows a wave of recontextualization and reclassification of films from a bygone era for modern audiences, amid changing cultural norms and mores.

“Mary Poppins” contains two uses of an offensive racial slur to describe an indigenous group in South Africa. It is first heard when Admiral Boom asks Michael, a child, if he is going on an adventure to defeat the said group. Admiral Boom repeats the slur during a chimney sweep dance sequence when he shouts that he is under attack. The dancing figures he sees in the distance are not black Africans, but white dancers with faces blackened with soot.

The film was originally rated ‘U’ by Universal upon its release in 1964, and again in 2013 for a theatrical release, the BBFC said in a statement. When it was resubmitted for another theatrical release in February, it was reclassified as PG.

PG is the second least serious of six ratings in Britain. The strictest is 18, which prohibits anyone under that age from renting, purchasing or seeing the film in cinemas.

“We understand from our research into racism and discrimination, and from recent research into classification guidelines, that a key concern for people, parents in particular, is the potential to expose children to discriminatory language” or behavior that they may find distressing or repeat without realizing its potential. According to a spokeswoman for the board, there has been a violation.

Leshu Torchin, a senior lecturer in film studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said the change in rating for “Mary Poppins” made sense, noting that the rating acts as a guideline and doesn’t deter anyone from watching a film.

“It becomes a useful kind of instruction, especially for people with children, to think about whether their own children are ready for these discussions, ready for a movie, or completely ready but perhaps inclined to want to talk,” says Dr. Torchin said.

Movies don’t remain static, she said. “As long as it continues to be watched, there will be a new audience watching it,” she said, adding that the rating makes parents aware “that children can watch a movie, and if they can’t contextualize things with their parents, they come away thinking that certain language is okay, or they come away from it feeling harmed by what they have just seen.”

While the change in rating for “Mary Poppins” came as a surprise to many, it is part of a growing list of films that have been reclassified and revisited with fresh eyes in recent years.

The BBFC noted that it was reclassified in 2023 “Santa Claus: The Movie” (1985) rated higher, for PG, for its mild violence and language. Likewise, the review is for “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi” (1983) was also elevated to PG for moderate violence.

Movie ratings may also go down. “Enter the Dragon” (1973), “Friday the 13th” (1980) and several others are now labeled 15 after previously receiving higher ratings.

A similar reevaluation has taken place in the United States in recent years. HBO Max is coming in 2020 temporarily removed ‘Gone with the Wind’ a film routinely criticized for whitewashing the horrors of slavery and romanticizing the antebellum South, from its streaming library. The decision came amid intense reflections in the United States over depictions of race and policing following nationwide protests over police brutality. HBO Max cited the need for “an explanation and an indictment” for the film’s depiction of race relations.

Previous television series also came under scrutiny at the time, such as certain episodes of “30 Rock,” “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and “Scrubs.” have been removed from streaming platforms for showing white characters with a black face.

Similarly, Disney+ added a content disclaimer in 2021 to 18 episodes of “The Muppet Show” because they include “negative depictions and/or mistreatment of people or cultures.” The company said that rather than removing the content, it acknowledged its harmful effects in hopes of sparking a conversation about the issues.

Books have also been revised after renewed attention. Roald Dahl’s estate in 2023 hundreds of words changed or deletedincluding descriptions of the characters’ appearance, race and gender in at least ten of the author’s children’s books, such as “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and “Matilda,” to make them less offensive.