I’ve said before that I hoped that the trend over the past few years of declaring “Racism!” over every damned thing would eventually lead to the word losing it’s power to bully. No more shakedowns. No more hustlers making fortunes by terrorizing the well-meaning. Sadly, my hope hasn’t come to pass, at least not yet.
But sometimes the claims of “Racist!” are so bizarre, over the top and oddly mis-applied that my hope returns. Take this example out of Britain:
Children of 8 are ‘racist’ if they miss Islam trip: School’s threatening letter to parents is met with outrage
Dear Parent/Carer,
As part of the National Religious Education Curriculum together with the multicultural community in which we live, it is a statutory requirement for Primary School aged children to experience and learn about different cultures.
The workshop is at Staffordshire University and will give your child the opportunity to explore other religions.
Children will be looking at religious artefacts similar to those that would be on display in a museum. They will not be partaking in any religious practices.
Refusal to allow your child to attend this trip will result in a Racial Discrimination note being attached to your child’s education record, which will remain on this file throughout their school career.
As such our expectations are that all children in years 4 and 6 attend school on Wednesday 27th November to take part in this trip.
All absences on this day will be investigated for their credibility and will only be sanctioned with a GP sick note.
Dude. WTF?
For starters, there’s the explicit threat against *children* if their parents do not choose to send them to go look at some trinkets… for which privilege they’ve also got to pony up cash. But the truly whackobird thing about it? If the kids don’t go see somethign about a religion, they’ll be accused ot being prejudiced against a race. Bwah? And what race would this be, exactly?
This one, mayhaps?
Looks fairly British to me, and yet… Muslim. So… not wanting to go see the Muslim exhibit will mean that little English kids are racist against… the English?
A number of the parents understandably went bonkers when they saw this blackmail attempt, and the school has backed off. However, it seems to me that the best long-term approach would be:
1) Fire whoever wrote the letter
2) prosecute them for attempted child abuse
3) Advertise the prosecution far and wide. Make it known and understood that the era of such blatant political correctness is over, and anyone trying to use the power of the government to enforce this sort of rubbish will be run out of the public square on a rail. Or at the very least, stripped of their power to bully children.