Gary Monro’s blog

A Tangled Web yesterday covered a post by another blogger on this subject.

I also covered this - just after the death of Mr Whelan. The incidents happened so close together - actually only hours apart - that the comparison was easy.

Anthony Walker (below) was stabbed to death by a group of white youths. Richard Whelan (bottom) was stabbed to death by a black man on a bus.

I did think that Anthony Walker being only 18 made some difference to the story but, in reality, him being black made quite a bit more to some people.

While I could find only one, short reference to Mr Whelan’s funeral after a (brief) Google search - and it’s in a Boston newspaper - I can find plenty on Mr Walker’s.

It’s events like these that expose the rank hypocrisy and prejudice that is rife in our society. In our society black people are reduced to mere tokens, the means by which the unctious and self-serving - politicians (chasing votes), community ‘leaders’ (also chasing votes), media channels (chasing viewers) and various others tying to outdo each other in their strike-a-pose concern - can show just what fine, humane members of society they are.

The reality is, they don’t grieve for Mr Walker. They pretend they do but they don’t. They never knew him. His family, a close and loving one, grieve. His friends grieve. Ordinary people with less to gain from crocodile tears feel sympathy with Mr Walker’s distraught family. But the rest? It’s just show.

There are two types of white racist in this country and it takes a tragedy like Mr Walker’s and a similar one like Mr Whelan’s to expose them in their full glory.

Both types of racist judge a person by his colour. One type of racist sees the colour of the skin and hates it. The other sees the colour of the skin and exalts it. When a tragedy befalls a black skinned person the first type thinks, ‘Good riddance’. The second type thinks, ‘How do I make something of this? How can I obtain respect and admiration and an improved standing from this?’

Which of the two is worse? It’s hard to tell.

Those of us who see skin colour and are indifferent to it, seeing it as neither warranting poor treatment or special treatment are the only ones who actually attempt to be colour blind. I believe, actually, it’s impossible not to be affected by what you see - clothes, colour, build, features, etc - but intelligent people try to see beyond the surface and allow the other chap to make or break his reputation himself by his own words and his own deeds.

The white haters and the white poseurs have made up their minds about blacks - ’scum’ and ‘poor little inadequates needing my help and support’ respectively - before the black person even opens his mouth. We who do not care about your colour are not praised for being colour-blind but condemned for not being ’sensitive’.

Ironic it is indeed that those of us most likely to judge you on your merits and give you the room to define yourself by your words and actions are the least likely to be appreciated for honest and principled services to the multi-ethnic experiment.

Here we go again…

Nearly 98% of students taking the GCSE exam passed. I tell you, that 2% that didn’t must feel pretty stupid…

But pupils have been criticised for opting for so-called easier courses, and employers lashed out saying standards were still slipping leaving students lacking basic skills.

The Institute of Directors said many children left school without basic reading and writing skills.

“The starting point for employers recruiting staff is surely to have access to candidates with basic literacy and numeracy skills. We are not there yet,” said Richard Wilson, Head of Business Policy at the IoD.

Want to know one of the reasons why our youth are becoming less educated? Lack of aspiration.

No, not amongst the youth, silly. Amongst the incompetents who run our country:

Jacqui Smith, minister for schools, said the Government was working with employers to ensure “functional” English and Maths were studied in GCSEs.

Functional? That’s what we aspire to? Just ‘functional’? So if you aim for ‘functional’ - which is in itself a tragically low standard - and then fall short what do you get? How about ‘Neanderthal’?

And the incompetents who want to run our country:

Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat education spokesman, said GCSEs were “failing” and should now be replaced.

That’s right, mess a thing up and then throw it away. What will you replace it with? If the underlying attitudes in education are that we must aim for equality of outcome what use is just replacing it? The phrase, “Same s**t, different bucket”, springs to mind…

The students themselves are getting irritated by the low quality of their exams:

Students at Magdalen College independent school (MCS) in Oxford joined their deputy headmaster Richard Cairns in speaking out at their frustration at the “patronising” exams which often award full-marks even if errors are made.

And the attack on working class aspirations was made clear by MCS’s deputy headmaster Richard Cairns:

“It is effectively left to individual schools to provide the extra intellectual stimulation that bright teenagers demand but some schools are better placed than others to offer this extra dimension.

“Some very clever boys and girls from academically deprived backgrounds are doubtless missing out. There is, in my view, a stronger case than ever for the state to support scholars at leading independent schools, selected on the basis of academic ability and genuine financial need.”

For as long as we are governed by a party whose ambitions are not the improvement of the British people but the furthering of their leftist ideological obsessions there is no hope in sight. When a 23 year old Guardian journalist can obtain an A grade in his AS level sociology degree after just two weeks of studying and nearly everybody who takes this nation’s main exams - the GCSE and the A-level - passes them we know we are hurtling in the wrong direction.

For those of us with children in education the private sector seems to be the only place to go. Ironic it would be indeed if our anti-elitist rulers were the main cause of an expansion in private education…

Seems some anti-war demonstrators will stop at nothing:

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the current home of hundreds of wounded veterans from the war in Iraq, has been the target of weekly anti-war demonstrations since March. The protesters hold signs that read “Maimed for Lies” and “Enlist here and die for Halliburton.”

I was under the impression that these people were anti-war at least in part because they felt for the soldiers who were suffering in an ‘unjust’ war. Not according to Kevin Pannell’s experience. He was recently treated at Walter Reed and had both legs amputated after an ambush grenade attack near Baghdad:

Pannell said he initially tried to ignore the anti-war activists camped out in front of Walter Reed, until witnessing something that enraged him.

“We went by there one day and I drove by and [the anti-war protesters] had a bunch of flag-draped coffins laid out on the sidewalk. That, I thought, was probably the most distasteful thing I had ever seen. Ever,” Pannell, a member of the Army’s First Cavalry Division, told Cybercast News Service.

To even things up a little there’s a conservative counter-demonstration:

“[The anti-war protesters] have no business here. If they want to protest policy, they should be at the Capitol, they should be at the White House,” said Nina Burke. “The only reason for being here is to talk to [the] wounded and [anti-war protests are] just completely inappropriate.”

Albion Wilde concurred, arguing that “it’s very easy to pick on the families of the wounded. They are very vulnerable … I feel disgusted”.

It’s hard not to feel that at least some parts of the anti-war movement glory in American dead and wounded.