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.

[Crazed Rabbit]

The acronym is certainly appropriate for her: NUT.

How are ideas about values racist? Unless, of course, one assumes as this lady does that certain races of people all have the same values that can't be changed. Who's the racist now?

But some find it easier to scream racism at anything and everything they dislike, I suppose.

CR

[Marshal Murat]

Racism requires race.

Anything else is just ethnocentrism.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

I seriously doubt that kids are being taught 'how to be British', in any case. It's not like the teachers are going to be sitting the kids down, and going '"this is what it means to be British". No children are going to be complaining about "having Britishness after lunch." They're just citizenship lessons, most school systems have them.

I have no idea where she's getting racism from.

In any case, she supports France in the Euros but Brazil in the World Cup, making her an obvious glory supporter and thus beneath contempt. And she's a Spurs fan! Could I dislike this woman more?!

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

I think she is saying that these values should be described "human" (or universal, so to speak) values as opposed to "British" values and that the fact they are presented as British values is "racist".

[Hosakawa Tito]

Paging Al Sharpton.....

[Crazed Rabbit]

I think she is saying that these values should be described "human" (or universal, so to speak) values as opposed to "British" values and that the fact they are presented as British values is "racist".

'British' isn't a race.

CR

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I think she is saying that these values should be described "human" (or universal, so to speak) values as opposed to "British" values and that the fact they are presented as British values is "racist".

Since we have to assume labeling something this intangible as "British" means that they have intellectually "called dibs" and we all have to look for our values elsewhere. Guess we'll end up with "Idaho: Great Potatos" since all the other stuff will have been taken.

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

That's why I used quotation marks. And besides, racism nowadays does not necessarily mean prejudice against a race but also an ethnicity, a culture, a people.