Labour advisor : "You're white and your entire existence is drenched in racism.".

That's interesting Terribull, I don't go on MN but obviously I have thoughts in common with some of them.

Having read Ms Berdorf's remark re "butch lezzies" and her attempt to make a joke about "gay bashing", I think she was not a wise choice and it is probably a good thing that she resigned.

As to the remarks about this appointment being illustrative of the "loony Left", I can think of several senior, and far more influential, appointments within the Conservative Party that do not exactly demonstrate a recognition of the need for integrity and diplomacy - for instance:

Liam Fox (now Secretary of State for International
Trade)

who had to resign in disgrace for allowing his friend and best man Adam Werritty to act as his unofficial and undeclared adviser, attending meetings at the Ministry of Defence and expenses-paid trips to meet foreign dignatories without getting the necessary security clearance.

Boris Johnson (now Foreign Secretary) who:

was forced to apologize to the people of Papua New Guinea after writing in 2006 in the Telegraph: “For 10 years we in the Tory party have become used to Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing.."

in 2002 wrote "the Queen has come to love the Commonwealth, partly because it supplies her with regular cheering crowds of flag-waving piccaninnies .."

who described Obama as " a “part-Kenyan” with an "“ancestral dislike” of Britain."

who, when referring to the Hillsborough tragedy, said Liverpudlians were " wallowing in their “victim status,”

who had to apologise for his remarks when visiting a Sikh temple when he expressed his enthusiasm for whisky and said “Whenever we go to India, to Mumbai or to Delhi, we have to bring ‘clinkie’ in our luggage."

Ben Bradley (Conservative Party Vice Chairman)

who once suggested that unemployed men should get vasectomies.

"Could have their own particular agenda to push rather than a broader range of issues" that seems to be the general consensus on MN regarding the appointment of Women's Officer, Lily Madigan, who it seems has scant interest in women per se, but plenty to say about herself and trans women generally.

Well , because of her I have learned the suffragettes were racist and Willberforce was a hypocrite ,

Hopefully that is the last we will hear of her pronouncements, as she has resigned ( did she go or was she pushed?)

I understand that it wasn't a paid position. Could it be that anyone applying for it could have their own particular agenda to push rather than a broader range of issues?

Wonder is she applied for the job or was she head hunted?

She would have come to the role with pre-conceived ideas and prejudices and was not the right person to advise a Shadow Minister on such sensitive issues. Such an adviser needs to have a far wider understanding in order to help and not hinder or in fact be a distraction from the purpose of the role.
Instead of the issues involved being the news she became the news because of her past utterances.

If Labour want the label 'Loony Left' as a prefix they are going the right way about it.

The Bergdorf appointment was a very bad one given his/her history.

The Times unearthed homophopbic remarks on her Twitter account. Why on earth did Labour want to associate with her after her string of homophobic comments?

They included telling a friend: "How's your barren womb? We all know your little secret … hairy lesbian!"

She also criticised a singer on television, saying: "You have to admit she did look like a butch LEZZA tho."

The DJ from London wrote that a character on the American TV show Glee was so "annoying" that: "Even I'd like to gay bash him!"

Labour, in wanting to be so politically correct, has shown its judgement to be extremely unsound and potentially dangerous in associating with Bergdorf.

As the individual concerned was once called Ian, I'm assuming the name "Monroe Bergdorf" is a pseudonym, It's just that Bergdorf sounds Germanic or Dutch to me, the indigenous people of those countries tend to be white and therefore by definition "their entire existence will be drenched in racism" With that in mind I'd have thought Ian would have preferred a name that doesn't have such an Anglo Saxon ring to it or is it all about effect.

An unwise choice ,

Bergdorf has resigned from the position.

No doubt now the debate will viewed in two ways.

Bergdorf will either be a hero for speaking up and a victim. It will be all the fault of the right wing press , albeit it was a story covered by left and right and even Labour Party MP's spoke against the decision to give her the position.

OR

Bergdorf will be seen to have abeen an unwise choice in the first place because of an obvious biased opinion and ironically verging close to being what she declares the white race to be.

You pays yer money you takes yer pick.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/04/max-mosley-racism-youth-offensive-views

Another interesting article about how we perceive race historically.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/04/employers-gender-pay-gap-race-ethnic-minority

So Corbyn isn't perfect ?

And as Wilberforce himself said, "You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know."
I'm drinking my coffee out of a mug that says that.

I don't mind knowing that these people that we hold up as paragons are human after all.
It makes it all the more remarkable that they did what they did against the odds.

There's a Wilberforce College in Hull. There is also a Perronet Thompson school.
He was a lieutenant in the Navy, and then became governor of Sierra Leone. He discovered that the Sierra Leone company was still keeping slaves and trading in them years after the first abolition law.
Wilberforce was a director of the company. He got Perronet Thompson sacked before he could say anything.
The difference is that there were just several hundred slaves being traded in Freetown, but 40,000 a year had been shipped to the Americas before then.
Was it an acceptable compromise?
Maybe Perronet Thompson was just as shocked to find out that Wilberforce wasn't the hero he thought he was.

*were taken from those areas

Regarding the slave trade, it was of course a repugnant part of our colonial history. It wasn't only a preserve of white Europeans though, there were Arab ships that raided the coasts of the west country, Devon and Cornwall and parts of northern France, people from those areas to slave markets in North Africa to be sold. However, the past cannot be changed what is truly appalling is that we now have more modern day slaves than there ever were in those "dog eat dog" days.

So the suffragettes were racist, Willberforce had feet of clay, who next ? Dr King ,

POGS I said I can understand why some black people are of the opinion that all white people are racist. It seems a rather extreme statement but often those that refute it do so in terms that tend to confirm it - denying (despite a great deal of evidence) that there is discrimination in our justice system, in education, housing and in employment and suggesting that people who make these claims are "over-sensitive" or have "a chip on their shoulder".

That is not to say that there aren't other discriminatory "isms". I think most people (though not all) accept that there is also sexism in our society. "Classism" exists too but is rarely talked about. But at the moment we are talking about racism and there is no denying that the extremely cruel treatment and exploitation of black people by white people throughout the centuries has caused pain and impoverishment to millions of people.

Until, I believe, a couple of years ago the British government was still paying "compensation" to the families of former slave traders - not to the people they enslaved. This is like continuing to accept for 182 years that slavery was a morally acceptable, respectable and legitimate trade rather than a shameful crime against humanity.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/britains-colonial-shame-slave-owners-given-huge-payouts-after-abolition-8508358.html

www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/taxpayers-bristol-were-still-paying-1205049

Wilberforce was a born-again Christian, before the phrase was known about. He was a good friend of both Wesleys.
He was born into a well-to-do family, and thought that being an MP was his right.
Then, when he decided that the slave trade was wrong, he decided that he ought to give up being an MP and fight for abolition in other ways.
He was persuaded that he would do more for abolition if he stayed in parliament.
However, he was only interested in banning the slave trade, not slavery, for at least 25 years after the abolition bill was brought in in 1807.
There is some interesting information about Wilberforce and Sierra Leone.

It is, but it's a long way to go, Hull.
I doubt I'll get there again, but we would have stayed longer had we known.

Perhaps you ought to go to his museum, Annie, and find out all about him. Quite fascinating, it is.

Even Willberforce is condemned in defence of a new Corbynite