White kids not "racially innocent" according to green counci

Post Reply New Topic

Education secretary of state Nadhim Zahawi has previously warned schools not to teach children about white privilege as though it is a 'matter of fact'.

Mr Zahawi said late last year it was a 'contesting view' and teachers who promote it risk pushing 'partisan' politics on pupils.

He added that political issues on race should be taught 'in a balanced and factual manner'.

And he said schools have a 'legal duty' to maintain 'political impartiality' when covering 'sensitive and complex issues'.


While I agree the issue of exposing young children to these concepts at such a young age should be debated first, the education secretary of state is mislabelling a psychological issue with a political one.

The Premise behind the program is already known to psychologists that children exposed to the realities of white privilege (which the secretary admits is a fact) are less likely to be racist. The problem is
1. Whether they will understand the complexity of such an issue at this age
2. If it is presented then it needs to be done in a nuanced fashion through activities rather than actual slides/information.

5-7 years can barely sit through a PPT presentation so I am not sure about this mode of teaching? secondly exposure to such complex nuanced issues needs to be very carefully designed and not hurredly slapped together by an early learning teacher who may well be biased or prejudiced themselves and untrained and may not be the best people to deliver this content in the first place.

Where I live is predominantly white and also a poor rural area.The only white privilege I can think of here is living on land that used to be someone else’s a few hundred years ago.
Being from the South I’ve heard tons of racist names for other people who are different, mostly from the older generation.Not that some young people don’t use that language today but it’s slowly dying out.
People used to call the black insulation board n***** board, to fix something badly was to n***** rig it, a broke bottle was a n***** knife, even the innocent black eyed Susan flower was called a n***** navel , there was a type of firework called a n***** chaser, and Brazil nuts were n***** toes.Everyday language was full of it.

The PowerPoint presentation isn't for the kids, it's for the teacher training session.

Only racism I was guilty of was I was dealing with with white guilt when I was 14 because I found out there were still racist white people so I felt bad that I was white so in Las Vegas I handed my game tickets to a black mother and her kids. I couldn't understand why my mom took offense to that and then said all these men who had been giving me their game tickets was because I had large breasts.

I guess another racist thing I am guilty of was being naïve about other cultures so I may have said things that were racist like when I told a Native American mom at work in Montana her son isn't being discriminated because the short hair rule applies to everyone for the football team.

While I understand now this is a cultural thing, they can make an accommodation like hair must be worn up and have the parents and student sign a contract saying they won't hold the district accountable for any injuries related to long hair. That way they are protected from any liability.

And I remember getting into an argument with funeralexempire about clothing restrictions in restaurants. My argument was, to prove there is no actual discrimination, meet the dress code requirements and then see if they still refuse to serve you. Back when I was fighting to be treated like NT students, I wanted rules to be enforced on everyone so one day my school did a malicious compliance by thinking "okay, since LG wants to be treated like everyone else, lets treat her as if other students acted like her, we will punish her for it." I wonder if they did it to make a point to show me "not everything is equal." What I actually wanted was I didn't want things enforce on me that were not enforced on other students and I didn't want double standards. But comparing my situation to a dress code for public places was comparing apples and oranges.

I was raised racially color blind where everyone pretended everyone was equal regardless of the color of their skin.