Lately, I’ve been watching British sitcom Absolutely Fabulous. In a fifth-season episode, trend-obsessed, self-indulgent fashion victim Edina Monsoon is furious that daughter Saffron is pregnant, but her anger turns to elation when she finds out the baby’s father is black. Edina believes a mixed-race baby to be the ultimate trendy accessory – “the Chanel of babies!”*
If only all Britons accepted mixed-race children in real life.
As I type this, a British teenager is in the hospital, having been subjected to a severe beating by several classmates, in broad daylight, at school. What did he do to incur their wrath? He was born – to parents of different races.
It’s not the first time those vile little thugs have targeted him. The harassment and violence has been going on for some time, both in school and outside of school, yet despite numerous complaints from the student’s parents, the school has been dragging its feet and doing nothing. On at least one occasion, the school blamed it on the victim instead of punishing the perpetrators.
I would expect this sort of behavior from inner-city football hooligans (not that ANYONE should engage in it, mind you), but high school students in a respectable town that’s supposed to be safe and peaceful? Has all of England gone mad?
A few of the people who are closest to me reside in England (which is how I know about the trials and tribulations of that poor kid). For centuries, Britain has attracted immigrants and refugees from all over the world, many of whom left their homelands to ESCAPE violence (and in some cases to escape so-called ‘ethnic cleansing’ as well), not subject themselves and their children to more of it. Interracial marriage has existed in Britain since Roman times. Some of Britain’s greatest cultural treasures – actors, artists, writers – have multiethnic backgrounds. Being able to claim ancestry from another country or continent does not make a British person any less British or any less of a person. Why, then, is racism still as rampant in some parts of the UK as it still is in extremely backwards parts of the US? The whole thing makes me contemplate denying my own British heritage.
The average American’s concept of British culture seems to come primarily from literature and plays, and occasionally PBS or BBC America. Sure, in many classic works of British literature children were disciplined severely for minor infractions (or for no real reason at all), but the days of students being too afraid of the exacting school headmistress to misbehave are, in much of the UK, long over. My boyfriend’s dad is a retired high school teacher. He doesn’t ever want to return to teaching high schoolers – according to him, British students have gotten more and more out of hand since the 1980s. They are frequently not taught proper behavior at home, and when they invariably get into trouble at school, more often than not the parents throw a screaming tantrum and appeal the punishment, no matter how deserved it is. My boyfriend quit his teaching course and changed majors when he discovered firsthand that even very young students are now frequently allowed to act like holy terrors in school, and I don’t blame him a bit. (This is somewhat ironic, given that British students wear uniforms even in state schools, and many American educators have been claiming for years that ’school uniforms promote better behavior’. I smell bullcrap.)
What happened to the days when good behavior was not only expected, but consistently demanded? The school administration’s continued refusal to stop the racial bullying has not made it go away – it has only caused it to escalate to a level that now threatens the victim’s life, to say nothing of whatever psychological damage it has dealt. The harassers should be made an example of, and held up as a precedent if future cases occur. They certainly should not be allowed back in school, and quite frankly ought to be locked up in jail. Paddles and rattan canes may be long gone from British schools, but if the Swedish can discipline their children effectively without resorting to violence, so can the British. And they’d better do it before it’s too late.
It’s shocking to me that violence and racism, so often associated with filthy street thugs, should be tolerated in the middle and upper echelons of the British caste system. Both should be universally condemned, of course, but since everyone is secretly or openly paying attention to people in respected positions such as teachers and school headmasters, it falls to them to set a good example for everyone else to follow. Allowing such criminal behavior is unforgivable, and in the current economy I’m certain the school would have no trouble finding new teachers and administrators to not only replace the ones who have allowed the problem to continue, but to do a far better job handling disciplinary issues as well.
Because the boy was beaten so badly he required medical treatment, the police are (finally) involved, and I’m not the only one keeping her fingers crossed for justice. Hopefully, the police will set those rotten bastards straight, and I include the school’s lax admins and the bullies’ parents in this (no one is born a violent racist, you know).
To the parties who aided and abetted the perpetrators by doing nothing, I’d like to paraphrase Edina’s best friend Patsy Stone: “Yeah, cheers, thanks for making the world even worse.”
(On a related note, Corona del Mar High School, which isn’t far from here, is being sued by the ACLU for fostering a homophobic atmosphere. The school, rather like the British school listed above, was well aware of at least one incident in which several boys threatened a female classmate, using homophobic slurs, but didn’t lift a finger to protect her or punish the boys. As they say in England, “Huh! Typical!”)
*For the record, I find the concept of a baby as a trendy accessory revolting. Babies are not handbags. The very thought of someone having a child just to be trendy (and let’s face it, there are people who have done just that) is incredibly selfish, short-sighted, and stupid. Reproduction should never, ever be taken so lightly.
