I am a proud Jew, I love Judaism and I’m proud of its traditions and culture. I am also a proud Black woman of Jamaican heritage and I’m proud of its traditions and culture. Both of these are fundamental parts of my identity, and it is precisely because of this pride that I find it nauseating and upsetting to see people pitting Black people and Jewish people against each other in some sort of grotesque “oppression Olympics”.

Frustratingly, this “pitting” is a regular occurrence, and in the aftermath of antisemitic posts made by UK grime MC Wiley it went into overdrive.

When I first saw Wiley’s tweets advancing antisemitic tropes and drawing offensive parallels between my two communities, I felt frustrated and apprehensive because it was pitting my identities against each other. Indeed, Wiley himself replied to me on Twitter claiming that I wasn’t really Black because I was also Jewish.

His Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts were permanently suspended and Twitter apologised for being slow in their response to Wiley’s tweets. People took to social media to suggest that Black people would never be treated how Jewish people are, which heightened tensions as false dichotomies were drawn, intensifying divisions.

Many people on Twitter expressed that Wiley’s removal was contradictory as little action was taken against those responsible for the racist abuse Diane Abbott received in 2017. The Labour MP was subjected to almost a third (31.61%) of all abusive tweets towards women MPs according to analysis by Amnesty International. I wholeheartedly agree that measures should be taken against those who have sent Abbott abuse and the same swiftness we saw with Wiley should be applied.

However, a lot of people are focused on the “who has it worse” rhetoric, with many on my timeline claiming that Wiley’s account was only suspended because it was an antisemitic attack on the Jewish community with many wondering why Abbott’s historic abuse on the social media platform has largely been left unaddressed. Nevertheless, pitting two minorities against each other is completely unhelpful.

Not only is it deeply divisive, but it’s also nonsensical when it comes to tackling racism: instead of focusing on the root cause of racial hatred - which is often similar for Black people and Jews — the focus is shifted towards the communities themselves.

“Comparing the struggles Black and Jewish people face does nothing when it comes to tackling racism”