Our Wankers this Week are staff from Sandhurst Primary School in Lewisham, who last week lined the pupils up for school photographs according to their colour. This was done, apparently, for the convenience of the photographer so that he didn't need to be adjusting his filters each time - there is no question that variations in skin colour do make quite a difference to a photographer.
There was, predictably, a storm of media attention, and head teacher Val Hughes has been busy apologising ever since. Why didn't the teachers see this coming when they made the decision? Don't they know that some parents, and the press, will seize any opportunity to create a row about race?
This was a stupid thing to do. They should have known at the time that it was stupid. And that's enough to make them Wankers of the Week.
BUT …
What of the press and the parents who complained? According to the papers "children were left in tears", and "the segregation left several of the pupil so upset they cried to their parents when they got home". One angry mum said: "My 10-year-old was told to go further back in the line as she was not white enough. She came home devastated saying, 'I wish my skin was lighter mummy.'" Another parent, Ann Andrew, 49, said her daughter, Angela, 10, came home in tears and said: "My school's so racist."
But according to more recent reports from other parents and from the school governors who investigated the incident, there were no tears. Children were not upset.
So perhaps it's the complaining parents, and the reporters who aided, abetted and encouraged them, who deserve the Wanker award?
And then there's the language. What does "racism" actually mean? According to children's submissions on Lewisham Education Service's own website, it means …
"when two different cultures call each other names and fight each other"
"when somebody says something horrible about your colour or your religion"
"when one person or group from one race makes a rude remark about another person or group from another race e.g. about their skin colour"
Pretty perceptive, these kids. "Sexism" doesn't mean simply recognising that people are divided into two sexes who need separate lavatories, and "Racism" doesn't mean simply recognising that people have different skin-colours. I mean, they do have different skin-colours. Get used to it.
So perhaps the true Wankers are those of us - far too many - who use "-isms" so carelessly. But if we're honest, this kind of woolly thinking ("ismism"?) is endemic in most schools and promulgated by many teachers, so we were probably right in the first place.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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