For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
  • 1
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32
By Paultheparaglider
#1857043
@kanga , I don't agree that your article is more nuanced.

The historical reality is that racism in the US is largely a matter of white prejudice, and to eliminate it you need to convince white society that it is wrong and unjust. Black people already know it is unjust. They don't need convincing.

Had Atticus Finch been black, the whole underlying message of Mockingbird would be lost. That is, that a decent right thinking white person accepted racism as fundamentally unjust, and wanted to pass that message to his children. It certainly left a very strong impression on me, as a relatively privileged white male, that such open minded thinking is the way forward, and that racism was and is plainly wrong.

It is one thing to argue that times have moved on, but the underlying message in Mockingbird still stands. The notion that Atticus was a white saviour is to miss the whole point. He wasn't a white saviour - he was a fair minded individual who believed people were equal. He was, and still should be, an important role model.

By the way, I selected the article from the Mail because it is not a subscription paper unlike, say, the Times and the Telegraph which also carried articles. The Mail may often take a certain line, but that does not mean it is always wrong.

It is one thing to promote inclusion. I don't have a problem with that. But, in my opinion, sometimes it is better to face issues head on. Racism is one such matter. Tucking it away in a politically correct cupboard is not, in my own opinion, the best way to eradicate it.
nallen, eltonioni, kanga and 2 others liked this
User avatar
By Flyingfemme
#1857067
Why is there a need to "find yourself represented" in the subjects you are studying? In English Lit, to A level, I don't remember ever finding myself "represented" in Shakespeare, Austen or Chaucer. It made no difference. My main memory of that study was how one, particular teacher made all the stuff we studied interesting and engaging. Maybe the quality of teachers is lacking in these schools?
AndyR, skydriller liked this
User avatar
By kanga
#1857195
Paultheparaglider wrote:@kanga , I don't agree that your article is more nuanced.

The historical reality is that racism in the US is largely a matter of white prejudice, ..you need to convince white society that it is wrong and unjust. Black people already know it is unjust. They don't need convincing.

Had Atticus Finch been black, the whole underlying message of Mockingbird would be lost. ..It certainly left a very strong impression on me, .., .. that racism was and is plainly wrong.

.. But, in my opinion, sometimes it is better to face issues head on. Racism is one such matter. Tucking it away in a politically correct cupboard is not, in my own opinion, the best way to eradicate it.


I readily accept all of that, PtPG. But I do sympathise with the 2 teachers, who were talking to colleagues at their conference not (as I read it) declaring a new ideology-based policy to prospectve parents. Decades ago when I (and, presumably, most Forumites even if not as ancient as I am :roll: ) were in school in UK, I'm guessing that they (and most Scots pupils whether in 'elite' or 'mainstream' schools) were in (nearly) all white classes with (nearly) all white teachers. In such milieux, 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (book and film) may indeed have both enlightened them as to the reality of the US then (which persisted in some parts thereof until at least the '80s, in my experience there then), and to provoke useful reflection which a good English teacher could elicit in class of the morals and ethics involved. It was therefore quite right to use it as teaching material.

But as one of the Scots teachers is quoted as saying, the book becomes more 'problematical' for a teacher planning a lesson in an era when a great many of the pupils in an English class may not be white, and some may have very personal and recent reasons to identify with Tom Robinson. The discussion will inevitably be different. There may be a case for leaving the book off the reading list, or at least using it only with the more mature students, eg those at Highers (or, in England and Wales, A-levels).

Equally obviously (I hope) there should be no reason to take copies out of the school library, nor 'banning' it any sense. But, as I read the article, neither teacher was suggesting this.
Paultheparaglider liked this
User avatar
By Rob L
#1857211
Paultheparaglider wrote:A school in Edinburgh has decided to ban the book To Kill a Mockingbird due to "White saviour" attitude.

I studied this book at school, and it left me with a strong impression of the evils of racism. Yes, some of the attitudes are those of its time, but what book isn't written in the context of its time?

This is a powerful book, and removing it is just another sad slide into a political correctness morass of gross stupidity.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... e-Men.html


To Kill a Mockingbird was and is one of my favorite books; many times read (it is one of the few books I love that was turned into a film that reflected the writer's empathy*).

Rob

*ps "A Town Like Alice" is another.
kanga, Paultheparaglider, Rob P and 1 others liked this
User avatar
By Sooty25
#1857226
Paultheparaglider wrote:
The historical reality is that racism in the US is largely a matter of white prejudice, and to eliminate it you need to convince white society that it is wrong and unjust. Black people already know it is unjust. They don't need convincing.



Has anyone ever stopped to consider where the various races would be right now had white folk not taken west Africans to the Americas? If they'd left Africa as it was and not influenced its development?
User avatar
By HedgeSparrow
#1857323
Sooty25 wrote:Has anyone ever stopped to consider where the various races would be right now had white folk not taken west Africans to the Americas? If they'd left Africa as it was and not influenced its development?


PBS America (Freesat channel 155) are starting a series on Saturday called "Africa's Great Civilisations".
I've set our DVR to record.
kanga liked this
By Bill McCarthy
#1857325
Tribes in Africa have been fighting each other with the assegai for centuries now they use the AK47. Anyway, the Chinese have moved in, big time, and the Africans are being enslaved in their own countries.
User avatar
By Sooty25
#1857345
Bill McCarthy wrote:Tribes in Africa have been fighting each other with the assegai for centuries now they use the AK47.


yes, I've heard them first hand, about 200 yards away! The chap I was with just said "don't worry they'd never hit you from there", and returned to his beer. :shock:
By A4 Pacific
#1864006
I heard that the word curry is now considered non pc.


There’s going to be an awful lot of folks out of work if all those establishments selling curry have to close due to being ‘non PC’! :roll:
User avatar
By kanga
#1864019
A4 Pacific wrote:
I heard that the word curry is now considered non pc.


There’s going to be an awful lot of folks out of work if all those establishments selling curry have to close due to being ‘non PC’! :roll:


As far as I can gather, the 'controversy' arose because of an absurd gloss put on a valid point made by an Asian food blogger in California:

https://sydneynewstoday.com/food-blogge ... ry/302111/

I am no chef nor gastronome (nor fan of 'curry'), but I gather that the original point made by the author, apparently a relevant expert, is that the term 'curry' became, early in the Raj era, a term used by Europeans in the subcontinent for any local cooking which was spicier than the norm back in Europe; a meaning which it has retained in contemporary UK, where English still has many words owed to the Raj era (bungalow, mufti, pukka, ..). The writer seemed to be making the point that local cuisine varies from district to district within the subcontinent; and therefore, serious food writers should distinguish them with proper vocabulary. Presumably, this is just as in British food writing we distinguish between French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, German .. (and, for those with appropriate further gastronomic knowledge, within them between Breton and Provencal, Tuscan and Sicilian, ..). Happy, obviously, to be corrected by the better informed.

But there is nothing which some media outlets, especially some UK tabloids, fail to identify by gross hyperbole as 'PCness gone mad' :roll:
Mz Hedy liked this
User avatar
By eltonioni
#1864023
kanga wrote: The writer seemed to be making the point that local cuisine varies from district to district within the subcontinent; and therefore, serious food writers should distinguish them with proper vocabulary. Presumably, this is just as in British food writing we distinguish between French, Italian, Greek, Spanish, German .. (and, for those with appropriate further gastronomic knowledge, within them between Breton and Provencal, Tuscan and Sicilian, ..). Happy, obviously, to be corrected by the better informed.

But there is nothing which some media outlets, especially some UK tabloids, fail to identify by gross hyperbole as 'PCness gone mad' :roll:

It's not a matter of being better informed, just seeing things in the correct way. The "food blogger" is getting a bit carried away... gone mad if you like.

Otherwise, to use your choices, the Francais, Italiani, Hellenes and Deutsche must to stop calling us Britanica, Brittanico, Englander* and whatever the Greek use for "British". "Curry" is just fine as any of Mrs E's Burmese and Anglo-Indian family will attest. Curry has probably given more people from the Sub-Continent a leg up and out of poverty than anything in history.

Ms Bansal is attention-seeking and I suppose she got what she craved. She's still as mad as a box of frogs, just like other people who want to Newspeak language to their own narrow specifications. The ancients understood that language was many and varied with local variations for the same thing. Heck, the myth of Babel wrote it down thousands of years ago. Efforts to control language in this way is from the same school of thought(‽) that offers tractor factory work to everyone.

Anyway... just what is a "food blogger" and why do they exist at all? :lol:


* apologies for my awful language skills
  • 1
  • 27
  • 28
  • 29
  • 30
  • 31
  • 32