No, I don’t know why you think that. On the whole, white and South Asians get on very well…
Thats fair - but I remember a fair amount of “Paki” comments in the 90s when I was doing a lot of business in London.
Looks like you had your own Rosa Parks, Paul Stephenson:
But some of the other articles I looked at mentioned that the UK did not have much non-white immigration until the 1950s - so it makes sense.
No, we don’t.
That’s because most children in the US don’t learn a thing about sub-Saharan African history. That would involve actually featuring something about historical African cultures (other than Egypt) in the curriculum. Most schoolchildren have probably never even seen the word “Bantu”.
That was mentioned when I went to school.
Never heard of him.
Regarding the word Paki - in my whole life somebody’s said to me probably 4 or 5 times. I never experienced any major issues because of my race in UK.
I remember when our social studies teacher gave us a talk on racism when I was in third grade. Apparently someone had used the term “wetback”, and she gave us a lecture about racial slurs, and the history of racism in America. So yeah, it’s NOT too early, not if kids that young are using words like that.
Great post.
If one looks at racial policies in Britain’s colonial empire, there’s probably a lot more stuff to draw from IMHO.
These are also milestones for the world (well, the last 3, certainly). It doesn’t matter that they didn’t happen in the UK - they’re still worth learning about.
Kids have eyes. Even if you don’t tell them anything about race, they’re still going to wonder why they are brown and that guy is white and that girl has differently shaped eyes, and so on. They’re certainly going to hear about it from their peers (as one of them apparently already has).
The only thing that goes away when you pretend it isn’t there is the monster under your bed.
It varies by region. In London, no. In the Midlands and the North, yes. Elsewhere, there generally aren’t any significant numbers of nonwhite people.
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No, I don’t know why you think that. On the whole, white and South Asians get on very well…
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Maybe in the sense that there are no LA-style South Asian race riots, but it would be misleading to say there are no racial tensions.
[QUOTE=Qin Shi Huangdi]
If one looks at racial policies in Britain’s colonial empire, there’s probably a lot more stuff to draw from IMHO.
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They made a pretty good film about it. Ghandi or something. However, most Britons justifiably consider the empire as “apart”, and there is remarkably little taught in history classes about that sort of thing. To be fair, there’s remarkably little taught in history classes about any topic in British schools because there’s so much time to cover.
You gotta take all my bets if you take a single one…they’re a package deal. My apologies for the hair-trigger post o’ mine.
I was never taught anything about race or civil rights per se in school. Attending a southern high school (in the 70s) that was half black helped form my world view, certainly. I’m pretty sure I was racially abused on a daily basis. 
At least, we certainly kept our mouths shut and our heads down to avoid confrontations.
The kid may figure out on her own that some folks look different and dress differently, and self-describe as “black” culturally. She may even decide on her own that average behaviour varies according to groups. So I think your concern that “teaching” this (at any age) is misplaced. I don’t think you’ll ever get agreement about what to teach or what age to teach it; like most age dependent topics, it depends on the kids and the teacher. For example, it’s pretty darn popular to teach about the european slave trade; a little less popular to teach about arabs enslaving africans.
It would be nice to see all history simply taught as history. Some of the original impetus for “black” this-that-and-the-other was a sense that black history was ignored or improperly presented in mainline textbooks.
It seems to me that singling out “black” history for special treatment diminishes the status of blacks, because it makes it look like they have to have some special help to make their story significant. Sort of like having a special ed maths class, for example, or Pulaski Day here in Chicago.
You have to remember that high school history classes don’t necessarily want to get all academic about history. Their reason for existence is to promote a national narrative to the younger generation, and to some extent, I’m fine with prioritizing that people at least know their own historical origins. The European slave trade is directly relevant to American history. For about half of our (Southern public high school graduate here as well) classmates it answers the question, “how did my family end up here, now?” For everyone it answered the question “why did the South end up the way it is.”
Arab slaving isn’t relevant at all to that narrative except as context for European slaving. And yet I think you’ll find that most people who care have some inkling that Arabs and Africans were enslaving Africans before Europeans started enslaving Africans. I was definitely taught so, as early as elementary school.
Caveat: Arab slaving would be extremely relevant if the people writing the history curriculum wanted to include African history. But truly they didn’t include European history either so there’s no slight to blacks there. Our classes generally began with Indian cultures and then skipped ahead to the sixteenth century and early colonization.
I don’t think this is sound, specifically the “makes it look like they have to have some special help.” You’re thinking it has to be adversarial.
To answer the OP, yes, they should be taught about racism, forever, in the sense of “don’t hate people for who they are.” The specifics are always open to question but I don’t think there’s anything unusual about young kids in Britain learning about Rosa Parks, if they’ve already rolled through the British icons.
As a child in the 70s, I attended an extremely liberal school, and the heavy-handed attempts to teach us about race took the following formats:
- black people are just as good as white people (without this, I’d have never thought to question it) and “we” cruelly enslaved them and treat them badly. Look at all the awful stuff we’ve done! Feel guilty, unless you’re a racist jerk!
- this land was originally settled by various native tribes, all of which were far more noble, kind, and unwasteful than us. “We” killed them with guns and disease after they welcomed us, and we stole their land. Feel terrible for our selfish, greedy behavior!
- Jewish people aren’t like regular white people, and have been horribly mistreated by “us.” Feel sick about what “we” have allowed to occur, unless you’re a Nazi!
Even though I was already the victim of the local xenophobia, being of mixed-ethnic heritage, the constant harping on race did not make me feel any better. Most of the students were white, but certainly not all, and the idea that individuals who were not of European descent were somehow “inferior” would never have crossed my mind. We were hammered over and over with all of this guilt we were supposed to feel, and I really don’t think it helped anything. It would have been better never to mention it at all.
Hey, AnaMen joined just to make that post!
I spent most of my early years in an unincorporated area between Houston & Galveston, but attended the Pasadena Independent School District. Pasadena was a sundown town in those days. Houston had segregated schools, Pasadena had no need; the Mexican kids counted as white for those purposes.
There was little official teaching about racism. Our elementary school music teacher added the last verse of “The Battle Hymn of The Republic” to the end of our annual Christmas pageant–to support civil rights. (I don’t remember if this was widely known in the community.)
Even earlier, I repeated the N word at home, learned from my classmates. My grandmother threatened to wash my mouth out with soap if I ever repeated it. I haven’t…
Things are better there now. The Mexican-American minority has become the majority, there are some African-American families & a fair number of Asian-Americans…
Who is “we”? I know only a very tiny minority of people on the far left fringe in a few colleges who believe that racism is exclusive to whites. Certainly, I have never seen your claim actually taught in schools.
We do not teach about Arab slaving for the same reasons that we do not teach about the rise and fall of the Abayassids or the Turks, (or, frankly, the Mings, etc.). Their stories do not progress in a straight line to the European settlement of North America and so get treated rather sketchily or are ignored.
As to the slavery of Africa before the intervention of Arabs and Europeans: we also do not talk about intra-European slavery that lasted from pre-Roman times right up until the early Renaissance. It was a different type of slavery and, while we should probably let kids know more about it, it does not have a direct bearing on the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
As to Africans capturing Africans for sale to Europeans, that does get mentioned, depending on the level at which one is teaching. It was, after all, the power and wealth that those slave takers amassed that led to much of the early colonial disruption of Africa. (And there is always some guy with a (figurative) white hood in his closet willing to make a big deal about African slave takers if it does not get mentioned loudly enough. Limbaugh and several of his compatriots have gone off on the topic numerous times.)
Probably junior high school before it really registered.
Probably 40 or so before I understood it.
So tell me again when white people were enslaved by non-whites; when white people were subjected to segregation; or when white people were second class citizens under apartheid?
Some black guy disliking you based on the color of your skin is not the same thing as apartheid. You can’t just wave away the history of white racism by pointing your finger at Louis Farrakhan and say “see, they’re just as bad as we are”
Are you trying to excuse white slavers for their involvement in slavery because they bought the slaves from black people?
The only way your claim can be true is if you are counting human trafficking Human trafficking - Wikipedia or some other form ogf ILLEGAL slavery and debt bondage Debt bondage - Wikipedia
But putting that aside, how does that excuse slavery, segregation, apartheid, etc.?
Or German-American, Polish-American, Chinese-American, or any other kind of -American, for that matter. All of my friends are either co-workers or former co-workers.
Touched a sore nerve did we ?
Judging by ther number of strawmen that you’ve erected.
Same old tactics.
Always the same when we burst the bubble of “Its only Whitey who can be racist”.
A couple of quick points.
White people were enslaved by Arabs from at least the Middle ages up until possibly the 19th c, though in not so large numbers as Africans, because Europeans tended not to attack their neighbours for the sole purpose of capturing slaves for sale as the Africans did.
(Though undoubtedly it did happen IMO)
Western nations made slavery illegal a long time ago, and many White people died making that so, but Africans still practice the enslavement of their own people, right now, right this instant, right while you’re reading this post .
So why are you acting so indignantly about long dead people while acting as an apologist for present day slavers ?
Let alone publicising the fate of todays slaves and actually DOING something about it !
Could it be because the present day slavers are Black Africans ?
That the “outrage” at slavery is merely a stick to beat Whitey with, rather then any genuine sentiment concerned with the plight of human beings who are enslaved ?
The number of crocodile tears shed by Black racists on this subject could allow me to make a full set of politically incorrect luggage, plus matching crocodile skin belt and shoes.
I of course do not include you personally amongst the ranks of Black racists, using slavery as a political pretext.
Wow, instilling a sense of guilt and victimisation early in the UK.
To balance it out you could refer her to this talk on a Marae discussing Pakeha (NZ european) whakapapa (ancestry).
That is a pretty silly claim. Nothing in the OP talks about anything that would instill a sense of guilt or victimization.
Your response comes across as psychological projection. 