Political Incorrectness to the Extreme

[English Lady]

But, as EL said, no doubt there's a spate of "monkey" name-calling going on now.

Kids learn from us adults, and if they have positive role-models, they will flourish. If people pussy-foot around them, thinking they have their best interest at heart, those kids will grow up thinking no different.

Kids have a certain amount of innocence and naivity, which is wonderful... it's us grown ups who take that away and tell them what is "right and wrong".

In short: we enforce our beliefs and stereotypes on them, often unknowingly.

You said just what I was going to say

 

[scheherazade_79]

The teachers were just fine, it was one of the mothers who was being an arse. There are some damn fine teachers out there.

LOL, already done that... both my girls know the basics of karate.

Offer them £5 every time they put it into practice

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

The whole thing sounds like an episode of South Park. Our thoughtful, earnest discussion* has certain aspects of that, also - it's hard to avoid in such a situation.


*I say this with complete sincerity and no irony - it is thoughtful and earnest.

 

[scheherazade_79]

The whole thing sounds like an episode of South Park. Our thoughtful, earnest discussion* has certain aspects of that, also - it's hard to avoid in such a situation.


*I say this with complete sincerity and no irony - it is thoughtful and earnest.

That was very diplomatic, Roxanne. I'm relieved you're not ganging up on me, too. But do you know what? Bring it on! I'm not budging in my viewpoint

 

[R. Richard]

I can understand what you're all saying about how the kids chose to be monkeys, but at that age maybe it's not best that kids always have their own way. What about a fat kid who wanted to play a pig? How would it affect their self-image? How would it affect the way that the other kids saw them?

While you're at it, why not let the kid with jam-jar glasses be the owl? Or the kid in the wheelchair a farm tractor? Or the shy kid a sheep?

They might see it as fun at the time, but it reinforces lots of unhealthy stereotypes.

I'm not a member of the PC brigade - ask any of my friends. But I do think it's wrong to let this happen at such a sensitive stage of a child's development.

I have seen any number of kids and even adults who coped with "being different" by themselves making fun of their difference. Once a person makes fun of his/her own difference, it defuses the attempts of others to ridicule them. As soon as a kid tried to hide the obvious, the would be bullies target the difference.

 

[scheherazade_79]

I have seen any number of kids and even adults who coped with "being different" by themselves making fun of their difference. Once a person makes fun of his/her own difference, it defuses the attempts of others to ridicule them. As soon as a kid tried to hide the obvious, the would be bullies target the difference.

I wasn't suggesting hiding it, by casting them as polar bears or swans or something.

I don't know... I'm getting bored with this debate. Maybe the school went along with it to save on dark face paint or something...

 

[ABSTRUSE]

I'm going to write a kids play about cookies where children will be cast in the role of Oreo's and chocolate chip cookies so the world can live in harmony again.

 

[scheherazade_79]

I'm going to write a kids play about cookies where children will be cast in the role of Oreo's and chocolate chip cookies so the world can live in harmony again.

What are Oreo's?

 

[ABSTRUSE]

What are Oreo's?

About $2 a package if you're lucky.

 

[scheherazade_79]

About $2 a package if you're lucky.

Are they biscuits or sweets?

 

[Zeb_Carter]

These are Oreo's...

http://www.mises.org/images2/oreos.gif

... they are sweet.

 

[scheherazade_79]

These are Oreo's...

http://www.mises.org/images2/oreos.gif

... they are sweet.

... so where are the Chinese kids represented in these?

ABS! I'm setting the PC police on you! Beware!

 

[Katyusha]

And if the two kids had wanted to play porcupines?

Apparently, it was the kids that choose what animals thery were going to play. I wonder what would have happened if the school teachers had said "No, you can't play monkeys, because you're black."

I think it's a Catch-22 in this kind of a situation. With people who are that sensitive to racism (be it from past experiences or just a high awareness of it) you almost can't win. Myles' parents may have been just as upset by this if Myles had come home and said, "I wanted to play a monkey but they wouldn't let me or the other black kid..." and then again, the parents may have praised the school for doing something like that. Perceived racism is a monster because it's impossible to know how every single person in every single minority group in any given country will interpret something like this.

Reality is what we perceive it to be, and my reality may be different from your reality...doesn't make it any less real. Racism is very real to those who feel they've been a victim of it, whether the other side sees it that way or not. I'm glad that the parents and the school are at least being amicable about this; they could have gone straight to a lawyer or in some other way brought the law into this, instead of their charity to have meetings with the school.

BTW...it's interesting reading about political and other happenings in other countries. Most of the forums I post in have an almost solely American base, and so any discussions of this nature are always American. So thanks for the education, all y'all who are British, Canadian, and whatever other nationalities.

 

[FallingToFly]

Probably, yes. It's singling them out as different from all the other pupils and emphasises the difference between people of various skin colours.

And yet three other boys were monkeys as well.. so obviously it wasn't that the "monkeys" as a whole were made up of black students. Had that been the case, I would have whole-heartedly supported your viewpoint.. but it comes down to kids being kids and liking the animals they like (or clothes, or whatever) rather than racism. *makes a face* Just because my boys dress up in my nighties and run around in my heels while wearing brightly colored barettes in their hair doesn't mean I'm trying to cast them as drag queens, does it? They like doing that, for them it's fun. I'm sure all FIVE of the Monkey-Boy Troupe from this school would tell you that they liked pretending to be monkeys. They're SEVEN, for Chrissakes!

 

[Katyusha]

Are they biscuits or sweets?

Sandwich biscuits. Chocolate with nummy white cream in the middle...or yellow with nummy chocolate cream in the middle...or drenched in chocolate with nummy mint cream in the center...

Dammit...I haven't had Oreos in forever.

 

[Liar]

Am I a pervert if Oreos makes me think of interracial treesomes?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Stories like this remind me of just how impossible it must be, to be a school administrator these days.
The school could have told the media;
"There is a band of FIVE monkeys, and three of them are played by white children."
And that would be all I'd say. Over and over and over.

But school principals are only human, and they were never trained for their new job, which is politics.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Am I a pervert if Oreos makes me think of interracial treesomes?

Ok, you're a pervert!

 

[oggbashan]

Type casting for Og

At one of my schools I was cast as 'Tinkerbelle' in the Peter Pan production because I could be off stage ringing a bell.

At age 10 I was out of scale compared with the other pupils. I could have played a giant, but there are no giants in Peter Pan.

At an earlier school I was blacked-up as a Nigger Minstrel. That school now has a majority of non-White pupils. Then - we had none.

At my first secondary school I was the understudy to one of the Three Little Maids in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado because I was a treble.

I, and the producer, hoped and prayed that I wouldn't be required. Though a first-former I was taller and larger than almost all the rest of the cast. I wasn't needed. I sung off-stage to reinforce the chorus.

What do you do with a pupil who is so much larger than his contemporaries?

Og

 

[Tom Collins]

You'd never give them that reason. You'd make up a bullshit story about how lots of people wanted to be monkeys, and you'd lie and say that you pulled names out of a hat for who got which part.

I can understand what you're all saying about how the kids chose to be monkeys, but at that age maybe it's not best that kids always have their own way. What about a fat kid who wanted to play a pig? How would it affect their self-image? How would it affect the way that the other kids saw them?

While you're at it, why not let the kid with jam-jar glasses be the owl? Or the kid in the wheelchair a farm tractor? Or the shy kid a sheep?

They might see it as fun at the time, but it reinforces lots of unhealthy stereotypes.

I'm not a member of the PC brigade - ask any of my friends. But I do think it's wrong to let this happen at such a sensitive stage of a child's development.

The idea being put forward here is that you shouldn't single someone out and have them do or be something because of how they look or who they are because that's discrimination.

It seems to me that if you disallow the coke-bottle glasses kid from being the owl or the black kid from being the monkey or the fat kid from being the pig or the parapaligic kid from playing the tractor, when that's what they want, then you're discriminating against them just as much...you're still singling them out as being different from the others.

Seems to me that they were just a bunch of unconcerned kids having a good time until a fucking adult opened her mouth and started screaming discrimination when there wasn't any such thing happening. Now the children have had it shoved in their faces and there will probably be all sorts of talks in the school with all of the children, trying to teach them to not discriminate and to be politically correct. This will ram it further into their awareness and now they'll start being conciously aware of the differences between them, thereby making it more likely that they'll become bigoted.

I'm so tired of people seeing discrimiation in everything. What makes it worse is that we, as a society, have traded or form of acceptable discrimiation for another. A person can become a social pariah simply for making a bad choice of words.

I reference Ross Perot while he was running for president. He was giving a speech somewhere and he said something along the lines of "You people need to stop whining".The problem with this was that he said "you people" to a room full of black people. He wasn't speaking about the people in the room specifically, he was refering to Americans in general and the phrase "you people" is very common and generic in Texas, which is where he's from. Naturally everyone there took offence and started yelling that he was talking only about black people and the press blew it way out of proportion and it was a huge, nasty incident. He lost a lot of votes over it when he didn't mean anything by it. So, he was discriminated against because he happened to choose his words badly and inadvertantly offended a lot of people who will take offence at the drop of a hat anyway and tend to carry around a Fedora at all times.

BTW...I'm not a Perot fan and was very glad that he lost the election...LMAO...but that's not the point.

 

[Tom Collins]

... so where are the Chinese kids represented in these?

ABS! I'm setting the PC police on you! Beware!

The Chinese kids can be the peanut butter Oreos.

 

[Tom Collins]

Am I a pervert if Oreos makes me think of interracial treesomes?

Dude...yer just a pervert...no matter what you're thinking of...we all know that already. *cheeky grin*

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

That was very diplomatic, Roxanne. I'm relieved you're not ganging up on me, too. But do you know what? Bring it on! I'm not budging in my viewpoint

Nah - I appreciate all the points that you've raised, and the point someone else raised about a Catch-22 situation, and also your points about how even absent PC run amok there are thorny issues of teaching kids to sensitive and avoiding certain stereotypes.

If I wanted to pick a fight with the left at this point, in most places I would say the whole thing is a good demonstration of why a voucher system would be superior, and would avoid the problems inherent in "one-size-fits-all" public schools. But that won't work here - AH is admirably open-minded on that issue!

 

[Tom Collins]

At one of my schools I was cast as 'Tinkerbelle' in the Peter Pan production because I could be off stage ringing a bell.

At age 10 I was out of scale compared with the other pupils. I could have played a giant, but there are no giants in Peter Pan.

At an earlier school I was blacked-up as a Nigger Minstrel. That school now has a majority of non-White pupils. Then - we had none.

At my first secondary school I was the understudy to one of the Three Little Maids in Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado because I was a treble.

I, and the producer, hoped and prayed that I wouldn't be required. Though a first-former I was taller and larger than almost all the rest of the cast. I wasn't needed. I sung off-stage to reinforce the chorus.

What do you do with a pupil who is so much larger than his contemporaries?

Og

Be nice to him and hope he doesn't squish your head with his gigantic hands? *snerk*

They should have cast you as Hook. He's an adult and suposed to be bigger than the Lost Boys.

 

[S-Des]

Reminds me of a story. A young, white teacher in a mostly black school was having success with difficult kids. She was trying some non-traditional teaching methods to get through to them. Among the youth she was considered one of the best teachers.

One night a student showed his mom a book he was working out of for school to ask for help. The mom was shocked at the content. To her, it seemed to be racist (especially coming from a white teacher). The parent immediately started calling other parents and complaining, by noon the next day the situation had become so extreme that the principle had to hold a meeting in the auditorium with all the parents.

The meeting was on the edge of becoming a riot with parents screaming, swearing and threatening. The young woman ran to the office in tears and begged her fiancee to come pick her up immediately, afraid her life was in danger. There was no discipline hearing, she simply quit and never returned to the school.

The book was written by a black teacher to help kids identify with black role models. It's used by a number of black teachers without ever receiving a complaint. Racism and bigotry is far too often a result of people looking for racism and bigotry. They are themselves often the bigots.