Irish White Privilege......Yeah

Gary_dunne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122166630#Comment_122166630

It's currently under consultation. It hasn't been introduced as of yet so SPHE remains a secondary subject taught to min 12/13yr olds.

Should SPHE be introduced at a younger age, most definitely. Look at the opening line of your post, first major revamp in 25 years, it's long overdue. Society has drastically changed in the past quarter of a century and our education system should be constantly evolving.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168419#Comment_122168419

In a normal society, education is supposed to be a bulwark against change.

What a pity all of our valuable institutions are now firmly in the grip of the permanent revolution.

yoke

Hahah what the f*ck have you been smoking, real education is always going to cause change rather than be “a bulwark against change”, unless scientists stop learning new sh*t.

Or maybe you’re talking about indoctrination as opposed to education, where the educators claim to “know it all already” and don’t need new science ruining it.

Gary_dunne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168523#Comment_122168523

Education shouldn't change? So we should still be teaching children that the Earth is flat and at the centre of the universe. Sounds like a great idea.

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168589#Comment_122168589

Being a bulwark against change is not the same thing as never changing.

Gary_dunne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168706#Comment_122168706

As society changes and evolves education needs to follow suit. 25 years since the last major change is ludicrous and the system needs updating.

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122166866#Comment_122166866

Yeah, its nothing to do with protecting children and all about creating wedge issues.

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168523#Comment_122168523

Do I have this right so - education should not educate? Because that is in essence what you said.

There is definitely an element that have jumped the shark in the last few years

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168785#Comment_122168785

If that's 'in essence' what I said, you'll have no trouble quoting where I said it, will you?

Nermal

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122168738#Comment_122168738

Bearing in mind we're discussing the primary school curriculum here, what new knowledge has humanity divined in the past twenty-five years that you think merits inclusion in it? Any revelations commensurate with the previous example you gave of the Copernican revolution, maybe?

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169134#Comment_122169134

Real education teaches people to think and consider new ideas and changes in society. The new style conservative mind seems to want to only to indoctrinate a specific set of facts and infantilise children. Thankfully children are far more nuanced that you give them credit for.

Gary_dunne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169153#Comment_122169153

From the article quoted previously by another poster. A key focus of the new curriculum is teaching about difference and understanding other cultures, as Irish schools have become more diverse.

Our schools and are society as a whole are far more diverse than they were 25 years ago and teaching children about this is extremely valuable.

Below is the Sex Ed video I and thousands of others were shown in Primary school when in 5th and 6th class. Do you think that this is still relevant today?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RD8i4GICuyw

jmayo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169193#Comment_122169193

I guess one of those new ideas that some of your ilk (to user your own phraseology) would want children to be taught is that someone with a cock and balls can be considered just as much a woman as the childrens biological mother just because they say and feel so.

Yes indeed some of us conservatives, or as another of your ilk called us nazis, do like to teach kids facts.

I know facts can be considered old school to some people these days.

BTW I have no problem teaching kids about different sexualities, but ignoring biology is another thing.

Likewise I have no problem teaching kids about other religions, other cultures, other races, but I do have major problem when it is fashioned that they should be ashamed of their own.

crusd

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169334#Comment_122169334

As I said, you continue to use "cock" 'balls" and "children" in a single sentence to elicit an emotional response, when in essence the discussion that started on this thread was about including consideration of difference and what impacts those differences may have on thier lives as part of a particular element of a particular subject and not about trans at all.

That seems to be what it comes down to these days, challenge any of the new conservative ideas and immediately be met with "trans, cock, balls, children, grommer" because ultimately their underlying ideology is built on a pillar of sand and the only thing they can resort to is the hot wedge issue of the day to try and elicit an emotional response and deflect for the absence of any real substance.

But while on the whole trans debate, what is so bad teaching children that there are people who identify differently and also teaching them about the biology of male female reproduction. And is it so difficult to see that they are two completely different things. Gender identity and sexuality are not related.

And I say this as someone who doesn't understand trans identity and doesn't really believe that the many of those who identify as trans actually have gender dysmorphia and actually believe that the problem could be better attacked by addressing the gender stereotypes and expectations associated with male and female, eg. having society recognise that it is perfectly normal for a male to wear makeup and a dress if they chose. But i don't have the expertise to pass judgement on individuals choices so as long as they are not harming others, I acknowledge and let them peruse their lives ( giving you an icky feeling is not harming others by the way)

twinytwo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122169410#Comment_122169410

There isnt really a debate though.

All the men calling themselves women - still have a prostate that will have to get checked regularly as they get older.

Time to stop facilitating this nonsense and treat it as it really is - a mental illness.

notAMember

Irish people were no more "white" than jews were "white".

I remember when I worked in the US first a few decades ago, I was called greenback etc and was fully expected to be a scrounging thieving untrustworthy gombeen. There were jobs I was not given despite being more than qualified, I was treated differently in shops/restaurants as soon as I opened my mouth and they heard the accent. I distinctly remember the US people treating a contracting engineer hailing from london as if he must know what he was talking about, even though he was the biggest clown going, and didn't value my opinion as highly, even assuming I reported to him. His opinion bore more weight simply because of his accent (call it whiteness if you want).

This is what privilege means in day to day life. It's not about being guilty about your background, it's about trying to recognise when that bias is happening subconsciously to others. It's really easy to see it when you're on the crappy end of it, but not easy if you are getting that bias in your favour.

Today , there is still some of that attitude towards the Irish around in the older US and UK generation, but in general, thanks to Ireland itself developing hugely, and also to millions of hardworking, well-educated Irish people representing us worldwide for decades, that attitude has changed a lot. I'm not naieve enough to think the skin colour wasn't a visual advantage to turning that bias around as well. Most US and european people can't tell a Ghananese person from an Ethiopian, from a Nigerian, from a Namibian. They have a tougher mountain to climb.

We can do our part by learning a little bit about their experience.

Potatoeman

White guilt/privilege is a way for rich white people to put the blame on other poorer white people for their perceived (true of not) privilege while doing nothing themselves and making no sacrifice of their own comfort.
People from other countries may have a bigger mountain to climb but how would you be treated in their country?

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170029#Comment_122170029

The logic being "I'm white and I'm privileged, therefore all white people are as privileged as me".

smokingman

Hey nazis, aside from cosplaying in your shed in 1930s uniforms, how do you really think you'll convince us to come to your views? Is there any chance you might just not know any actual Irish people and yes, I'm including all irish citizens that have come here in the last 100 years

Hamachi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170586#Comment_122170586

User name certainly checks out for this one.

notAMember

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170029#Comment_122170029

How would I be treated in their country? Eh… who cares? I'm responsible for my own behaviour and the society I can influence.

What's your point of view… Someone was mean to me once somewhere, therefore I must treat everyone from that area badly? A rather immature way to live, imho.

Annasopra

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122165358#Comment_122165358

The only thing that can make people happy and well adjusted is money?

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122170378#Comment_122170378

Yeah but that's a narrow way of looking at it — from both those who might push that view and those who only insist on seeing white privilege as a "guilt" thing to be resisted.

Personally, I find recognising white privilege to be a good critical thinking tool. I feel the same way recognising my heterosexual privilege, male privilege , able-bodied privilege, the privilege of being born into a happy stable home, having access to a very good education etc.

I don't see it as something to feel guilty about — and lots of non-white people are the beneficiaries of other types of privilege including those mentioned above. And lots of people benefit from privilege that I haven't benefited from. But being able to recognise privilege, personally, I find to be something that helps me stay grateful for what I have, accepting that certain things I don't have arent necessarily because I wasn't good enough to have them and, above all, understanding the perspective of others by recognising the different experience people have in certain aspects of life based on privilege or a lack of it.

Flaneur OBrien

I'm delighted that they're changing things. Society has evolved vastly over the last 25 years, so of course the primary system should evolve too.

sekiro

The fact is that "privilege" is something that people are a bit obsessed with these days so the kids would encounter this discussion eventually anyway.

The trick would be ensuring that your own kids see it for the load of rubbish it actually is. That shouldn't be too difficult.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172629#Comment_122172629

Out of interest, why do you think it's rubbish? At the end of the day — even base level acceptance that you've had certain advantages (and disadvantages) in life versus another person or cohort of persons is a form of acknowledging privilege. Even when I was young, you were taught to be grateful for certain things — which is a simple form of privilege acceptance. The difference nowadays is that the conversation has developed beyond simple gratefulness towards actually critically thinking about how certain things you are grateful for are things others around you might not benefit from — and also realising that there are things you might never even have been conscious of.

Why do you see this as rubbish?

sekiro

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172668#Comment_122172668

Can you be more specific with examples?

I'm seeing a lot of vague talk about "advantages" and "benefits" but not really any specifics.

You are kind of blurring the lines between the concept of personal privilege (as in being grateful for the things one has) and a concept of collective privilege (such as male privilege). Maybe that's not intentional but it takes us way off track if I am opposed to the idea of automatic collective privilege and you are just talking about being grateful for certain personal outcomes.

So I say "Concept A is a load of rubbish" and you say "well here is Concept B why do you say it's a load of rubbish?"

I think there's a pretty obvious trap that people can fall into where we assume and then assign privilege to others without really knowing anything about them.

SharkMX

Dont assume people are born privileged, based on race, sex, colour, money, education or anything like that.

A friend from college was born to a rich family in Foxrock. We used to all envy him and I guess we thought he was privileged. What we didnt know was that being born to rich parents all sounds good when you are just looking at someone else and seeing what you want to see.

Turns out his rich father was abusing him and his sisters ever since they were children. Id say at the end of the day, he was not born into privilege at all.

ArthurDayne

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122172994#Comment_122172994

But gratefulness is only part of it — my point is that if you are grateful for certain things (particularly things that you have by virtue of mainly good fortune), this is the base level of the acceptance of privilege.

Gratefulness is something like being thankful that you are able-bodied — but privilege is where you skip down a flight of concrete steps on a cold wet day to catch your train and you suddenly ask yourself, what would the experience of a disabled person be here? You say to yourself, I have the privilege of running down this handy flight of stairs — I don't immediately see a ramp or a lift — so how does the person in a wheelchair on that cold wet day figure it out?

That's a simple example of acknowledging a privilege you have versus someone else — you are putting yourself in their shoes to consider what their lived experience is and the barriers, obstacles and social biases they face that might not be immediately obvious to an able bodied person. Are you ashamed to be able bodied? No, of course not. As well as that, the next disabled person who comes along might well be from a wealthy family, is minted and grew up in a happier home than some able bodied person who was routinely abused as a child.

What you get from that then is that privilege is a multi-faceted thing — it doesn't mean that one person is privileged in every circumstance of their life. But acknowledging your privilege in certain circumstances helps you to think more broadly about how the people around you experience life — which is a good thing for society.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122173094#Comment_122173094

I think there's a confusion here between financial/societal privilege and being loved. A working class family can be loving and happy, but that doesn't make it any more acceptable for young Tarquin from Foxrock, or wherever, to walk into a job thanks to his family's connections or to friends made at his expensive school, even if his father was an absolute sh1t and his mother a barely functioning alcoholic.

It's much like saying that money doesn't buy happiness: no of course it doesn't, but I've also heard that phrase completed with "but it does make unhappiness easier to bear".

I think we need to be careful not to end up justifying social inequalities on the grounds that those benefiting from them might be unhappy on the inside. Well, so might lots of people who don't have their financial privileges either. So what?

(None of which is really relevant to the question of whether the Irish have benefited from "white privilege" anyway, even assuming that exists. But "don't assume people are privileged, even when you can clearly see that they are privileged" is too disingenuous not to be questioned. "Don't confuse money with happiness", sure - but privilege is a fairly objective thing, and shouldn't be dismissed as a factor in people's lives just because someone can still be sad despite having it.)