British values lessons 'racist'

[lancelot]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6535089.stm

My first thought on this... surprise that it took this long for someone to start waving the racism flag.

At the NUT conference, in Harrogate, Ms Ghale said Education Secretary Alan Johnson had described the "values we hold very dear in Britain" as "free speech, tolerance, respect for the rule of law".

"Well, in what way, I'd like to know, are these values that are not held by the peoples of other countries?" she said.

I loved this part...

1) yea, nearly every country has these values...

2) even if they did...its wrong to talk about it?

For some people, racism lay behind notions of what it meant to be British, she said.

So? Same could be true for any people anywhere...so lets not talk about something incase someone has a racist agenda behind it...right...

To demand that people conform to an imposed view of Britishness only fuels that racism," Ms Ghale said.

So by suggesting that x group of people have x values generally speaking equates a propagation of racism...ok

What a wack job...and most conveniently this woman has forgot the one crucial element of racism... it has to make some comment on RACE!!!!

I did not see once reference to race in this Britishness lessons.

This is the real problem today...someone makes a comment on 'values' 'culture' or whatever and calls 'racism.' I think people need to think really hard about what the word racism really means and stop crying foul whenever something comes along that doesnt fit their world view.

I have to ask...even if these 'lessons' consisted of x white people did this and then x white people did that, then they all lived happily whitely ever after etc etc...is this racism? Not in my book.