Labour’s idea to teach ‘divisive white privilege’ in UK schools could spark bitter conflict in classrooms like in the US
TEACHING in UK schools about “white privilege” could spark bitter conflict in classrooms, veterans of America’s culture wars have warned.
The idea was backed by Labour’s Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire this week when she insisted, “the opportunity to ask difficult questions sometimes of our nation’s history” would be a “good idea”.
It paves the way for the adoption of critical race theory, or CRT — which argues that society is deeply racist and structured in favour of white people, and has proved hugely divisive in America.
Now Quisha King, a leading campaigner in Florida, has warned the UK against adopting the “racist” theory in schools.
She told The Sun on Sunday: “Introducing critical race theory in schools in the UK could spark a cultural war.
“We are so far past that and now you’re going to tell people, ‘Actually no, we should be judging you by your skin colour’.
“They say the intent of CRT is to be sensitive, to be aware of a person’s struggles, but you can’t know that just by looking at someone’s skin colour, and that’s what critical race theory is teaching.
Damaging conflict
“It assumes that if you are black or a person of colour you are automatically in some type of life circumstance. Just purely on that, it is racism.”
Backing the teaching of “white privilege” here, Ms Debbonaire told the BBC: “We need education that allows children the opportunity to question, to ask difficult questions sometimes of our nation’s history.
“That’s a strong country that’s able to look at itself and its history and say, ‘Are there things we could have done differently? Are there things we regret?’ ”
In response, Rishi Sunak decided to ramp up the culture war attacks on Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and told Parliament: “He talks about . . . what Britain values. This from a man who takes the knee, who wanted to abolish the monarchy, who still doesn’t know what a woman is, and who just this week, one of his frontbenchers said that they backed teaching divisive white privilege in our schools.”
Now there are fears that if the policy came in under a Labour government Britain would face a damaging conflict like that which tore through the US state of Florida, sparking a parents’ fightback that changed the political landscape.
Quisha, 42, is one of thousands of mothers waging a “war on woke” in the Sunshine State.
The mother-of-two started campaigning against CRT in schools after “witnessing first-hand the damage teaching this theory can cause”.
She said: “My eldest daughter felt like all of a sudden kids were suddenly not being all that sincere.
“She would wear this cute T-shirt with a little girl with a black afro on it and kids would come up and say, ‘Aw, I love that shirt’, and it felt overly interested and it was a feeling that she was not getting the attention because of who she is, but because she was black.
“And it was because teaching this in schools suddenly had brought more attention to the colour of her skin. She didn’t want that kind of special treatment. She just wanted to be treated like everyone else.”
Quisha is backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was re-elected last year, and thanks to his anti-woke agenda CRT has now been banned in the state’s schools.
Pastor Rick Stevens, director of the Florida Citizens Alliance, said: “What we don’t want teachers to do is to take sides, and that’s the objectivity that I believe the governor is trying to solve.
“We want them to take sides that slavery was wrong, but they don’t need to take sides that one race purposefully did it, and so now that race is forever condemned, and another race is forever exalted. That just doesn’t add up.”
Tina Descovich, co-founder of campaign group Moms For Liberty, said: “To say there were slaves is one thing, but to talk in detail about how slaves were treated, and with photos, is another.”
‘People feel resentful’
Co-founder Tiffany Justice, a mum of four, said that volunteering as a school governor left her worried because she “saw behind the education curtain, and it was not pretty”.
She said: “Every parent has a fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their children.”
Jonathan Butcher, of conservative US think tank The Heritage Foundation, told The Sun on Sunday: “So-called anti-bias training is highly ineffective. Research has found that it does not change people’s attitudes or behaviours and often makes people feel resentful that they had to go through a training programme.”
UK political commentators say that what DeSantis has done in Florida should be noted over here.
Professor Matt Goodwin, of Kent University, told The Sun on Sunday: “We should not be exposing our children to highly contested and dubious concepts like white privilege, which are drawn from the divisive and un-British critical race theory.
“These are highly political ideas that we are importing from America, which has a completely different history of race relations. Britain can and must do better.”
Sir John Hayes, chairman of the Common Sense Group of Conservative MPs, said Sir Keir was right to identify woke issues as a key political dividing line — but he said Labour was on the wrong side of it.
He said: “If Keir Starmer wants to fight a culture war, I say bring it on. We are proud of Britain’s history — we are not embarrassed by Winston Churchill and Nelson.”
Left-leaning councils in the UK have already attempted to put CRT on the curriculum.
In 2022, Brighton and Hove’s Green Party-controlled council came up with a five-year anti-racist education plan, which required all teachers to learn about CRT and “white privilege”.
They proposed telling children as young as seven that they were not “racially innocent” because they saw white people “at the top of the hierarchy”.
Local mother Bola Anike, who is of Nigerian heritage, said: “I do not want black children in my city taught that the systems that surround them are loaded against them, I do not want black children in my city taught that things they cannot control, like the colour of their skin, have a more significant impact on their future than the things they can, like their work ethic, attitude and dedication.”
Last year’s local election result in Brighton signalled that many voters seem to agree.
The Green Party was roundly thrashed at the May poll, and now holds just seven of the council’s 54 seats.
As a General Election looms, Sir Keir would do well to keep that in mind.
What is critical race theory?
ONCE a little-known academic concept, Critical Race Theory, or CRT, has become a fierce topic of debate in America and beyond.
The theory dates back to the 1970s, when professors including Derrick Bell and Kimberle Crenshaw began to explore how race and racism had shaped law and society in the US.
It teaches the idea that racism is systemic in society and it is designed to maintain the dominance of white people.
Proponents tend to believe that race is a creation designed to maintain the status quo, not a biological reality.
Offshoots of CRT include the idea of “white privilege”, that people have an advantage because of the colour of their skin, and “racial bias”, a subconscious attitude unknowingly held about someone because of their race.
CRT became a point of debate across the world in 2020 when the police killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis prompted new conversations about structural racism.