School "Culture Day' - why didn't school see this coming?

[mids2019]

https://www.joe.co.uk/news/school-issues-statement-after-sending-girl-home-for-wearing-union-jack-dress-496690?fbclid=IwY2xjawLkEB9leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHmXD4szLMfsqNubbE12kCn_Noe5jb2VGlNFVU0_IUIevHxzByCQ-5GXFN8F8_aem_P-q7I_yFCq82TY-Qr8mGdw

A local school state d a huge debate by sending a girl home on school culture day for wearing a union Jack dress. The question is why the school should have naively held an event which actually least a to more division than unity?

My daughter (white British) attended a similar event, for which she paid a pound, and dressed in jeans and t shirt. I asked how she had decided upon the attire and she stated 'well I don't have a culture'. I then had to explain that she did have a culture and even the jeans and t shirt were a product of fashion changes in western liberal society. We had a discussion about all the great products of white British culture, the music,science, results of the industrial revolution, shared experience in great wars, monarchy etc.

There is a white British culture but going into detail about this obviously brings into focus cultural divide and opens up divisive areas whether white British culture benefited from colonialism and past oppression.

Of course culture day probably was meant to highlight minority cultures and act to promote dress etc. from ethnic minorities as a welcoming inclusive gesture but by allowing all pupils to think about their culture we have to define 'white British' culture and by defining 'white British' culture schools have inadvertently started a discussion they didn't intend.

Do you accept that the Union and St George’s flags have been appropriated by…unsavory individuals?

Because they have been allowed to by people who think our national flags are something to be ashamed of. If the Union flag and the St George's flag were flown on public buildings as a matter of course, and if people were able to wear or display them, or celebrate St George's Day, without Mumsnetters people automatically assuming they were extreme right wingers or racist thugs, they would no longer be associated only with 'unsavoury individuals'.

If it was bait then the school was foolish to over-react. But seriously, what is wrong with celebrating British culture? We made the modern world. (Attested to by many historians - how would the world look without the British Empire and what the British invented? Very different. No India for a start.)

Exactly
When people focus on South Asian culture are they focussing on skin colour or are they focussing on South Asian culture which, not surprisingly is largely comprises of people with brown skin and some other immigrations who were slightly less brown eg Parsi.

There may be certain aspects of British history we owe a huge apology for, but acknowledging that historically British culture was largely a culture of white north Europeans with waves of immigration to cities should not be an issue at all.

The idea that Britain doesn’t have a culture is oddly chauvinist too.

The foreigners and the ethnics, of course they have a culture. But not us, we’re just normal.

Similar in China with its museums of ethnicities. It’s never the Han dressed up in funny head-dress with the dancing. That’s not because of Han shame, for sure.

I sometimes wonder if left elite abashedness about British culture (which is hardly new. Orwell wrote about it) serves up a double moral treat: superiority to the minorities, who are fragile enough to need a culture, and to trad working class whites, who are uncouth enough to want one.

No and mostly on mn. Some seem to want no national flag. Which is typical but hopefully they’re in the minority.

The Union Jack in particular is still used widely, without the same outrage at TR or whomever.

I think these types of stereotypes seem to make out there are significant differences where there arent. My dads habit, every single meal time without fail is to 'clean' his cutlery with a napkin/serviette, its not something I would ever have thought is a white thing, black thing, older person thing, its just something he does and always has done.

I remember a conversation once about people just turning up at the front door and how thats a 'cultural thing' meaning its not want the British do. Erm it certainly is and was in our family and some like it and some dont.

It's part of our culture!😃

I think it's also because there is a tradition of looking down on countries that need to do flag waving. National days are often linked to independence days or revolution and the English at least are proud of of relative stability for almost 1,000 years.

I find it so bizarre when people say ‘theres’s no British culture’, or reduce it to football and hooliganism and fish and chips. We have such a rich literary and musical heritage in this country. Is that not culture?

OMG you dont need to psychoanalyse it

It's so ridiculous to say that Britain, or England has no culture of its own. Just look at the music culture we've had for decades. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, The Who, Bowie, punk, New Romantics, Goths, rave etc. You go abroad and you will always hear British music played everywhere. There's pp right now from South America and Japan travelling to the UK for the current Oasis gigs. Why are we supposed to be ashamed of our culture? Makes no sense.

Nothing wrong with a union jack. Nothing wrong with the flag of our country being worn or raised. There's nationalists in every country that gather their cause around their national flag,and you don't see those nations banning or decryng their flag just because of a bunch of extremists.

Films, cars, buses

Industrial revolution, spinning jenny,

lots of different food stuffs and festivals which we would do well to make more popular and revive in other areas

No - not at all. That’s probably just your own prejudice.

It is actually really common for right wing factions and extremists worldwide to use their National flags. It doesn’t mean that that flag now belongs to them, though.

And last weekend the BBC showed the Live Aid concert. Beamed around the world. Raised millions. Something like that had never been attempted before. What a huge achievement that was. Why don't have schools have a day celebrating what the UK HAS done, instead of creating such division? Isn't there room for both...?

If this were any other child there would be a sacking and screams of racism.

But what would you expect a non-white British student to wear? If you heard about the circumstances, my ancestors lived in you'd cry. My grandmother was married off at 12. Had her first baby at 13. Which makes my grandfather a child abuser. I've never met him fortunately he was dead before I was born. No, I'm not keen to go visiting that country. It's no country for women in my opinion. Most of the family left.

I remember on one of those threads where someone was trying to defend the "where are you really from?" question, one poster actually admitted that she'd be disappointed in me. Because in spite of not being white, I've never lived anywhere else and I don't know any other languages. Or any other culture. Except That I've been lucky enough to spend a lot of working time in the US but I suspect that would not be interesting enough for her either.

If any of these people were trying to be inclusive, they would accept I'm British. This was accepted in the 90s. As I say it started breaking down under Tony Blair.

That is appalling! Did any of the parents make a complaint? I certainly would.

Schools would be better to have a box where each child has to take a card and on it is a different country/region and each child has to bring something in which represents that country or region's culture/traditions and learn one positive thing about the place

I think a lot of schools are full of teachers who hold very strong ideological leftist views and are ashamed at our ‘colonial’ past so they feel like we have to erase every facet of traditional British culture. Every country has good and bad points in its history. How sad that the girl got excluded from what was supposed to be a day of celebration just because she wore a dress with her country’s flag on it. Would she have been told to leave if her dress featured a different flag? Somehow I doubt it.

Yes, until fairly recently I identified as about as woolly and liberal as they come (was an actual Lib Dem member until they disappeared down the trans woo rabbit hole). I’m not much of a flag-waver and certainly wouldn’t describe myself as especially patriotic. But even I now feel my hackles rise at the constant assertion that - pretty much uniquely in the world - Britain/England has no specific overarching culture worth celebrating. It is patently untrue, and this kind of rhetoric is exactly what’s feeding into the success of Reform.

I’m also astounded that the school (and others, judging by some of the previous posts) seemed not to recognise that their initial stance on this would cause offence. Exactly what did they expect the British kids with no cultural links outside the U.K. to do - wear sackcloth and ashes? Some people urgently need to start reading the political room.

You’re quite right of course. I wasn’t thinking when I posted. Plenty of non-white British students wouldn’t have any association with, or wouldn’t want any association with, clothes from any other culture that they may have a historic link with. Some would have no historic links at all, they are simply British. I really can’t think what the school expected British students to wear? If not the Union Jack? I also read that football shirts were banned.

I think the whole day is a bit of a bizarre idea in general. A few students would have enjoyed wearing their traditional cultural dress and the rest would have had no idea what to wear! I suppose you could go as a Royal or a morris dancer? Can’t say I feel any connection to either as a British person though personally!

I’m inclined to agree with this, that a lot of teachers have strong ideological leanings.

My daughters school, filled to the rafters with Indy Wales members amongst the staff, entirely ignored the Queens Platinum Jubilee whilst every other school in the city seemingly had little celebrations. I’m no Royalist but it was most certainly a notable choice on their part to ignore it.

Cornish pasties, fish and chips, cream teas, pie and mash, haggis, Irn Bru, whisky, whiskey, laverbread. I’m sure there’s more.

They do not fly their flags any more often than the UK.

And last weekend the BBC showed the Live Aid concert.

Can you think of no reason that kids who live in Britain dont need to learn about, er, living in Britain?