Soob

Politics, Foreign Policy, Current Events and Occasional Outbursts Lacking Couth

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Here there be racist toddlers

File this under passive fundamentalism:

The National Children's Bureau, which receives £12 million a year, mainly from Government funded organisations, has issued guidance to play leaders and nursery teachers advising them to be alert for racist incidents among youngsters in their care.

This could include a child of as young as three who says "yuk" in response to being served unfamiliar foreign food.

The guidance by the NCB is designed to draw attention to potentially-racist attitudes in youngsters from a young age.

It alerts playgroup leaders that even babies can not be ignored in the drive to root out prejudice as they can "recognise different people in their lives".
I wonder if the NCB has given any thought to how such pervasive, intense scrutiny and constant control of a child's behavior effects the child's development?

8 comments:

D said...

Children's sensory perceptions (especially taste) are much more sensitive than adults. Hence why you have a lot of fussy eaters at that age.

The idea that it could be a cultural based problem, e.g. racism, shows how backward-assed and science-denying lefties really are. They are on the same level as right wing fundies.

YT said...

Great, just 'coz I can't appreciate a partiular sorta cuisine don't mean i hate 'em people. Just 'coz I l enjoy a particular sorta food don't mean I like the S.O.Bs who cooked it up... Mea culpa, I'm a d***ed racist as well!

Jay@Soob said...

D, agreed. Additionally, a toddler is no where near devekoped to cognitively define and compartmentalize people along socio-ethnic lines.

YT heh yes. Personally I'm not much on haggis. So naturally I hate Scotts...

YT said...

Re : "not much on haggis." LOL. Just reminded me of a Chinese dish that's similar. Dunno if that'd suit your taste buds. It's PURELY made of swine parts. Then again, with the recent swine epidemic...

GW said...

My kids were eating kimchee from the time they started to teeth. By age 3, they had a definite appreciation for spicy foods and cared not for Shephard's pie. But I suppose if we were in the UK, that sort of obvious budding discrimination would have been deemed acceptable.

Jay@Soob said...

Given the reputation of the British culinary experience, one could almost forgive the double standard.

Certainly makes sense that a kid who'd teethed on Korean cuisine would find the likes of Shepherd's pie bland. A matter of palatte and culinary conditioning. Not, of course, a budding sense of ethnocentrism or racism.

But what do we know. The experts say otherwise. Which is frightening.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

You really shouldn't have mentioned haggis. And, come to it, shepherd's pie as well. Yuck.

Jay@Soob said...

Heh. Agreed on the "yuck."