Dawn Butler

Dawn Butler

Labour — Brent East

Speaking in the House of Commons on 6 March 2025

Debate

International Women’s Day

Contribution

Social media platforms have a vital role to play. They understand that negativity spreads faster than positivity. In the old days of legacy media, it was often said, “If it bleeds, it leads”. Those platforms are absolutely aware of the damage that they do. They will not voluntarily make the changes that they need to make and, as a Government, we need to legislate for those changes to be made. When I watched the story of the Women’s Army Corps unit of colour, which stars Kerry Washington as Captain Charity Adams, I actually cried. The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion contributed to the war effort in a unique way. They sorted through 17 million pieces of mail and delivered it to American soldiers on the frontline. Those 855 black women improved morale and brought hope to the frontline, yet after going through all of that, they were discriminated against and history tried to erase them. We have to wonder why that is. Why do people continually try to erase women and people of colour from history?

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