Dawn Butler in Common's race exposé Black In Britain.

-------News------
RACISM IS COMMON IN THE HOUSE SAYS BUTLER
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 14 APRIL 08 DAWN BUTLER one of only two Black women MPs has revealed she's suffered racism at the hands of politicians of all parties in the house. She now wants a complaints department with the power to suspend politicians and send them on race awareness courses. She revealed in Sunday's Observer how colleagues mistook her for a cleaner and said: " 'I thought people in Parliament would be progressive. It is still a shock that they are not.
"For some politicians, it's still a shock to come face to face with a Black women with any real power. Racism and sexism is Parliament's dirty little secret." Veteran MP Diane Abbott, backed Butler saying she too had suffered 20 years of prejudice. Abbot the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington said: "I remember being shocked when a Labour MP asked me once whether we celebrated Christmas in Jamaica." Butler, who won the Brent South seat in 2005, told how she was challenged by a senior Tory MP over her right to have a drink on the Commons' Thameside terrace, a privilege reserved for MPs. Writing in the Fawcett Society's new collection of essays, Seeing Double: Race and Gender in Ethnic Minority Women's Lives, Butler describes how former minister David Heathcote-Amory confronted her. She said: "He asked me, 'Are you a member?' And I said, 'Yes I am, are you?' And he turned around and said to his colleague, 'They're letting anybody in nowadays.'" Zohra Moosa, editor of the Fawcett Society book, said: "With only two black women MPs and not a single Asian woman, Parliament has never once been representative of Britain."
Facts & numbers
100%	the increase in the number of Black women MPs when Dawn Butler was elected in 2005
1	the number of Black MPs to have held a senior cabinet post



Useful links
Operation Black Vote