Friday, May 25, 2012


88,000 British children branded racists: Pupils as young as three reported over name-calling

Tens of thousands of children – including some as young as three – have been accused of racism at school, figures revealed yesterday.

Data from 90 councils detail 87,915 ‘racist incidents’ at primary and secondary schools between 2007 and 2011.  The number of recorded incidents would be substantially higher if the picture was replicated across all 200 local authorities in England, Wales and Scotland.

The figures triggered incredulity last night over the labelling of so many young children as ‘racists’ over playground spats.

Previous research has suggested that dozens of nursery pupils were among those being reported for name-calling.  This includes a study by the Manifesto Club, a civil liberties think-tank, which found evidence that nearly 50 under-fours had been effectively branded racists.

Josie Appleton, director of the Manifesto Club, said: ‘It’s just not the case there are all these racist incidents. The majority of them involve primary school children who don’t really understand racism.

‘Incidents include calling each other “broccoli head”. Obviously incidents of physical violence or bullying should be dealt with severely, but they are very rare.’

Labour put schools under a duty in 2002 to record all incidents involving perceived racism and report them to their local authority.  The Coalition removed the duty in 2010/11, declaring that schools should ‘exercise their own judgment’.

New figures released to the BBC under the Freedom of Information Act show reporting trends over the last four academic years.

In 2007/08, 22,285 racist incidents were reported to the 90 councils; in 2008/09 there were 22,663 incidents and in 2009/10 there were 23,971.

Some areas saw sharp increases, including Luton, where cases rose 40 per cent from 176 in 2007/08 to 246 two years later. The far-right English Defence League has been accused of inflaming racial tensions in the town, where it has staged marches and demonstrations.

Following the guidelines issued by the Coalition, nationwide racism cases dipped to 18,996 in 2010/11. Many councils said the increase in incidents up until then was due to better recording methods.

But Miss Appleton said: ‘There are still high levels of over-reporting. Even in 2010/11, we are looking at at least 30,000 incidents across the country (if all council data was looked at).

‘There are not 30,000 serious racist incidents in schools. The Government was right to reform the guidance on this and we have seen a drop in incidents, albeit a small one. Schools should not be under an obligation to fill in forms.’

Amid confusion over whether schools were legally obliged to report incidents, some were taking a ‘better safe than sorry approach’, she said.

But anti-racism charities warned that racism was a ‘real issue’ in classrooms and getting worse in some areas. Sarah Soyei, of Show Racism the Red Card, said: ‘We  are seeing a real increase in racism in some areas which is down to  factors like a growth of Islamaphobia in society which is filtering  into classrooms. Racism towards eastern European and gipsy  and traveller communities is also on the increase.’

Labour guidance to schools urged them to ‘record all incidents of bullying, including by type, and report the statistics to their local authority’. It suggested teaching anti-racism ‘through every curriculum subject at every key stage’.

Coalition guidance says some schools ‘do not want to keep written records’ and emphasises creating an ethos of good behaviour.

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: ‘We want all forms of bullying, particularly bullying motivated by prejudice, to be tackled. Different schools face different issues, so it is for them to develop their own robust strategies to improve behaviour and to prevent all forms of bullying.’

SOURCE





Why Gay Is Not the New Black

Repeating what has been a rallying cry of gay activism for years, the cover of the December 16, 2008 issue of The Advocate announced, “Gay is the New Black: The Last Great Civil Rights Struggle.” Last week, on May 19th, headlines across the nation announced, “NAACP endorses gay marriage as ‘civil right.’” So, is gay the new black?

There are prominent black leaders who say yes, including Congressman John Lewis, who was active in the early Civil Rights movement. There are other prominent black leaders who say no, like Timothy F. Johnson, founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation.

For a number of reasons, I concur with Johnson and others who say that gay is not the new black.

1. There is no true comparison between skin color and behavior. Although gays and lesbians emphasize identity rather than behavior, homosexuality is ultimately defined by romantic attraction and sexual behavior. How can this be equated with the color of someone’s skin?

Skin color has no intrinsic moral quality, and there is no moral difference between being black or white (or yellow or red). In contrast, romantic attractions and sexual behaviors often have moral (or immoral) qualities, and there is no constitutional “right” to fulfill one’s sexual and romantic desires.

Also, skin color cannot be hidden, whereas a person’s sexual orientation is, generally speaking, not outwardly recognizable (unless it is willfully displayed). Put another way, blacks do not have to “come out,” since their identity is self-evident, whereas gays and lesbians have to come out (or act out) for their identity to be clearly known.

2. The very real hardships endured by many gays and lesbians cannot fairly be compared with the monstrous suffering endured by African Americans. Conservative gay journalist Charles Winecoff wrote, “Newsflash: blacks in America didn’t start out as hip-hop fashion designers; they were slaves. There’s a big difference between being able to enjoy a civil union with the same sex partner of your choice – and not being able to drink out of a water fountain, eat at a lunch counter, or use a rest room because you don’t have the right skin color.”

Today, we have openly gay members of Congress, openly gay celebrities, openly gay CEO’s, openly gay financial gurus, openly gay sports stars, openly gay Hollywood moguls, and openly gay college professors, bestselling authors, scientists, and on and on. In the days of segregation in America, there were few, if any, blacks in such prominent positions, not to mention the fact that in many cities in America, even the lynching of blacks was accepted. Where in America are gays and lesbians being lynched today with societal approval? And what is the LGBT equivalent to the American slave trade?

3. Skin color is innate and immutable; sexual orientation is not. Contrary to popular opinion, there is no reputable scientific evidence that people are born gay or lesbian. Even the unabashedly pro-gay American Psychiatric Association stated that, “to date there are no replicated scientific studies supporting any specific biological etiology for homosexuality.” As expressed bluntly by lesbian author Camille Paglia, “No one is born gay. The idea is ridiculous.”

John D’Emilio, a gay activist and a professor of history and of gender and women’s studies at the University of Illinois, wrote, “What’s most amazing to me about the ‘born gay’ phenomenon is that the scientific evidence for it is thin as a reed, yet it doesn’t matter. It’s an idea with such social utility that one doesn’t need much evidence in order to make it attractive and credible.”

Also contrary to popular opinion, there are former homosexuals; there are no former blacks (despite the best efforts of the late Michael Jackson). This also underscores the fact that skin color cannot be compared to behavior, since even someone who remains same-sex attracted can modify his or her sexual behavior. A black person cannot modify his or her blackness.

Stated another way, genetics determine skin color, not behavior. Otherwise, if genetics unalterably predetermined behavior, then someone with a so-called violent gene could tell the judge, “My genes made me do it!” (For more on this important subject, see the chapter “Is Gay the New Black” in my book A Queer Thing Happened to America.)

4. Removing the unjust laws against miscegenation (interracial marriage) did not require a fundamental redefinition of marriage and family; legalizing same-sex “marriage” does. Marriage between a black person and a white person always included the two essential elements of marriage, namely a man and a woman (as opposed to just two people), and as a general rule, interracial marriage could naturally produce children and then provide those children with a mother and father. In contrast, same-sex “marriage” cannot produce children naturally and can never provide children with both a mother and father. (Another newsflash: Two dads or two moms do not equal a mom and a dad.)

Removing the laws of miscegenation simply required the removal of anti-black bigotry (since a white man could marry a Native American woman but not a black woman), whereas legalizing same-sex “marriage” requires the redefinition of marriage (opening the door to polyamorists, polygamists, and advocates of incestuous “marriages,” who are already mounting their legal and social arguments) and the normalizing of homosexuality (beginning with elementary school education), among other things.

That’s why many black Americans are rightly upset with the hijacking of the Civil Rights movement by gay activists.

SOURCE





No anonymity in Europe

Anonymity can be  an important aid to protesting against tyrannical government

The European Union is now moving to create a mandatory electronic ID system for all EU citizens that would be implemented across Europe to standardize business both online and in person, authenticating users via a common ‘electronic signature.’ A single authenticating ID would guard access to the Internet, online data and most commerce. It is nothing short of an attempt to phase in a Mark of the Beast system, and a prominent Bilderberg attendee is behind the scheme.

Neelie Kroes is the EU’s Digital Agenda Commissioner, and is introducing legislation she hopes will force “the adoption of harmonised e-signatures, e-identities and electronic authentication services (eIAS) across EU member states.”

The extent of such a system would, of course, expand over time, particularly as many EU nations have resisted the big government encroachment of ID requirements on civil rights grounds, which even now smack of the Nazi regime’s draconian “papers please” policies that empowered their other avenues of tyranny. According to EurActiv.com, Neelie Kroes would later “widen the scope of the current Directive by including also ancillary authentication services that complement e-signatures, like electronic seals, time/date stamps, etc,” as the supra-national body attempts to corral more nations into participation.

This big brother system will be implemented in Europe first and later pushed in North America and the remainder of the globe, as the world is nudged step by step towards a total cashless control grid in the name of ‘safe, verifiable commerce,’ and of course, in the name of “security.” Nevermind that the plan would invite the hacking of identities and fast track forgeries. In the case of Europe, special emphasis is placed in part on “establishing a truly functioning single market” — part of the larger EU goal even now floundering.

Neelie Kroes has been a long term Bilderberg attendee, showing up annually since 2005. She was on the official list for the 2006 meeting in Ottawa, Canada, then the 2007 meeting in Istanbul, Turkey, 2008 in Chantilly, Virginia, 2009 in Vouliagmeni, Greece and 2010 in Sitges, Spain as a delegate from the European Commission.

But in 2011, Kroes came to the table in St. Moritz, Switzerland with a new title: the EU’s Commissioner for Digital Agenda, so obviously now seeing development on that agenda was not unexpected. Kroes latest effort will surely be bolstered during the 2012 meeting now just days away.

SOURCE





The appeasement "peace" process battered Israel's reputation

by Jeff Jacoby

"WHAT HAPPENED," asks Michael Oren, "to Israel's reputation?"

The Israeli ambassador to the United States, a noted historian, combat veteran, and bestselling author, raised that question in a Wall Street Journal essay last week. Writing on the 64th anniversary of Israeli independence, Oren began by quoting from Life magazine's salute to the Jewish state on its 25th birthday in 1973-- a 92-page special issue that honored the "astonishing achievement" of modern Israel, an island of enlightened democratic courage flourishing against all odds amid a sea of Arab hostility and violence. From "a tiny, parched, scarcely defensible toe-hold," Life declared, the people of Israel had forged "a new society … in which pride and confidence have replaced the despair engendered by age-long suffering and persecution."

Needless to say, media descriptions of Israel today are rarely so admiring. When the spotlight turns to Israel now, it is typically harsh and unflattering. Though Israeli society remains robustly democratic and free, though its dictatorial and jihadist enemies still yearn to see it wiped out, international opinion treats the Jewish state as a pariah. Israel is accused of lurid war crimes and smeared as an "apartheid" regime; it is routinely portrayed by UN panels and campus activists as an occupying Goliath brutally oppressing a Palestinian David.

"Why has Israel's image deteriorated?" Oren asks. "Why have anti-Israel libels once consigned to hate groups become media mainstays?" Especially now, after nearly two decades in which Israel has gone to such extraordinary lengths to end its conflict with the Palestinians.

The concessions Israel has made in pursuit of peace are unprecedented in diplomatic history. Oren mentions some of them: Recognizing the PLO as a diplomatic partner, creating an armed Palestinian Authority, twice offering the Palestinians a sovereign state, agreeing to share control of Jerusalem, removing every Jewish community in Gaza, and repeatedly inviting Palestinian leaders to negotiate without preconditions.

Given all this, Israel's ambassador wonders, why is Israel so bitterly demonized? His answer -- that Israel's enemies have undertaken a "systematic delegitimization of the Jewish state" -- merely begs the question. With everything Israel has done to prove its goodwill, with the deep sacrifices it has offered in its quest for peace, why should a campaign to blacken Israel's image be achieving such success? Why is Israel's reputation so much worse today than it was before Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn 19 years ago?

The real answer is that Israel's global standing has been debased not despite the "peace process," but because of it.

For 19 years Israel has clung to a policy of appeasement that has made it seem weak and irresolute -- a policy that successive Israeli governments have justified by denigrating Jewish rights to the land, while playing up the Palestinian narrative. Ehud Barak infamously said in 1998 that if he had been a Palestinian, he might have joined a terrorist group, and that "there is legitimacy for a Palestinian to fight." Were an American presidential hopeful to suggest that under other circumstances he could see himself becoming an al-Qaeda terrorist, his White House ambitions would instantly implode. But Barak's remarks didn't prevent him from becoming prime minister.

With its embrace of the peace process, "Israel stopped defending its own claim to the West Bank and Gaza and instead increasingly endorsed the Palestinian claim," Israeli journalist Evelyn Gordon has written. "And with no competing narrative to challenge it any longer, the view of Israel as a thief, with all its attendant consequences, has gained unprecedented traction."

Britain's Neville Chamberlain abandoned his appeasement strategy once it became clear that Adolf Hitler had no intention of making peace. But Israel has gone on making concession after concession to those who seek its destruction, clinging against all logic to the fantasy of a "two-state solution." Once, it was agreed by Israeli governments left and right that a Palestinian state would be intolerable; that there could be no negotiating with the PLO; that diluting Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem would be unthinkable.

Yet in its desperate quest for peace, Israel backed away from each of those red lines. With each retreat, it lost respect. And all the while it reinforced a false and terrible message: Peace would be possible if only Israel were willing to give up more. The absence of peace, therefore, must be Israel's fault.

The 19-year disaster of the peace process -- that is what happened to Israel's reputation. How can the Jewish state get its good name back? Step 1 is to jettison the policy that has caused it such harm.

SOURCE

*************************

Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the  incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of  other countries.  The only real difference, however, is how much power they have.  In America, their power is limited by democracy.  To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already  very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges.  They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did:  None.  So look to the colleges to see  what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way.  It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH,   EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCHAUSTRALIAN POLITICSDISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL  and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine).   My Home Pages are here or   here or   here.  Email me (John Ray) here.  For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site  here.

***************************


No comments: