When Shami Chakrabarti published her inquiry into “antisemitism and other forms of racism” in the Labour party, she described the epithet as “a term of abuse, pure and simple, and should not in my view have any place in the vocabulary of Labour members, whether online, in conversation or anywhere else”. This recommendation has been adopted by the Labour party, and party members can be suspended for using the term.
The Dyke March collective initially responded angrily to criticism of their use of the phrase. When one tweeter described it as “reprehensible… Do you want to associate yourselves with the KKK? Because that's what you're doing”, the Dyke March response was: “Wow, trying to compare a group of queer people of color to the KKK, so f***ed up”.
However, when criticism grew, the collective deleted their tweet, saying:
“Sorry y'all! Definitely didn't know the violent history of the term. We meant Zionist/white tears replenish our electrolytes.”
However, as pointed out by another Twitter user, the majority of Israel’s Jews are of Middle Eastern heritage, rather than European – and that by identifying Israel as “white”, the Dyke March was “erasing” the existence of millions of Jews.
