July 11, 2008
Racism? Overzealous Political Correctness? No, Just Utter Stupidity.
“Idiotic” is the only word I can think of regarding these two unrelated, but too-similar stories:
Nursery alert for racist toddlers Nursery staff must be alert for racist remarks among toddlers, a [U.K.] government-sponsored agency report has said.
The National Children’s Bureau guide, Young Children and Racial Justice, is meant to help identify potentially racist attitudes in youngsters.
OK, so far, so good. After all, prejudice is learned, and learned early, right? And there are certain red flags in childhood that indicate a possible tendency toward, say, serial murder. So it’s not unreasonable to watch for signs of “potentially racist attitudes,” and try to steer a child in the right direction.
The 336-page guide said staff should investigate the reasons behind apparent racial prejudice.It said: “A child may react negatively to a culinary tradition other than their own by saying, ‘Yuck!”‘.
That may indicate a lack of familiarity with that particular food, or “more seriously a reaction to a food associated with people from a particular ethnic or cultural community”.
What? Are they serious? Did it ever occur to these people that kids say “Yuck!” because, oh, I dunno, maybe the food in question just tastes lousy?
Let’s see… When I was a kid, I hated tomatoes and mushrooms. And since tomatoes and mushrooms are key ingredients in pasta sauce… OMG! That must mean I hated Italians! (Never mind that I’m an Italian-American.) And now that I’m grown up, and I love tomatoes and mushrooms, that must mean I’ve stopped hating Italians.
One more thing: I happen to have a very special fondness for Filipinos (I don’t know why; I just do), and have always wanted to visit the Philippines — but you couldn’t pay me to put a balut in my mouth, no matter who I offended. Do I associate baluts with Filipinos? Sure. Does refusing to eat a two-week-old, half-formed duck embryo in the shell mean I’m having a racist reaction to Filipinos? No, it means I refuse to eat a two-week-old, half-formed duck embryo in the shell, that’s what it means.
Next, an illustration of the frightening ignorance of one Dallas city commissioner, and one Dallas judge:
Dallas County officials spar over ‘black hole’ comment A special meeting about Dallas County traffic tickets turned tense and bizarre this afternoon.
County commissioners were discussing problems with the central collections office that is used to process traffic ticket payments and handle other paperwork normally done by the JP Courts.
Commissioner Kenneth Mayfield, who is white, said it seemed that central collections “has become a black hole” because paperwork reportedly has become lost in the office.
Commissioner John Wiley Price, who is black, interrupted him with a loud “Excuse me!” He then corrected his colleague, saying the office has become a “white hole.”
That prompted Judge Thomas Jones, who is black, to demand an apology from Mayfield for his racially insensitive analogy.
Mayfield shot back that it was a figure of speech and a science term. …
Good god, every ten-year-old knows what a black hole is!
I bet Price and Jones think the word “niggardly” (adj, “scant, meager, very little”) is a racist slur, too.
Adds the Dallas Morning News:
A black hole, according to Webster’s, is perhaps “the invisible remains of a collapsed star, with an intense gravitational field from which neither light nor matter can escape.”
What do they call collapsed matter so dense that neither light nor matter can penetrate it? Is there such a term? If not, there should be — in honor of John Wiley Price.
Filed under: Education/Schools, Race/Ethnic Issues, Random Stupidity, Texas, United Kingdom & N.I.
