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Sunday, Nov 29 2009 This
Morning  9°C   This
Afternoon 10°C   5-Day Forecast

Could your child be branded a racist next? It beggars belief that thousands
of primary school children are being reported by the authorities

By Adrian Hart
Last updated at 2:16 AM on 05th November
2009

Comments (117)

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Accused: Children are being told they are racist but do
they understand what they have said wrong?

A six-year-old child cowers tearfully in her school's office. She knows she
is in serious trouble for uttering a 'bad' word. Her fear is compounded by
confusion.

She has been accused of racism but is far too young to understand the gravity
of the charge or grasp its dire implications.

But she knows her transgression is a dreadful one: a phone call has been made
to her parents; official forms have been filled in; the adults around her wear
dutifully censorious expressions.

The little girl is in tumult. She has to be reassured that the police will
not come and take her away.

What heinous crime has she committed? During the course of a playground game,
she has called another child 'blacky'.

The 'victim' has neither complained about, nor even noticed, the remark. But
a playground supervisor has.

Diligently - and observing the Government procedures requiring all our
schools to report 'racist incidents' - she has frog-marched the culprit to the
office. In due course the little girl's 'crime' is logged on local authority
files.

From there it becomes an official Government statistic.

The incident is not an isolated one. Similar scenes are enacted in primary
and even nursery schools every day, all over Britain.

Local government race officials now urge schools to operate a zero-tolerance
approach to anyone - even infants and toddlers - who could be construed as
racist. As a result, children's playground spats are elevated into full-blown
dramas.

A nine-year-old child calls another a 'chocolate bar'. The culprit's parents
and head teacher are duly informed; the child is reprimanded and denied
play-time.

During a boisterous game of football, a girl calls a boy 'white trash'. The
heavy machinery cranks into motion again: she, too, becomes one of the estimated
tens of thousands of children deemed guilty of racism since the Government's
racist incident reporting policy was implemented in 2002.

A recent survey reported 5,000 'racist' incidents in Yorkshire schools alone,
between 2006 and 2007.

In Essex 1,566 cases were noted in the three years up to 2005. Spurred on by
a notion that even two-year-olds are capable of prejudice, Kent kindergartens
have finalised a project to train staff in challenging racist statements from
toddlers.

Battalions of diversity officers and ethnic minority coordinators the length
and breadth of the country are doubtless applauding Kent's brave initiative,
while pursuing, with messianic zeal, their mission to unmask legions of
name-calling infants as incipient racists.

Is Britain really a country mired in such bigotry? Actually - and
controversially - I am daring to say it is not. Doubtless I will be accused by
the anti-racist zealots of heresy, but I believe it is a myth that racism is
rife in British schools.

A recent survey reported 5,000 'racist' incidents in
Yorkshire schools alone in one year

And I speak from first-hand experience. Eleven years ago I set up Coyote
Films, and for the past decade I have worked as a community film-maker on video
projects in schools in collaboration with various arts organisations.

As a result of my involvement in such projects, three years ago I was hired
to make a film for Essex primary schools as part of a project called Watch Out
For Racism!

It was aimed at nine to 11-year- olds because data from the county's schools
had apparently revealed that the overwhelming majority of racist incidents -
verbal namecalling was the prime offence - occurred within this age group.

I went with a team of drama tutors to 'raise awareness' of the issues through
anti-racist workshops. I expected to find a problem. Actually I did not. On the
contrary, the schools I visited were good ones with vibrant, diverse communities
in which black and ethnic minority children mixed harmoniously with the white
majority.

However, it had been preordained: these schools had 'issues' and our job was
to unearth them and force the children to acknowledge them.

The drama tutors' remit was a familiar one: they wanted the kids to focus on
their racial 'identity' and celebrate their differences.

But the children had a different view. 'Isn't it what's on the inside that
matters?' asked several children, pertinently. Others were equally determined
not to be railroaded by the agenda of the Government's anti-racism
missionaries.

'I don't think skin colour is important,' remarked one. Meanwhile a white
pupil asked - to the palpable embarrassment of every adult present - whether
white kids were allowed to be proud of their identities, too.

In another session, chaos disintegrated into farce when a young black boy was
asked how he identified himself. The drama tutor misheard his mumbled response.
'Ah, a dark-skinned person!' she said.

'No, a dancing person,' he elucidated. Later the same child was asked if his
friends were hurt by name-calling incidents. He shrugged dismissively. 'Some
kids say things, but I say sticks and stones - you know what I mean?'

Which is precisely my point: children do insult each other; they have
since time began. The school playground should be a maelstrom of exuberant
sociability where kids are allowed to play games, shout, fall-out, tease each
other and make up. This is how they learn and imbue important life-lessons in
selfsufficiency and resilience.

It seems to me profoundly wrong that their childish games are now routinely
observed and scrutinised for sinister content; that parents, and on occasion the
police and Crown Prosecution Service, are even drawn in.

In some cases the consequences are the stuff of nightmares-children face
official police reprimands; even court cases. Friendships fracture; animosities
spring up, where none existed before - and the whole issue of race is magnified.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: if someone says there is racism, it must
exist.

Further, teachers' time is wasted and their attention deflected from more
serious incidents of real bullying as they are buried under the avalanche of
paperwork and procedure that must accompany the so-called race-hate crimes.

Surely we should learn to trust teachers - in partnership with parents - to
deal with these incidents, without heavyhanded State intervention? After all,
this is what they were trained to do.

Please do not assume that I condone real racism in any way. I decry it as
monstrous; any rightthinking individual would. Indeed, for 20 years I lived in
East London where I campaigned against racism. I joined the Rock
Against Racism march in 1979.

My experience, I feel, qualifies me to speak out. Yet most are simply
too afraid to challenge the Government's orthodoxy.

In staffrooms teachers whisper their criticisms of the ' zerotolerance'
approach for fear of being branded racist themselves. They worry that by
ignoring minor infringements they will be construed as condoning them; so they
dutifully tick all the right boxes. And in this way a deeply flawed system is
perpetuated.

At the heart of the whole misconceived Government strategy lies a paradox:
the schools that diligently report each minor breach of the rules are often very
good ones; yet they are perceived to be the ones needing most help.

But there are no winners here. The official local government mantra typically
states that schools which submit no incident returns must be ignoring, and
therefore condoning, racism. They can't win, can they?

I believe Britain is more racially harmonious today than it ever has been. We
should be celebrating the fact. It is also more ethnically diverse than it has
ever been. In London almost half the under-fives have a multicultural heritage.

Opportunities for transcending race have never been better. Yet the
anti-racism fanatics persist in imagining a 'celebration of difference' is a
panacea for resolving every prejudice.

In fact, the opposite is the case: what it does is enforce a sense of
separation and erect boundaries that did not exist before.

• The Myth Of Racist Kids by Adrian Hart is published by Manifesto
Club, www.manifestoclub.com.

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Comments (117)

Here's what readers have had to say so far. Why not debate this issue live on
our message boards.

The comments below have been moderated in advance.

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Wow. So hyper-sensitive about race over there...is it true
one cannot say "blackboard" anymore?!

And blame the American film
industry?!!!! Whatever, colonizers! Social Darwinism started in the UK,
remember.

- Kristin, nyc usa, 05/11/2009 14:45

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rate

Rating   6

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abuse

Kid's have always cal each other names, lanky, shorty,
fatty,ginger nut the list goes on, i am sure those children were not thinking of
racism when they used the words blacky or white trash, they are just more words
in the name calling game. It's the Government, who are obsessed with race, they
are making racists of us all.

- Dave, west mids, 05/11/2009 14:04

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rate

Rating   31

Report
abuse

Well its not just what parents and schools have to pass to
the children. Its the social evolution that is to blame. The race based
politics. The white vote bank. the coloured vote bank. The view based vote banks
and the the social division caused because of all this.

We should stop
asking people where they come from, what religion they follow, what are their
beliefs, i mean we all are sentient beings and all this will only alter our
perception and differ our paths from progress. The system has failed not a
single parent or a school.

- Amit Shinde, Mumbai India, 05/11/2009 13:39

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rate

Rating   6

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abuse

People willing to criminalize and harass childrens because
of "speech crimes" are NO BETTER and possibly EVEN MORE dangerous than NAZIS
themselves.

- Igor, Liege, Belgium, 05/11/2009 13:37

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rate

Rating   44

Report
abuse

They need to implement the "Blue Eyes, Brown eyes"
project. Ths was used way back in Martin Luther Kings time and worked. The
children were separated into groups of blue eyes and bown eyes, so groups of
friends were separated. The blue eyed people were told that they were better
than the brown eyed people and not to play with them. after a day or so, they
changed it to the Brown eyed people being better than the blue eyes and so on
until the kids actually didn't want to do it anymore becuase they were friends.
When asked the difference between black and white skins they then understood
that there wasn't any. It should be part of the national curriculum and work
interviews. It is amazing. Look out for it it is amazing and I think it would
make one hell of a difference.

- Nova, South coast, United Kingdom, 05/11/2009
09:46

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rate

Rating   5

Report
abuse

Until someone stands up and says enough is enough in this
country and lets common sense prevail, this type of situation will continue.
Everybody in authority (not just schools but across the board) is frightened to
be the first to make a move for fear of being accused of something or sued.

You can gather statistics, write your reports and run round in circles, it's
not going to work. All it will do is further build the resentment that is
bubbling under the surface in this country.
I'm not rascist and I raised my
children that way too, but if at age 6 they had been treated in the way reported
above I would be very angry and upset.

- Carolyn, Bedfordshire, 05/11/2009 09:03

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rate

Rating   54

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