The School That Tried to End Racism review – a powerful lesson in white privilege

This gripping documentary follows the first UK trial of a US programme aimed at educating pupils in unconscious racial bias

It is not – alas – the case that any documentary anatomising the influence of prejudice and the state of race relations in the UK would ever be untimely, but the makers of the three-part series The School That Tried to End Racism (Channel 4) can hardly have envisaged just how relevant and necessary their programme would feel by the time it was broadcast.

The school in question is a nonselective state secondary, Glenthorne high school in south London, whose intake is just over 50% white students and just under 50% BAME students. It is rated outstanding by Ofsted, and you can see why. It is taking part in the first trial in the UK of a three-week programme developed in the US to educate children about the existence and effects of unconscious racial bias towards and against different communities. It is part of a wider movement away from “colour-blindness” as the default anti-racism policy (ignoring racial differences and therefore their effects in an inequitable world) and instead aims to work towards a society that can cope with the idea that difference can be recognised and – with conscious effort and strategies – not penalised.

Over in the white group, they understandably find themselves having to come up with self-definitions for the first time

Related: Why I’m no longer talking to white people about race

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from Children | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2Nv58LM