bit tenuous
but suck it up.

my friend sue is a lecturer, and she has a mixed bag of students in every sense - race, age, ability, gender. one day two students both asked a question simultaneously, at the end of the lesson. one girl came up to her desk, and the other just stuck her hand in the air. naturally sue dealt with the one who had come up to her first, only to receive a formal complaint from the other girl, claiming that it was because she was asian and sue had prefrerred the white student.

sue was fuming over how unfair it was, but the college was terrified of bad publicity. sue was given a choice of a verbal warning or diversity training. she chose the training.

she said it was hilarious. about 15 middle class people in a room, where the lecturer had written headings on whiteboards around the room. the headings said things like: YORKSHIRE, BLACK, GINGER, SCOTTISH, MUSLIM, WOMEN, etc. the idea was that they had to write all their preconceptions under each heading to see how ridiculous they were.

only, sue said the problem was, that every time they looked at someone else's preconceptions, they found themselves saying, "fuck, yeah, so true", or "i forgot about that!" they were all in hysterics.

at the end of the class, the yoghurt weaving lecturer beamed and said, "now we can see how silly they are, is anyone offended by what they have seen here today?"

only one person put her hand up - the muslim girl, cloaked from head to foot in the full on burkha. proving the diversity training had worked not at all, sue said everyone was rolling their eyes and mouthing "typical".

"i was offended," the muslim lady said. so everyone turned to look at the MUSLIM board. and there was just one word written there.

"TERRORIST".

so yeah, actually, pretty offensive!

the hypocrisy came as sue was telling me this, and about how ridiculous the whole class was, and how accurate most of the preconceptions were. then, without any sense of irony, she launched into a saga about how her class had been giving her grief for being from essex, and how unfair it was...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 12:33, 5 replies)

Nice one!
Great post! My Mrs works in schools, she says the whole set up is fucked on account of no one wanting to offend minorities. They dont really teach, just try not to offend any of the knife weilding little darlings... crazy...
( SpankyHanky, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 12:53, closed)

Interesting
I recall a television segment I saw a number of years back where they were interviewing the first female muslim something-or-other in the army. When questioned on whether her background led to abuse/racism she responded that she got a lot of it, all for being an essex girl.
(zero.coke, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 14:00, closed)

Burkha
Maybe you should have all wrote a letter of apology to the girl, I mean that's not right at all. She was right to be offended.

Post all the letters in the slot in her burkha and ask her when the next pick up is.

Wearing a burkha to diversity training, that's the best that is !!!!

Have a click
(amsterdam_neild, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 14:12, closed)

I love wearing a burkha when I go shopping
It's like being in a little tent. I can fwap to my hearts content and everyone gets out of your way when your watch alarm goes off.
(powervator and NONE SHALL PASS, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 16:09, closed)

In a lecture I gave just yesterday
I thought I'd liven things up by ripping the piss out of a couple of my students.

It turned into one the best lectures I've ever given. The students were laughing and really engaged. Some applause may even have been involved (sadly applauding each other's contributions, not me).

I think there's a lesson in there somewhere...
(dxg, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 20:20, closed)