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 asked if the party supported such teachings, 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.
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“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’.
Damaging conflict
“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.
“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.
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“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 of all races 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 can cause”.
She said: “You end up with children being taught that if you are a white heterosexual male you are deemed an oppressor and if you are anything other than that you are deemed oppressed — that is divisive.
“If you keep telling them they can’t achieve because of their skin colour, they are not even going to try, so I think we should focus on our accomplishments while acknowledging our history — good, bad and ugly.”
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.
Announcing his flagship “Woke Act” in 2021, DeSantis said: “In Florida we are taking a stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory.
“We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching kids to hate our country or each other.”
Other states have taken a different approach. In California, an elementary school asked third-graders — aged eight and nine — to label their own power and privilege in an “identity map”.
At least 30 schools in the state recommended that students should read Not My Idea, a children’s book labelling racism “a white person’s problem and we are all caught up in it”, according to the Manhattan Institute.
California parent David Ryst said the concepts of CRT were “reinforcing negative division” in his teenage son’s school.
David said: “He considers himself a Christian and is getting attacked for it. The kid he played baseball with now has purple hair, wears a Black Lives Matter T-shirt and a gay pride backpack.
‘Spirit murder’
“My son gets attacked and treated poorly because he doesn’t believe in the same things and he is not running around to fight oppression. How is that being inclusive?”
In Springfield, Missouri, one school asked teachers to rank themselves on an “oppression matrix” and in Seattle, Washington, the school district told white teachers they are guilty of “spirit murder” against black children.
In 2021 it was revealed that five parents were suing Albemarle County school in Virginia over CRT.
They claimed children were forced to take part in an exercise holding up their fingers, lowering one each time an example of their “privilege” was brought up, as well as writing a “vision statement” on how they are “going to be more anti-racist today”.
Jonathan Butcher, of conservative US think tank The Heritage Foundation, told The Sun on Sunday that “anti-bias” teaching can often have the opposite effect.
He said: “Research has found it doesn’t change attitudes and often makes people feel resentful that they had to go through a training programme.”
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 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 elections in Brighton signalled many voters seem to agree.
The Green Party was thrashed at the May poll, and now holds just seven of the council’s 54 seats.
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Sir John Hayes, chair of the Common Sense Group of Tory 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.”
What is critical race theory?
ONCE a little-known concept, Critical Race Theory 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 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 US police killing of George Floyd prompted conversations about “structural racism”.