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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To think that if you’re told a phrase is offensive, you don’t insist on using it?

803 replies

changehere · 02/11/2018 21:02

Yes, a TAAT. The context is that we explained to mumsnet HQ that the phrase ‘beyond the Pale’ is found eyebrow-raising by many (but not all) Irish people.

The Pale was the name given to an area of Ireland under English rule and those outside that area were considered uncivilised aka ‘beyond the pale’. This is a phrase that is only used with raised eyebrows in Ireland and certainly feels inappropriate, if not offensive, coming from an English person.

Mumsnet use it as part of their racism guidelines as in that they only ban language that is ‘beyond the pale’. Mumsnet accept the origins of the phrase. However, they insist on using this phrase to describe whether something is or is not racist.

Given the context, AIBU in requesting that Mumsnet find another phrase in their racism guidelines?

OP posts:
Giantbanger · 05/11/2018 20:34

For anyone who wants to see an interesting discussion, there's a programme in Irish on the BBC about Luther and Protestant culture and why it took hold in Scotland and not Ireland www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09d5tg8 I hope the link works.

ButchyRestingFace · 05/11/2018 20:34

*And I DON'T mean Giantbanger! Hmm

Moussemoose · 05/11/2018 20:34

Studying history does bring to the front the need for facts though. You can't make statements based on opinions, you have to provide evidence. Some people on this thread might struggle with that.

LadyRochfordsSpikedGusset · 05/11/2018 20:49

Ah now, I was taught of Peterloo which is apt now living in Manchester (!)

My grandparents were born in Ireland and my curiosity sprang from that, no doubt, but I had to find out for myself separately while being taught at school about FDR's New Deal, the Nazis, and Apartheid in SA which were all interesting and important but my heritage was never, ever, addressed except for mystical anecdotes from my DGM.

Depends what facts you're allowed to see, yep, "History is written by the victors." - Churchill.

LadyRochfordsSpikedGusset · 05/11/2018 20:50

I agree it's a disgrace Mousse.

Moussemoose · 05/11/2018 21:01

All A level history syllabi's that cover British history do cover Ireland. Ireland is a key feature of the British history 1860 - 1965 (those dates aren't quite right).

It's just you need to get to A level to study it.

LadyRochfordsSpikedGusset · 05/11/2018 21:11

Did A-level but it wasn't covered for me.

Moussemoose · 05/11/2018 21:16

The A level syllabuses changed a few years ago. I might be wrong there are about 500 history choices.

The main British history units cover Ireland when its political history - is a more accurate statement.

Ages 11 - 14 it won't be covered at all.

VerbeenaBeeks · 05/11/2018 21:19

All A level history syllabi's that cover British history do cover Ireland. Ireland is a key feature of the British history 1860 - 1965 (those dates aren't quite right).It's just you need to get to A level to study it

There you go, then. I'm UK, ditched history as I found it boring at the age of 13 when you could drop it at the age of 13 as a GSCE subject meaning you never have to study it again if you don't want to Blush
As an oldie now though I find history fascinating and self learning via the internet.
You can't learn everything though, you have to have an interest in it or at the very least have heard about it in the first place to even make a start on learning about it! If you've never heard of something, or didn't know it existed in the first place, how can you swot up on it?
Same with this.

ButchyRestingFace · 05/11/2018 21:23

For Standard Grade over 20 years, we did the First World War. (probably the same syllabus that the members of the band Franz Ferdinand took).

For Higher, it was the Second World War.

No Scottish history. Certainly no Irish. We didn't even look at the impact of the wars on the people of Scotland.

Moussemoose · 05/11/2018 21:32

History in school is never going to cover all the interesting bits - but you can learn the skills to analyse an historical issue sensibly.

The internet is very useful for discovering historical stuff and well written historical novels are an excellent starting point.

Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series tells a good story and the history is excellent. She describes the lead up to Cullodon and the aftermath brilliantly - painting sympathetic characters on both sides. The story also touches on the highland clearances.

Someone could start a thread...

VerbeenaBeeks · 05/11/2018 22:25

*History in school is never going to cover all the interesting bits - but you can learn the skills to analyse an historical issue sensibly.

Moussemoose · 05/11/2018 22:38

I was trying to say that the topics chosen at school might not be your particular area of interest but you can gain skills. Unfortunately, as many pupils stop learning history at 14 they lack the skills to fully develop their interest in history as they get older.

Also, and I think this is relevant, people can't always evaluate first hand evidence logically. Just because your grandma was there doesn't mean her view/opinions are correct. You need to be able to apply some balance.

"My grandad saw this" is not a killer argument it is one strand of primary evidence.

Xenia · 05/11/2018 22:58

We did loads of those topics in history, absoluteluy masses which was fine with me as my excellent history teacher and I were Catholic so I suspect she chose so much about Ireland, never mind Scotland too, deliberately.

VerbeenaBeeks · 05/11/2018 23:09

Unfortunately, as many pupils stop learning history at 14 they lack the skills to fully develop their interest in history as they get older

That's true, that's my point, you have to want to find out and be inquisitive as an adult like me and not just meh history's boring in the first place which my 13 year old self would have said lol. Thankfully I took more of an interest the older I got and the invention of at your fingertips information Smile

mathanxiety · 06/11/2018 05:15

History shouldn't be taught by topic. It should be taught as a long chronological account, a survey.

If you hop from topic to topic you get no sense of what actually happened, no sense of either continuity or change, and you get big gaps in your knowledge.

mathanxiety · 06/11/2018 05:15

And there is no way what is taught should depend on the religion or the personal taste of the teacher.

LadyRochfordsSpikedGusset · 06/11/2018 05:56

Yy mathanxiety . When I went about learning for myself doing it chronologically made all the difference. As well as finding varied sources to try and avoid bias. I encourage the DC to think that way too.

Moussemoose · 06/11/2018 07:43

Some GCSE history units are taught as a long theme rather than by unit Medicine through Time is the most popular I believe.

A teachers particular interest could well influence what they teach. You may be given a topic but the time you spend on different aspects will depend on the teacher. Also, the weighting and importance of some aspects can be very teacher influenced.

That's one of the reasons why most dictators start to control populations by pressuring history teachers. Many U.K. governments have given that a go as well.

Xenia · 06/11/2018 08:28

MA, I have no idea if she picked the Irish modules because she was Catholic and she is dead now so we can't ask her, but she was a brilliant teacher, my best and if she picked subjects she was interested in that certainly meant the teenagers did well.

This thread and MM's point brings that issue to the fore - all that diebate abroad (mostly) about what should be taught in history in countries where facts are hugely obscured for political purposes. I feel the teaching I had of irish history was quite fair and based on facts. My sons did history A level just over a year ago and they and for GCSE did a lot about "sources", checking your sources, looking at several sources. I do wish more children in the UK did history to age 16 actually. The only one of my children who didn't do it for GCSE wishes she had now.

Moussemoose · 06/11/2018 20:59

Xenia you make a very valid point about analysing sources. Just because a story is told and retold and then believed does not make it true.

Folk history and history are very different things.

We need to make sensible decisions about history not just jump on a bandwagon and this applies to all sides.

Xenia · 07/11/2018 08:32

In fact my boys loved GCSE sources questions as you didn't have to learn anything by heart and all your answers were there in the passages.

We do need to try to preserve sources too. The National Archives do a lot of good work.
However it is never going to be an easy issue. On a very personal level I have been scanning my old diaries and family papers this year. What is there is what we chose to write and my not necessarily be what was so or it is just one person's perspective.

I felt my first school did history well. We started with the stone age. I still have an illustrate book my parents bought me about it from that time. I wanted to know where we started and where we ended up at. The 2 year GCSE course cannot cover the whole of British or indeed world history however as there is just too much.

mathanxiety · 08/11/2018 07:08

There should be a massive debate about historical facts obscured for political purposes in the UK, Xenia.

What is taught as 'history' is always a political decision.

You can easily do a long survey course that covers a huge amount of the past. You can shoehorn related topics into a survey as research topics, an ideal way to fill it out and teach research and writing skills too.

My DCs all did a survey course called World History in high school. It had breadth and depth. They followed that with US History - again, a survey beginning with pre columbian history, and two of them did modern European History, another survey course. In addition to World History and US history one took a course on the history of the Modern Middle East and a course on the Vietnam War, and one did a course on the Great Migration. They did DBQs in all their courses, and research papers in US History and European history. The paper I remember most fondly involved controversy surrounding vaccination in colonial America. Last year DD4 produced a paper on beatnik culture and she is currently working on a paper on the impact on Japan of early contacts with Europeans.

The high school is currently embroiled in a discussion about its culture as some hate graffiti was found in the suburb and in the school.

The topic of the self image of the US and of the community we live in came up as DD4 and I discussed it in the wake of unrest in the high school over the last week.

Thanks to the way American history is presented in elementary schools (to age 13/14) in children's formative years, it's hard to burst the bubble of smugness most Americans feel about the US of A. History is basically taught as a Glorious March of American Progress. Likewise it's hard to burst the bubble of pride in having good intentions that exists in this (very progressive) corner of the world even though it is very obvious that the performance of black students in the high school falls behind that of all other ethnic groups and pressure groups wage continuous war on the school admin to examine institutional racism ranging from disparity in disciplinary measures to micro aggressions.

When you focus too much on the frontiers that have been conquered - how far you have come in living up to the ideals of the declaration of independence for instance, or desegregating a suburb - there is a danger of giving the impression to young minds that human nature has been improved, that all is well now that we have come to our senses, that America has a right to preach to the rest of the world about democracy and other things. There is a danger in a progressive suburb of failure to see the difference between desegregation and integration.

It is far more productive as an academic exercise to identify the forces that were massed against initiatives that campaigners fought for, and to draw a straight line between them to the present day. You could, for instance, start with the anti-Catholic animus of colonial times through the Know-nothings to the opposition to Alfred Smith's candidacy for president, to the opposition to JFK's candidacy. You could easily trace opposition to the idea of women's rights from colonial times all the way to today. And of course racism would be another obvious line, from the origins of the slave trade to lynching, to Nixon, to the 'war on drugs', to the Tea Party and on to Trump.

When you look at the opposition to various changes, you see how its ideas have endured, and it is harder to see the US as some sort of special place where the good people with the good intentions somehow always muddle through. You begin to see a case of 'plus ca change...' which is not half as satisfying as the myth is to people whose self-identity is caught up in feeling good about their country being Number One.

So my point is - history teaching is extremely important, and it is extremely important not to teach what is basically a theory of 'Why my Country is the Greatest' to primary school children.

ny20005 · 08/11/2018 07:29

@mathanxiety

That's it in a nutshell ! I think US does that with everything- media only shows sports or events worldwide that Americans are in & doing well in - all fuels the notion that they are the greatest nation in the world

MarDhea · 08/11/2018 07:45

Great post, math.