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Jackie Walker (activist)

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Jackie Walker
File:JackieWalker.jpg
BornJacqueline Walker
1954 (age 69–70)
United States
NationalityBritish
Alma materGoldsmiths College
Occupation(s)Teacher, writer, anti-racist activist, charity worker
Years active1981–present
TitleFormer Vice-Chair of Momentum
Political partyLabour (1981–present; suspended 2016)
PartnerGraham Bash
Children3
Parent(s)Jack Cohen (father)
Dorothy Brown (mother)
Websitejackiewalker.org

Jacqueline Walker (born 1954) is a black Jewish activist, writer and the former Vice-Chair of Momentum. She is the author of her family memoir Pilgrim State, and writer and performer of the one-woman show The Lynching.

Background

Walker is of mixed Jewish and African descent. Her father was a Russian Jew and that she was born of a Jamaican mother of Jewish heritage. Walker's late Jewish communist father, Jack Cohen, was a jeweller and member of Communist Party USA who arrived as a refugee in New York, around 1918 after his family escaped from pogroms in Russia. Her late mother, Dorothy Brown, was born in Jamaica in 1915 and a black civil rights activist, who, Walker said, the CIA had "in their sights" in the 1950s. Walker's mother had four children by four different men and suffered from recurring mental illness. Her mother is descended from Portuguese Jews who came to the West Indies during the days of Christopher Columbus, one of whom married a slave who converted after marriage to a Jewish man. In the United States, her parents were involved in the civil rights movement in the 1950s.

Walker was born in the U.S. in 1954 and two years later McCarthyism led to her mother being deported back to Jamaica with her children. Her father was married to someone else by this time. After Walker's mother was committed and subjected to ECT treatment, subsequently, in 1959, Walker and her family moved to post-Windrush London. Walker's mother's depression returned, which resulted in squalid living conditions and her children periodically being taken into care. When Walker was 11 years old, her mother collapsed and died leaving Walker and her siblings in the state care system. Walker spent most of her adolescence in care, in homes and with a foster family.

Other work

Walker was in the National Youth Theatre but thought that as a black person she would get few roles so instead, she decided to train to be a teacher. Walker went to university and trained to become a teacher. In her first year, she married, had a baby, and returned to Goldsmiths College when her baby was six weeks old. She has also been and anti-racist trainer and charity worker with a long record of anti-racist activism and a long history as a political activist.

In April 2008, Walker's family memoir Pilgrim State was published, which was placed on the reading list of the social worker training course at Brunel University London. Walker gave lectures at the university twice a week for the course. She was then on their committee for social work training. Walker staged a one-woman show, The Lynching, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2017.

Labour Party

In 1981, Walker joined the Labour Party. Walker was Vice-Chair of South Thanet Constituency Labour Party. She was a leading member of a campaign in South Thanet, Kent, to defeat the UKIP leader Nigel Farage in the 2015 general election.

She was elected to Momentum's Steering Committee and, in September 2015, became its vice-chair. She is a founding member of Jewish Voice for Labour.

Slave trade Facebook posts

In May 2016, the Israel Advocacy Movement accessed Walker's private Facebook account. There, they found a discussion in which a pro-Israel friend of Walker's had raised the question of 'the debt' owed to the Jews because of the Holocaust. Walker then said:

Oh yes – and I hope you feel the same towards the African holocaust? My ancestors were involved in both – on all sides as I'm sure you know, millions more Africans were killed in the African holocaust and their oppression continues today on a global scale in a way it doesn't for Jews… and many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade which is of course why there were so many early synagogues in the Caribbean. So who are victims and what does it mean? We are victims and perpetrators to some extent through choice. And having been a victim does not give you a right to be a perpetrator.

The Israel Advocacy Movement judged this comment to be anti-Semitic. They then contacted the media and the Labour Party leadership who immediately suspended Walker. In an article entitled 'A frenzied witch-hunt is not the way to combat antisemitism or any form of racism', the chair of Momentum, Jon Lansman, described the media campaign against Walker as 'a "lynch mob" whose interest in combatting racism is highly selective'. After an internal investigation, Walker's membership of the Labour Party was reinstated.

In response to her critics, Walker said:

Yes, I wrote 'many Jews (my ancestors too) were the chief financiers of the sugar and slave trade'. These words, taken out of context in the way the media did, of course do not reflect my position. I was writing to someone who knew the context of my comments. Had he felt the need to pick me up on what I had written I would have rephrased – perhaps to 'Jews (my ancestors too) were among those who financed the sugar and slave trade and at the particular time/in the particular area I'm talking about they played an important part.' … has never been that Jews played a disproportionate role in the Atlantic Slave Trade, merely that, as historians such as Arnold Wiznitzer noted, at a certain economic point, in specific regions where my ancestors lived, Jews played a dominant role 'as financiers of the sugar industry, as brokers and exporters of sugar, and as suppliers of Negro slaves on credit.'

Dave Rich of the Community Security Trust has argued that Walker's comments are reminiscent of the anti-Semitic views of the Nation of Islam. Walker's response to this argument has been to say that 'the Nation of Islam is an antisemitic group which seeks to set Jewish and Black people against each other. Any examination of my work, my writing, my life, would make clear my opposition to this ideology.'

In May 2016, Walker was suspended from the Labour Party and reinstated about three weeks later.

Holocaust Memorial Day at Labour Conference

During the September 2016 Labour Party Conference, Walker attended a meeting held by the pro-Israel Jewish Labour Movement (JLM). During the meeting she questioned the JLM's definition of anti-Semitism and appeared to question the high level of security at Jewish schools. She also said: 'Wouldn't it be wonderful if Holocaust Day was open to all peoples who've experienced holocaust.'

Later, during a Channel 4 interview, she asked why Holocaust Memorial Day only concerns genocides committed since the 1940s, thereby excluding 'the African holocaust' during the slave trade.

Walker responded:

Having been a victim of racism, I would never play down the very real fears the Jewish community have, especially in light of recent attacks in France. In the session, a number of Jewish people, including me, asked for definitions of antisemitism. This is a subject of much debate in the Jewish community. I … utterly condemn antisemitism... I would never play down the significance of the Shoah. Working with many Jewish comrades, I continue to seek to bring greater awareness of other genocides, which are too often forgotten or minimised. If offence has been caused, it is the last thing I would want to do and I apologise.'

In September 2016, Walker was removed as Vice-Chair of Momentum, although a committee said she was not deemed to have made anti-semitic comments. In October, the Momentum Steering Committee decided that although it "does not regard any of the comments she appears to have made, taken individually, to be antisemitic. However, the Committee does consider her remarks on Holocaust Memorial Day and on security of Jewish schools to be ill-informed, ill-judged and offensive. In such circumstances, the Committee feels that Jackie should have done more to explain herself to mitigate the upset caused." The committee then removed Walker from the post of vice-chair while stating that "Jackie should not be expelled from the Labour party."

In early October 2016, Walker was suspended from the Labour Party again with Labour's National Executive Committee referring her case to the party's National Constitutional Committee in March 2017.

A number of prominent left-wing activists have defended Walker, including film director Ken Loach. Several of Walker's defender are themselves Jewish, such as filmmaker and academic Haim Bresheeth, Israeli-born Marxist Moshe Machover, and linguist and activist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky said: "I wholeheartedly support the right of anyone to criticise Israel without being branded antisemitic. That goes in particular for Jackie Walker."

Personal life

In 1997, she moved from Dorset back to Greenwich, London where she had lived with her mother to raise her three children on her own. In 2010, Walker moved from London to Broadstairs, Kent where she lives in with her partner, Graham Bash, who is editor of Labour Briefing and is also Jewish.

Walker has three children born in the 1980s. She has two sons from her first marriage and a daughter from her second marriage. Walker has an estranged elder sister, and elder brother and younger sister.

References

  1. Kerstein, Benjamin (6 August 2017). "Far-Left Activist Jackie Walker Gets Standing Ovation for Antisemitic Play". Algemeiner Journal. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  2. ^ Levitt, Lee (6 August 2017). "Jackie Walker in Edinburgh: cheers and a standing ovation". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  3. ^ Hyland, Bernadette (25 January 2017). "Theatre Review Pointed polemic from suspended Labour activist". Morning Star. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  4. ^ Peled, Daniella (5 October 2017). "Why I Found a London Play Framing Jews as a KKK-style Lynch Mob Strangely Touching". Haaretz. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  5. Gulliver, John (7 November 2017). "Jackie Walker, the ghost, says we must be free to speak". The Islington Tribune. Derry. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  6. ^ Arnold, Sue (14 November 2008). "Pilgrim State". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  7. ^ Carpenter, Louise (13 April 2008). "Who are you calling a bad mother?". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  8. ^ Harris, John (16 April 2016). "Inside Momentum: 'The idea that we're all rulebook-thumping Trotskyites is silly'". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  9. Rampen, Julia (17 July 2017). "Former Momentum vice-chair Jackie Walker plans one-woman Edinburgh Fringe show". New Statesman. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  10. Mortimer, Caroline (28 May 2016). "Anti-Semitism row: Momentum organiser Jackie Walker readmitted to Labour party following racism allegations". The Independent. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  11. ^ Greenstein, Tony (3 January 2017). "The lynching of Jackie Walker". openDemocracy. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  12. Richard Kuper, 'Jackie-Walker-Responds-To-Accusations-Of-Antisemitism', Jews for Justice for Palestine Blog (5 September 2016)
  13. "A frenzied witch-hunt is not the way to combat antisemitism or any form of racism". Left Futures. 9 May 2016. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  14. Dave Rich, The Left's Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn, Israel and Anti-Semitism (Biteback Publishing, 2016)
  15. 'Jackie-Walker-Responds-To-Accusations-Of-Antisemitism' citing: Arnold Wiznitzer in Jews in Colonial Brazil, quoted in Jane Gerber, ed., The Jews in the Caribbean (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2014), p51.
  16. Rich, The Left's Jewish Problem (2016), Conclusion
  17. Kuper, Richard (5 September 2016). "Jackie Walker Responds to Accusations of Antisemitism". Labour against the witch-hunt. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  18. ^ Elgot, Jessica (28 September 2016). "Momentum vice-chair under pressure to resign over antisemitism row". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  19. Channel 4 News (4 October 2016).
  20. Cowburn, Ashley (3 October 2016). "Momentum vice-chair Jackie Walker removed from position over Holocaust comments". The Independent. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  21. A Statement from Momentum's Steering Committee, (3 October 2016)
  22. ^ Harpin, Lee (17 September 2017). "Ken Loach says Jackie Walker should have 'significant' role in Labour". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 2 June 2018.
  23. "Jackie Walker ruling betrays Momentum members". The Guardian. 4 October 2016. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  24. Sugarman, Daniel (14 June 2017). "Jackie Walker compares her Labour suspension for alleged antisemitism to a 'lynching'". The Jewish Chronicle. Retrieved 1 July 2018.

External links

Party political offices
New title Vice-Chair of the Momentum
2015–2016 		Succeeded by
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