Sunday, February 19, 2012

The race industry in all its glory

Kids are inquisitive, it's programmed into them, it's how they learn things. Occasionally they'll ask in all innocence the most embarrassing, daft, occasionally rude questions because they simply want to know. They aren't constrained by terms like political correctness or racism and most parents realise this despite the occasional red face that this causes, sadly other parents don't and along with a rigid enforcing of petty rules by schools due to some poorly written legislation can lead to young children being accused of racism and bigotry despite the fact they don't even know what that means and aren't in the first place.
Mail (usual caveats)
The mother of a seven-year-old boy was told to sign a school form admitting he was racist after he asked another pupil about the colour of his skin.
Elliott Dearlove had asked a five-year-old boy in the playground whether he was ‘brown because he was from Africa’.
His mother, Hayley White, 29, said she received a phone call last month to say her son had been at the centre of a ‘racist incident’.
She was then summoned to a meeting with Elliott, his teacher and the deputy head of Griffin Primary School in Hull.
It's the sort of thing a kid would ask, it doesn't make him a racist, not even a future racist, it just meant he was curious enough to ask.
The school had launched an investigation after the younger boy told his mother about Elliott’s comment and she complained.
Wonder if someone is looking out for a payout or is simply one of these people who is perpetually offended at all the racist white people who live in the UK, because we're all racist us whites, we certainly seem to be constantly told that.
Karl Turner, Labour MP for Kingston upon Hull East, last night insisted that the school and Hull City Council had a statutory duty to take racism seriously.
‘However, having spoken to Hayley, I’m satisfied that her seven-year-old son, Elliott, was not being racist in his remarks but just inquisitive,’ he said.
‘It seems the matter has been taken out of all proportion and common sense seems to have gone completely out of the window.’
Yep, got it in one, so obvious even a Labour MP can see it, schools should take racism seriously just as they should tell anyone who makes a ridiculous accusation to get a life and stop bothering them.
In a statement, Griffin Primary head teacher Janet Adamson said the school had acted ‘in accordance with the council’s guidance for schools on the reporting of racist incidents’.
Vanessa Harvey-Samuel, head of localities and learning at Hull City Council, said: ‘There is a statutory duty to report any incident that is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person.’
Ah, so it's all about perception and following the rules in a jobsworth manner to the point of accusing an inquisitive, curious 7 year old a racist because the mother of another child is so sensitive that they perceive anything said to their kid is potentially racist. Except no-one except the idiots teaching at the school and the parent of the child involved seems to think this was racist in any way.
Good on his mother for not signing the form.

8 annotations:

Durotrigan said...

This is a particularly ridiculous case, and illustrates just how nasty some PC drones can be when they're in positions of authority. For more commentary, as well as a different report from 'This is Hull and East Riding' take a look at http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Boy-7-faces-racism-claim-curious-question-Griffin/story-15265085-detail/story.html

Captain Haddock said...

This, to me sounds like a blatant attempt to blackmail the mother into signing the form ..

Can I still say "Blackmail" ? (not that I give a shit, cos I'm going to anyway) ..

WitteringsfromWitney said...

Have linked, QM.

Restoring Britain said...

When I see such stories I am always reminded of a quotes in the comments section of a similar story of the DM website which went something along the lines of:

"As a black women myself I totally fed up of white middle class people deciding for me what I should and should not feel offended by"

Pretty much sums up the whole game for me.

DerekP said...

From the article linked by Durotrigan, above, here is one-way racism as official policy in action:

Abel Rivera, chief officer of Humber All Nations Alliance, which works with 38 different ethnic groups in Hull to encourage race equality, backed the school.

He said: “The school has to follow its racism policy.

“The boy has singled another pupil out on the basis of his colour. That is discrimination and it’s wrong.”


The boy didn't say anything insulting or offensive, as a brown boy saying the same thing would not have been punished. So, in his own words, the school "..singled another pupil out on the basis of his colour", because he was white.


So much for 'race equality'.

Anonymous said...

I remember when I was a child asking my mother why a child had dark skin and being told it was because he came from a country with a lot of sun. That satisfied me totally and I never gave it another thought, so much easier in those days.

Anonymous said...

When I was in the army, I served with a black guy whom I called Midnight. He called me Daylight. We would have gone to the end of the Earth for each other.
I do wonder what the usual suspects would have made of the nicknames we gave each other and which one of us would be facing disciplinary action today.

Britney said...

The greatest racism comes from the left, as usual. They work so hard to keep racism alive (when the vast majority of people just want to get on with life, irrespective of outer differences) that you suspect that they are using racism not to make people 'aware' but to find ways of browbeating the population.

The left has always sought to attack and subjugate people and how handy they have found another way.