Right so I’ve been thinking... what’s the crack with this... A teacher chooses not to call a child a cheeky monkey because the child is black. Is it racist to call him a cheeky monkey because he’s black? Is it also racist to not call him a cheeky monkey because he’s black so should be treated differently in this circumstance? Is it also racist that the teacher stops in his tracks and considers this whole point before speaking? No idea why it’s a teacher saying it in my head tbh.
It's a term best avoided. I don't believe the use started as any sort of racial slur, but due to past misuse of the word 'monkey' it's best just not to go there. It just means show some respect and may be said in a jovial manner. If a teacher calls a black child, 'cheeky monkey,' it's likely to land them in 'hot water.' Afterall a teacher is not a parent in the privacy of their own home, so should a teacher really be using idioms such as those in an educational environment. It would be a bit like using for counting, 'eeny meeny miny moe' even if you subsitute the ever changing word for 'Tigger' as in the fictional character. I think we are best steering todays children away from these rhymes, as the rythm of them tends to embed them in memory for another generation.
In that case then, pathways in the human brain require reprogramming, so we need to treat all skin colours differently, not just minorities, so that trains of thought don’t even get the chance to develop. It’s no good just stopping ourselves from saying things, if people are still thinking them. For people to change their cognitive behaviours they need black people to stop calling each other Niggas.
I'll be upfront as I always am, I really do believe the word Niggas, shouldn't be used, as you rightly state it leads to cognitive behaviours, much as the nursery ryhme that I highlighted above. I've seen 'Niggas' openly used in America, and I also saw some of the bad feeling it created outwardly of white people within ear shot of it. I also saw it being used as tool of provocation in that situation. So you are right, but unfortuanately I don't write the rules of behaviour, I can only offer wisdom
I just think there’s a lot of people out there right now creating racism where it doesn’t exist, because they want to prove how woke they are. It’s a dangerous precedent to set, because it may have the opposite effect to the equality many moderates are fighting for. What’s worse is that people who don’t understand this cause and are opposing it are being shut down with hate, rather than educated.
Nothing will change Tel, once the football shirts are changed, once the protests have ended, once the two main American trials of murder are over (Floyd & Brooks), we will be just left with another generation, like the previous thinking it could change the world. For every decade, I could give you an example, 1968 Martin Luther King Assassinated Memphis, 1978 Rock Against Racism London, 1985 Brixton PC Blakelock, 1992 Los Angeles Rodney King. The list just goes on mate, and here we are in 2020, nothing has changed.
I've gone through exactly that. I chose the third option and it was a split second intervention in my head. I wasn't thinking of the racism but the potential disciplinary that follows because someone somewhere will turn it into a big deal. Certain words I've used as terms of endearment in the past I have stayed clear of for some time... monkey, banana, little ****.
See this is where things have got silly with the perma offended finding offence. When i was younger the term Little Monkey meant cheeky/mischievous/lively like the actual animal and had nothing to do with race or colour. Some things are just in peoples heads.
I agree there. You could just as easily tell someone to stop being silly and it could be taken the heart by some and seen as offensive.
Schools really are the last place you want to say anything that could be remotely taken the wrong way. I've known teachers get pulled up for saying "you're behaving like a 5 year old" and instead to say "you're behaving like you're in Reception". After examples like that, you don't go anywhere near terms like cherky monkey or you silly banana. Having said that, when I was doing my A Levels Mr Barker whilst working through a complex differential equation on the board said "it's like looking for a n****r in a haystack". #oldskool
Well, black culture should also be policing itself better when it comes to the N word. Hip hop and other forms of media made by black people are still rife with the use of that word, but of course it's usually black people referring to other black people or to themselves to make a cultural or political point which seems to be deemed as fine. Even in this sense, which I guess is deemed acceptable, it's still embedding the word in a collective vocabulary which I suppose is mostly a part of street culture, either that use of that word originates there or certain cultural forms represent that and sort of normalise it within and through those mediums
It's true, if kids grow up now hearing Black people calling each other Nigga then they will think that's an acceptable term and start to use it themselves. People my age knew it was a derogatory term but youngsters these days will see it as a normal/matey name for Black people. Sounds daft i know but kids learn from what they see and hear around them.
I generally think the best way forward, and this goes for other minority races/ethnicities too, is to better promote and highlight respectable, intelligent and successful black figures from black culture and black backgrounds in both the educational system and the media, whatever field they've been prominent in, be it arts and culture, politics, business and industry, academia, law, journalism, food and drink, sport, wherever it is, that seems to me the most important thing. Because it challenges the stereotype or mainstream idea that black culture and lifestyle is mostly just street culture, or rap, hip hop and the types of anti-social activities often associated with those, or referenced in a lot of the lyrics (not all rap and hip hop are about that, I know, I listen to a fair amount, a lot of it is very intelligent and diverges from the cliches and stereotype, and a lot of the artists are respected and intelligent cultural figures of course). Sure, that life is a reality for a lot of black people and that should be represented and voiced, but in some ways that's also kind of self-destructive in bringing things into line and gaining equality and a more balanced and accurate representation of blackness
What you've described is typical of what is taught during Black History month but probably needs to happy more over a sustained period rather than just October. But as someone mentioned near the start of this this thread, I think we need to teach history better... warts and all. From a younger age.
