Monday 24 July 2017

Nick Gibb is going to stamp out verbal homophobic bullying



Nick Gibb says in the Mail that he's going to stamp out homophobic bullying including the discriminatory use of the word 'gay'. He wants to do that in schools. To do that he'll need to enlist the support of teachers.

1. This assumes that teachers don't do their best to discuss and eliminate discriminatory language.
2. It overlooks the fact that Labour councils and the NUT have over the years tried to take up issues of discriminatory language across the board. For this they got abuse and mockery from the Tory press and Tory MPs. This was part of the Equal Opportunities programme which was in the end ditched, I believe, thanks to the attacks.
3. Why has Gibb picked out one word 'gay' from the raft of discriminatory language? There are many words which are used to hurt and abuse and help construct a hierarchy of power of the so-called 'normal' over others e.g. 'lame' and many racist words.
4. I suspect another agenda here: cosmetic work by the Tories on their 'image' in the face of Corbyn.