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| Hideously Diverse Britain: A level playing field? If Only | Hideously Diverse Britain: A level playing field? If Only |
| (4 months later) | |
| Some stories jump out and this is one of them. It happened a few weeks back in St Albans. There, lives a boy called Sonny. He's 11 and of mixed heritage. His mother is white English; his father's family hail from Grenada. Now Sonny has hyperactivity deficit disorder and when he started missing lessons, his mother arranged for a truancy officer to have a word. | Some stories jump out and this is one of them. It happened a few weeks back in St Albans. There, lives a boy called Sonny. He's 11 and of mixed heritage. His mother is white English; his father's family hail from Grenada. Now Sonny has hyperactivity deficit disorder and when he started missing lessons, his mother arranged for a truancy officer to have a word. |
| By the time the chat was over, she wished she hadn't. You're not a "white British boy", the officer is alleged to have said. You will "have to work harder in life to gain people's respect and to achieve things". The result: a world of trouble. Sonny's mum condemned the comment as "offensive and highly racist". She complained to the police and the local council. The council duly apologised. "She clearly should not have made the comment she did," said the director of children's services. The truancy officer was also contrite: "I acknowledge the comment I made may not have been helpful and I regret any negative impact it may have had," she wrote afterwards. Sonny was upset. "It didn't make me feel very nice," he said. | By the time the chat was over, she wished she hadn't. You're not a "white British boy", the officer is alleged to have said. You will "have to work harder in life to gain people's respect and to achieve things". The result: a world of trouble. Sonny's mum condemned the comment as "offensive and highly racist". She complained to the police and the local council. The council duly apologised. "She clearly should not have made the comment she did," said the director of children's services. The truancy officer was also contrite: "I acknowledge the comment I made may not have been helpful and I regret any negative impact it may have had," she wrote afterwards. Sonny was upset. "It didn't make me feel very nice," he said. |
| This tale jumped out because the advice Sonny received seemed little more than the warning handed down to almost all minority youngsters of my generation. My mother dished out a variant whenever I and a white schoolmate with a penchant for trouble would head off to the high street. | This tale jumped out because the advice Sonny received seemed little more than the warning handed down to almost all minority youngsters of my generation. My mother dished out a variant whenever I and a white schoolmate with a penchant for trouble would head off to the high street. |
| "You know that if anything happens, he's going home and you're going to the police station, don't you?" she would say. You see yourself one way; society may see you another. Be alive to your situation. It was said by parents, uncles, neighbours, grandparents. One version that stuck came from the Hindu relative of a schoolmate who owned a local sweetshop. I think I was trying to buy a Wagon Wheel at the time. Perhaps it's irrelevant now. That was another century. Society is better integrated. But look at the stats on jobs and social mobility and one might conclude that there's still something to it. Is the playing field level in terms of race or class or gender? Sonny, it isn't; that may have repercussions for you. And the teller of that truth is probably trying to be a friend. | "You know that if anything happens, he's going home and you're going to the police station, don't you?" she would say. You see yourself one way; society may see you another. Be alive to your situation. It was said by parents, uncles, neighbours, grandparents. One version that stuck came from the Hindu relative of a schoolmate who owned a local sweetshop. I think I was trying to buy a Wagon Wheel at the time. Perhaps it's irrelevant now. That was another century. Society is better integrated. But look at the stats on jobs and social mobility and one might conclude that there's still something to it. Is the playing field level in terms of race or class or gender? Sonny, it isn't; that may have repercussions for you. And the teller of that truth is probably trying to be a friend. |
| Hugh Muir | Hugh Muir |
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