The footballer Troy Deeney is launching an impassioned plea for more widespread teaching of black, Asian and minority ethnic experiences by schools in England, to help combat racism and give children “a balanced and inclusive understanding” of Britain.
'Balanced'..? Really? I suspect that that's the last thing he really wants.
“I have seen more and more how important it is for my children to be able to see themselves represented in what they are being taught, and learn about the contribution and background of people who look like them,” Deeney said.
“The importance of education at an early age to inform identity and combat racist beliefs and stereotypes cannot be understated.”
As I suspected. What 'stereotypes' do you want to combat, I wonder? The stereotypes of black footballers as barely human savages given far too much money but unable to disguise their basic natures? The stereotype of black people as fools who see 'the enemy' even when the police are trying to help them catch the murderer of one of their own?
“As my mum always says to me, you can’t understand where you’re going if you don’t understand where you’ve come from. Whether it’s too late for my generation, we need to lay a pathway for longer-lasting change for our kids as I believe the current system is failing children from ethnic minorities,” Deeney said.
How, exactly, is it failing children? How did you do at school?
He was excluded from school at the age of 15 and left without any qualifications. Later, as a professional footballer, he studied and passed GCSEs in English, maths and science.
Say no more. Maybe if young black children aspired to do more with their lives than kick a ball (or their cat!) around, it'd be a start, eh?
If there is such a gap (but thanks to some of the media, it's a lot narrower than used to be) it's part of the parent's job to fill it. Every child needs to learn about all the bastards who are out to screw them. Every child needs to learn the life skills to dodge the bullets and pass those skills on to their children in turn. Troy Deeney's achievements make him particularly well qualified to fill the gap. His children are lucky.
ReplyDeleteThey are, but the attention he's courting is from people who will one day turn on him for 'having too much' and giving his children an 'unfair advantage'...
DeleteA lot af asian and "minority ethnics" seem to get along fine. It's the black ones who seem to struggle.
ReplyDeleteAs a white man, I simply do not accept that this is my fault or that it has anything to do with the fundamentals of the society my forebears built (with essentially zero input from these "oppressed" minorities, many of whom do far better here - far better than it would ever be possible - than in the societies they create left to themselves). And I absolutely will not be moralised to by one such as this.
I have been driving for almost 40 years and in that time have owned around 30 cars. If, for the sake of argument, they had all been Fords and every one had ended up wrapped round a tree, and I wrote a snotty letter to the boss of Ford complaining about his cars, how would he respond?
Assuming he did, a perfectly valid response would be "maybe it's not our cars - or the roads, the weather, sunspots.....- maybe it's you?
Spot on!
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