Whatever Boris Johnson does now, he’s already secured my vote. The Guardian reports that he has slashed funding for a series of high-profile multicultural events, at the same time as ploughing £100,000 into a new venture to celebrate America (…)
That same contempt is increased by the justification often aired that black history is necessary to raise the self-esteem of young black boys, as if they get into gangs because they’re not taught enough about Mary Seacole or that Roman emperor who may have been black or maybe North African, no one’s too sure.
History is about telling the truth, not raising self-esteem – we don’t teach Irish kids that St Brendan discovered America in a boat made of stone, as my granny claimed, because it would make them feel better, or Chinese pupils that they were first into New Zealand. But the multicultural history being taught at many British schools, and being promoted by many government-funded bodies, is in the same no man’s land between history and myth. And too often “self-esteem” is a euphemism for ethnic chauvinism and its offspring, politically motivated pseudohistory.
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And black kids test very highly for self-esteem — or have you not been listening to 25 years’ worth of rap lyrics?
