That escalated quickly
An immigration barrister at One Pump Court received a dressing down from Twitter users this week after appearing to suggest that white people can identify as black.
The bizarre Twitter spat kicked off when London-based barrister Allan Briddock responded to a tweet linking to an article concerning Rachel Dolezal, a white civil rights activist who posed as an African American woman. The user who tweeted the article asked why it was deemed acceptable for a man to identify as a woman but wrong for a white person to identify as black.
Responding to the tweet, Briddock argued that self-identification was “quite common” and that an individual has the right to identify as black or white.
Really? Whose definition of black or white? I know people who ‘look’ white but identify as black or mixed race. I think that’s quite common. No one else decides someone’s identity except the person.
— Allan Briddock (@AllanBriddock) September 24, 2018
Sarah Phillimore, a family law specialist at St John’s Chambers, didn’t agree:
But that's just not true. Not for people with noticeably dark skin. Their identify is decided all the time for them by those observing.
— Sarah Phillimore (@SVPhillimore) September 24, 2018
When pushed as to whether anyone could identify as anything, the One Pump Court barrister claimed self-identification applied in cases concerning “gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion [and] disability”.
Not x, but gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, disability (or not), yes. Not a chair, or a fish, or some other object which is the usual ‘killer point’ in such argument.
— Allan Briddock (@AllanBriddock) September 24, 2018
Briddock’s tweets — which were first spotted by RollOnFriday — triggered a flurry of responses ranging from the amused to the outraged:
I identify as your dad. Allan, son, time to stop this nonsensical talk and on to doing your homework. Now you listen to me, chop chop. Come back when you can reason logically.
— Brombeer (@Brombee45107563) September 25, 2018
I feel like I am living in an alternate universe. Its becoming ok to identify as black, disabled just because you feel like it? Only the truly privileged would do it and in doing so take resources from those who need them more.
— BeckiJ (@forevermygirl) September 24, 2018
That is just insane.
— ConstantatiousMazula #FBGC (@NeurolawGuy) September 25, 2018
You think disability is an identity that I can choose to identify with? With all due respect, f* you.
— Rainbow Ninja ? (@ninja_rainbow) September 24, 2018
Responding to Rainbow Ninja’s tweet, Briddock stressed that “disability is not always visible” and it is “not up to someone else to decide if you or me or anyone else is disabled.”
With the dust now settled, Briddock told us: “I involved myself in the thread on the basis of my work concerning transgender equality and the problem at the moment of denying trans people’s identities. There is a huge amount of abuse, particularly online, of the trans community and the tweet I originally replied to seemed to be suggesting being trans is a choice.” He continued:
“My view is that we should respect people’s identities, not, as has been said, that people can simply ‘choose’.”