Sinn Féin: Back of the bus

Gerry Adams, leader of Irish Republican Party Sinn Féin, was denied entry to the annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration hosted by President Barack Obama at the White House on Tuesday. A security issue caused the Secret Service to prevent Adams from entering the White House for an hour and a half before he left. The Secret Service later apologized on Wednesday claiming there was an administrative error, according to CNN.

Sinn Féin is “dedicated to the reunification of Ireland and the building of a new republic based on the principles of freedom, justice and equality,” claims the party’s twitter account. In a statement after the White House incident Adams claimed that other members of the party had been denied access to the United States and others often go through extensive additional security travelling there.

Adams said:

Sinn Fein will not sit at the back of the bus for anyone. We are elected to represent citizens and we will do this. I am hopeful that the controversy around my White House invitation will help lead to a resolution of all these matters.”

This statement is a clear reference to African-American civil rights leader Rosa Parks, the woman who, upon refusing to give up her seat to a white person during the time of racial segregation in the US, was arrested and began the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Adam’s remark received heavy criticism on twitter from people who disagreed with the comparison of Rosa Park’s struggle to his White House mishap. According to Irish news source the Journal Adams defended his statement on UTV Ireland.

Adams said:

It’s clear that [Sinn Féin] will not accept anything less than equality for ourselves or the people we represent or for everyone else.”

But his defence of equality does not hold up considering he could have drawn from his own experiences of discrimination of which he certainly has many, but instead he chose to draw on the black experience by default. While the discrimination against Sinn Féin members should not be ignored, it should not downplay the struggle of black Americans during the civil rights movement at the same time.

Rosa Parks fought for race equality in a country that still feels the reverberating consequences of its dark history of racism. Adams can continue to admire the strength of the American civil rights movement and fight for equality for his own party, but using the black experience to prove a point is not the way to explain his own discrimination.

Mary Schlichte