A primary school in Telford has put a 10 year old boy on a “racism register” for a comment made in the playground. The entry on the register can only be removed with the permission of a British government minister and will remain on the childs school record.
The reason? The white boy was talking to another white boy in the playground about Doctor Who. The boy was trying to explain which episode of Doctor Who he was talking about and said “you know, the one with the packie woman in it”. A white girl in the playground overheard it and told a teacher.
Ok, I understand that the word “packie” is a derogatory name for an Asian but to a 10 year old boy it’s just another word that lots of people use to refer to an Asian person. In a previous job, the Asians I worked with used to call each other “packie” all the time. It’s all about context.
“Eskimo” is a derogatory term for an Inuit so would he be put on the register for that? How about for referring to a French person as a “frog” or a German person as a “kraut”? No Asian person complained about what the boy said yet he’s been branded a racist at the age of 10 years old.
Bloody stupdid in fact who ever thought it up should go on a stupid interfearing nanny register.
My daughter got into terrible trouble at secondary school when she was twelve by calling a girl whose mother is french, a “french frog”. What the girl’s mother didn’t accept was provocation or at least mitigation was that this girl had just called my daughter “french fry” as an insult to my daughter’s extremely long thin white legs. Apparently being told your legs look like uncooked chips (when they do) is not insulting but being told you are of french extraction (when you are)is racist. The racist charge is permanently on her record.
It’s double standards and I hate it. It’s easily the worst things about the Blair regime.
Absolutely shocking. But at the same time, why are we surprised? I actually only first heard of the word “paki” when I was accused of calling an Asian boy “a paki”, probably also when I was about 10. (I hadn’t, by the way.)
Yeah, but people don’t get murdered on the grounds of having skinny legs, spots on their face, or ginger hair, or being fat. People are murdered on the grounds of their race, nationality, religion or sexual orientation. Fact.
And those of you who rail against schools ‘policing’ this kind of discrimination may want to wonder whether you may have should have gone: with your grammar and spelling, and general lack of reasoned or coherent argument, you would have faced discrimination as ‘thickies.’ Now that one might need bringing back.
*may have
But the argument still holds.
Being called a nazi still tops everything 🙂