What could be better and bring more joy to this rain-sodden, post industrial nation? In Wales, 5.5% of the population is BAME among them my wife and two kids one of whom starts school in September. In our district, Wrexham, the BAME number is 2.6% according to the Welsh Government which has today announced exciting new changes to the school curriculum.
12% of schoolkids across Wales are from BAME backgrounds and the demographics of the BAME community means that almost all teachers here in Wales are white.
According to the BBC: Wales’ new curriculum, set to be introduced in 2022, is based on six “areas of learning and experience” and does not set out exactly what schools should be teaching.
However, the changes will now mean all learning areas will need to reflect the diverse experiences and contributions of BAME communities and individuals to both past and present Wales.
Great, my BAME son, who starts school this September, will get a patronising whitey lecturing him about how oppressed he is because of his skin colour every day of the week, defining him in those terms alone. Some might think that with two intelligent, well-educated, caring and relatively affluent parents living in a lovely old farmhouse in a charming village, when not in Greece, our boy enjoys some sort of privilege and is very fortunate but that idea will soon be beaten out of him under the new curriculum and he can realise that he just has to be a victim.
No doubt he will come home arguing that his Dad, who shares DNA with Wilberforce and is descended from Ilbert, needs to pay reparations to his mum for the gains he enjoyed as a result of the unmitigated evils of an empire which did no good at all.
Not that this is not happening already.