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.

If you’d like to believe that the group of people who have flags in their social media bios, or dress their kids in them… are somehow different to the group who smashed up your (or somebody else’s) local community centre last year - that’s on you.

I don’t need lecturing on deprivation or working class identity. I grew up on a council estate in one of the roughest areas of the UK. No village Christmas tree here. The local council actually usually don’t have the funds to put one up. They barely manage the bin collection.

That’s government underfunding and parts of the country being left to rot, nothing to do with immigrants. They put them there because it’s cheaper to house them there, and then the local community make their lives hell.

Those areas need more funding and support, to meet the needs of all of the people that live there. All of them.

I was the poster who mentioned that my local authority refused to allow the Christmas tree. I commented in that quote string because the examples in it weren’t remotely the same thing. Keep up.

Spades are spades.

They certainly are.

Well fair enough, I don’t remember specific usernames from yesterday.

Your comment was that non-Christians don’t allow your Christmas trees in your village. Mine was that our non-Christians go out and buy them.

It’s linked to your point, because it’s the polar opposite experience, and one that reflects that they don’t dismiss “British values.”

I have spent some time searching for any reference on the internet to the Christmas tree being disallowed because of the risk of causing offence, and I can’t find anything. Obviously that doesn’t mean it’s not there. But it is difficult to discuss specific events without any cooperation.

A lot of people have experiences that are different to you. I have been sexually harassed and groped by ‘Asian’ men, nobody seemingly wants to do anything about this.

Why are we expected to tiptoe around this? I have talked about this with my British friends and they just give me advice on what to do next time! When I first came to the UK, it wasn’t nearly as bad as it is now. How is this in any way acceptable?

They do not respect women’s autonomy and I don’t think it’s gonna get any better because all the talk is what we should do to protect ourselves.

Some Afghani male threw acid in some poor woman’s face a few years ago, and now I’m told your government is gonna import tens of thousands of men from this part of the world?

Make it make sense.

It’s an unfortunate fact that being patriotic, which I’m sure some reasonable people are, associates you with the unreasonable.

It really doesn’t.

Your prejudice, isn’t fact.

I don’t believe any local authority would outwardly say that they’re not doing Christmas because of the non-Christians.

That is a PR nightmare that surely nobody is getting into by blatantly saying such a thing.

I think it’s more likely that another, vaguer, reason was given, and the local community just think it’s because of non-Christians.

Your being groped by “Asian” men (not sure why we need the quotations) should be dealt with in the same way as all sexual assault, and that isn’t by advising the victim on how to avoid. Crime is crime, regardless of colour.

We’re not “importing” them, because they’re not products. The rest of that explanation hinges on us having a responsibility to fix messes that we make.

Had we not entirely fucked their country up and then left them to it, they wouldn’t need asylum. We have an obligation to clean up our own mess, and that involves supporting the people we did it to.

Well, there have been cases where decorations have been taken down for safety reasons. And there have been plenty of cases of them not being taken down at all-people just thought they had been! But a poster easier said that her village tree had been disallowed overtly because it would offend Muslims. That’s why I was trying to find that case.

No, I quite agree.

Didn’t happen, IMO, certainly not overtly. That’s probably why you can’t find it!

Had we not entirely fucked their country up and then left them to it, they wouldn’t need asylum.

Who is “we”?

I didn’t fuck anyone’s country up. Did you?

Well no - but the British government certainly did, and that’s who is “importing” them.

The rest of us just live in the country ran by that British government, but I’m not sure how much choice there is in that either.

The current British Government?

Which British Government?

You do not have to give them asylum. You do not have to endanger women and girls in this country over misguided principle.

You absolutely know women and girls will be harmed by this action, and you justify it how? That Britain was a minor participant in a war against the Taliban?

Would you like a list of every country we have negatively affected, and the specific government involved?

We’ll be here a while. Not sure we even have enough posts left.

This is accountability, whether it’s delayed or not.

Sorry, what are you even talking about.

In what world does having Asian men in my community affect my rights as a woman.

They, for example, may encourage their wives to wear particular clothes - I’m not wearing them. I won’t be going to a mosque, changing my diet… following Islam.

All Asian men aren’t the Taliban, I’m hoping you know this.

How willing are you? Is it for however many wish to be here?

Yes - go for it.

Let’s see how far back in time you can go to justify allowing everyone residing in those specific countries to come to the UK, have full access to housing, the NHS etc.

This is accountability, whether it’s delayed or not.

It’s really not. It’s madness. It’s unsustainable. It will be coming to an end. Whether you agree or not.

Accountability is where you make life demonstrably worse for everyone because of something your government did a long time ago. Okay.

If that means you have to endure being harassed on the street (and other women endure far, far worse), Sleepless says you must suffer because of something your government did maybe even before you were even born.

I believe that immigration should be managed, but not that borders should be closed.

Immigration adds value to this country, in lots of ways. For a start, many of them do jobs that we actively don’t want to.

I also, as above, think that if we contribute to the cause of a country’s issues, we have a responsibility to support the resolution of that. Either by helping them fix it, or helping them find safety elsewhere - including here.

The specific numbers and limits aren’t up to me, but it isn’t zero.

Spoken like someone who has no idea how difficult it actually is to get “full access” to housing or the NHS.

They pay an immigration surcharge, for a start.

My point was absolutely not that non Christian’s don’t allow Christmas trees in my village. It was that the local authority took it on itself to make the decision that it would not allow it for fear of offending non Christians. That is not even remotely the same thing. I making the same point that @SquishedMallow and @RingoJuice were trying to make, and who you dismissed out of hand. It’s not immigrants, brown or black people, or anyone else non white or non British who are objecting, it’s middle class white people who choose to be offended on their behalf. A bit like yourself. And that’s what causes the division.

Illegal migrants are paying a surcharge to use the NHS?

They are doing no such thing.

Do you know how much is being spent daily on housing (hotel costs, meals etc)?

Honestly, tell me how out of touch you are from the day to day lives of the majority of Brits struggling to make ends meet, without telling me how out of touch you are.