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I just watched a report on TV about a couple of primary schools changing the words of Baa Baa Black Sheep to Baa Baa Little Sheep or Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep.
Truly I thought I had heard it all…. but surely this is PC gone mad? To be honest it would never have occurred to me to associate this nursery rhyme with a racial slur?… to me changing the words creates a problem where there was none, especially in the minds of children who will already know the original words from parents and playschool etc.
I think the prejudice is in the minds of the people who think up these ridiculous rules…. none of the rest of us would associate problems with the wording…. maybe its just me…. but truly I think this is nonsense :x
Any thoughts?
its baa baa woolly sheep at my granddaughter school , l agree it pc going mad
so I didn’t see a black lamb in the field on saturday?……it was a……
:-k
I give up! [-(
its silly,cant call them blackboards in schools,white xmas,snow white,blackbirds etc.
I’m thinking of setting up a company to correct all these racist, sexist, ageist, disablist deviations.
Working on ‘Baa baa respect sheep’, but so far it doesn’t scan.
Racism is a horrible problem, and so is racist language; but it strikes me that PC is a travesty of the fight against it; an invention of local government and educational careerists rather than a serious attempt to alert people to problems.
Same goes with anti-sexism – with attempts to form a new language such as ‘herstory’ or ‘wimmin’ (geddit? herstory avoids a his, and wimmin doesn’t have men in it?)
There are more pressing problems – such as racial violence and violence against women, the insidious discrimination in our minds. This sort of rubbish just makes people annoyed with the Guardian bureaucrats.
Well said Scep…..all this nonesence PC stuff is diverting from serious issues…on that note I would like to say
” I am Trayvon Martin”
A story that has moved me to tears
If people understood the origins of nursery rhymes like baa baa black sheep and sayings such as someone being the black sheep of the family then they’d realise that the person who’s actually being racist is the person who is trying to be so PC.
Addressing minor issues that aren’t really issues is like looking after the bodywork of your car so it looks pristine whilst ignoring the engine that’s on the verge of breakdown. I agree with what others have said, there are much bigger issues to deal with…but maybe they’re so big that people are afraid to look too closely so they turn away?
@jen_jen wrote:
If people understood the origins of nursery rhymes like baa baa black sheep and sayings such as someone being the black sheep of the family then they’d realise that the person who’s actually being racist is the person who is trying to be so PC.
Addressing minor issues that aren’t really issues is like looking after the bodywork of your car so it looks pristine whilst ignoring the engine that’s on the verge of breakdown. I agree with what others have said, there are much bigger issues to deal with…but maybe they’re so big that people are afraid to look too closely so they turn away?
its silly,cant call them blackboards in schools,white xmas,snow white,blackbirds etc. (quote Rogue Trader)
Don’t panic!!!! Don’t believe everything you see in the media!!!! One PC swallow doesn’t make a PC summer!!!! Keep calm and carry on!!!! Find another cliche and pretend I used it!!!!
I agree with Jen’s point. But let’s not fall into the “OMG! They’ve banned Christmas!” urban myth trap where lots of things are supposed to be ‘banned’ when they’re either (1) irrelevant (most schools now use white electronic boards or white wipe-clean boards, calling them blackboards would be daft), (2) untrue (e.g. Blackbirds, Snow White, White Xmas/Christmas none of them ‘banned’ as such, Birmingham Council once banned Christmas: proof? the “Merry Christmas” banner they put up in the city centre that year) or (3) down to an individual person or institution (e.g. anything you can think of but hey! people do stupid things!).
Even if it’s true, Who’s going to stop you?
If real offence is being caused to reasonable people then we can easily dump certain practices. If the issue is ‘just a word’, I don’t see a problem with changing it unless it’s vital. I don’t miss the Black and White Minstrels one bit, even though we watched them a lot; Certain UK cities have or had parades which celebrated local wealth created by slavery and included white locals blacking up to play the part – I wouldn’t cross the street to watch that meself and wouldn’t oppose any ban, real or imagined.
Who really benefits from these rumours? Who would spread this kind of racism-in-PC-clothing? Maybe the “usual” Guardian bureaucrat suspects are not the ones we should be looking at . . . . 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8) 8)
you’re right, of course, Words..a lot of it is made up for political reasons..but not all…
if you want to look at racism in language..I once lived in Bristol, where there are streets such as Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill in the Clifton area……they are historic reminders that the city’s wealth was once based on slavers profits…part of the city’s river bank was built on convict labour – the labour of French prisoners of war in the Napoleonic Wars…I was always interested in these parts of the Bristol..Liverpool is very similar, I believe, though to my shame I’ve hardly ever visited that city..you can respect a city’s historic past without justifiying it.
But I think the days of PC are gone.the heyday was in the 80s, when you did get silly things like nursery rhymes being challenged, and being exploited by the Mail and kin.
I guess im now the white sheep of the family. :lol:
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