Jessica Walker

Always looking for an adventure and a good non-alcoholic wine

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

Not drinking alcohol? Bored of lime and soda? Looking for a delicious, grown-up, interesting alternative?Whether you’re designated driver, pregnant, responsible for a child, hungover or cutting down, take a look at my reviews of substitutes for booze.
https://t.co/XAQi8jeYmf

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

@tweeter_anita too

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

@DalrympleWill #EmpireLive I have 2 tickets for tonight that I can no longer use. Can we find a good home for them?

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

@EmpirePodUK I have 2 tickets for Empire Podcast Live tonight that I can’t use - would anyone like them?

[Joe Lycett @joelycett]

I’ve signed this. You should too.

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

@SW_Help But they did not, so perhaps some more training for the Weybridge staff would be helpful to ensure they actually do that.

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

@SW_Help when a (short) very busy commuter train arrives at a station with station staff present, are those staff supposed to (a) ask people in carriages to move down and use all available space and (b) tell the people on the platform if there is space in any of the carriages?

[Tim Walker @ThatTimWalker]

Brilliantly written.

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

It's time to #ActForEarlyYears! Join me and sign the letter asking world leaders to start investing in early years before another generation of children misses out. https://t.co/gUpbca7YSr

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

Ding dong the Bill of Rights is dead!

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

In case you have t seen this amazing human’s run across the USA to raise funds to fight cancer: it’s awesome. His fundraising page is here and you can follow him on Instagram and YouTube.
Will's Run Across America for Cancer
https://t.co/IgzFTffOLi

[Alan Lester @aljhlester]

Rather than continue trying to respond to various threads arising from the backlash against Diane Abbott's letter and retraction, I thought I'd try to set out my perspective as an historian of colonialism more coherently:
1. Racism and antisemitism are both abhorrent forms of expression, oppression and discrimination which share certain characteristics and have come over time to borrow from one another. However, they are not entirely congruent. They have different genealogies and have had different historical effects. While the identification of antisemitism as a form of racism might help in anti-discriminatory struggles, it is historically problematic to see them as identical and perfectly interchangeable when they can also be distinct.
2. Geneaologies: antisemitism is far longer established than racism. From the medieval period at least it has resulted in vile, abusive language, purges and pogroms. It was of course the main driver of the Holocaust (although racism against Black people also played a part). Antisemitism is pernicious, malleable and persistent. Racism emerged as a coherent 'explanation' and justification for the White supremacy that characterised the European empires during and after the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the abolition of slavery itself, especially as these empires extended into all of the inhabited continents and encompassed a greater diversity of 'non-White' colonised subjects. As well as legitimation, racial distinctions also underpinned the hierarchical structures of colonial governance. Racism too, is pernicious, malleable and persistent.
3. Effects: Racism and antisemitism have had many shared effects but also different ones. Antisemitism has often been more directly murderous. It has resulted in Jewish people being described as 'vermin' and in actions directed at their eradication. Colonial racism can and has had similar effects, also including genocide, but more generally it has been exploitative rather than exterminatory. Racism has supported the maintenance of White supremacy and the domination of Black and Brown colonised peoples' labour rather than aiming their extermination. Hopefully you will see from this that a discussion of differences between these hateful variants of oppression does not in any way imply the minimisation or trivialisation of either one's effects.
4. Let me give an example of how complex the relationship can be: the programme of apartheid was launched in South Africa in 1948 by men who were Afrikaner nationalists, racists and antisemites (Verwoerd had studied for his PhD in Nazi Germany and was inspired by the ideology). But Jewish people were not legally discriminated against under apartheid. Many of them (mainly Communists) were active in the resistance to apartheid because they identified with the persecution that they saw, especially having witnessed pogroms in Eastern Europe. But they were aware that in this instance the legal system they were fighting was racist rather than antisemitic. From their relatively privileged position as White South Africans they saw that that the two forms of oppression were connected but not identical. Surely we should do the same.
4. It is entirely legitimate and not at all antisemitic in itself to discuss these points of difference as well as those of convergence. If we can't do so without being accused of antisemitism, then it becomes very difficult for historians to observe historical specificity. By all means let's define antisemitism as a form of racism if it helps to combat it, but without wishing to defend all the other things contained in Diane Abbott's original letter, let's not round on someone for pointing out that trans-Atlantic slavery, segregation in America and apartheid in South Africa were based on race rather than Jewishness.
@Femi_Sorry @kehinde_andrews

[Giles Yeo @GilesYeo]

This is a fabulous and nuanced piece from @marcusryder 'The lesson from the Diane Abbott furore: neither false equivalence nor hierarchies of victimhood help us' https://t.co/KwUdsbQaNC

[Jessica Walker @Jeeskababy]

@ferrishrtsloane Woohoo! Congratulations! I’m so glad all your hard work is getting well-deserved recognition! 👏🏻👏🏻

[My Life My Say @mylifemysay]

🚨 It’s National Voter Registration Day🚨

If you haven’t registered to vote for the upcoming elections in May, today is your last chance!🗳

It only takes 5 minutes.

Use your voice and #RegisterToVote this #NVRD

[Edwin Hayward @edwinhayward]

If something was going to cost you £820 million, but £400 million was subsequently knocked off, are you...

Up £400 million?
Down £420 million?

According to the Tories, you're up £400 million, even though you're still spending an unnecessary £420 million.
https://t.co/yfWYedtlBC

[Max @maxharvey79]

@MooseAllain Easter time,
Chocolate eggs and wine.
Children singing rabbit-themed rhymes.
With four days of eating
And copious booze,
It's time to think of all the teeth that we'll lose.

[The Bee Guy @the_beeguy]

Many people asking us about #bumblebees at the moment - why they’re seeing them on the ground - so here’s a quick thread to explain what they’re up to. Please #retweet as every #queen that survives means a new colony that gets to exist & produce new queen #bees for next year! 1/8

[Gary Younge @garyyounge]

"People say “we won the war”, even if they didn’t fight and weren’t born. They say “we won the World Cup”, even if they didn’t play. But when you mention slavery, they say: “ It wasn't me. I wasn’t alive.” This contradiction is clearly unsustainable." https://t.co/I65vvHRpjb

[Duchess of Brixton ❤️🖤💚☭ @fufuisonme]

Gal-dem as a magazine focused on my reality as a Black person in the UK and often affirmed or gave me the language to explain what I was going through. Brings me back to this gem I read a few years back.https://t.co/KlE0SzmU83

[LEAP UK @UKLEAP]

A statement from LEAP UK on the government’s decision on Nitrous Oxide. In the strongest terms we challenge the government’s decision.

Please do share if you support our stance.

cc @SuellaBraverman @ukhomeoffice @RishiSunak @Keir_Starmer @LucyMPowell