Sewell report - Expat in Kaliningrad, Russia

Woke Watch PC UK [Case 1]

Published: 6 April 2021

Preamble

This series of posts is devoted to identifying, tracking and reporting on instances of politically correct oppression in the UK, which have become so prevalent and stultifying in recent years that they have morphed into an erosive sub-culture, ironically characterised by self-righteous victimhood and a postured drive for equality. This is the culture of ‘Woke’.

Stymieing free speech and closing down discussion, liberal elements exploit the false altruism implanted in this credo for the prosecution and inverted moral enforcement of a neo-Marxist creed.

Assisted not a little by an ideological media sympathetic to their agenda, the hyper-reaction and sheer volume of publicity devoted to issues of race, gender and other liberal hobby horses has discredited the perpetrators and exposed their agenda. It has also caught them in a trap of their own making, the term ‘Woke’ ~ their term ~ presented originally as a victim’s cry for social and racial justice now widely used to identify over-zealous practitioners and self-proclaimed arbitrators of ‘correct thought’ as defined by neoliberal PC elites.

There is a limit to which even the most tolerant people of the most tolerant country (reference Sewell report) can remain tolerant to daily intolerance and at last legacy Britons appear to have reached that point:

Stay aWoke to the Wokes folks!

If, in a wild and distorted dream or a state of unpardonable and gross inebriation you have even vaguely considered that the ‘liberal way’ could be progressively good for your country ~ or, for that matter, remotely good ~ let these posts serve as a moral reminder: Be careful what you wish for!

In my introductory post to this series, Woke Watch PC UK, I referred briefly to that recent sorry state of affairs at Pimlico Academy London, where children, jumping on the protest bandwagon, were allowed and encouraged to lambast their headteacher and dictate school policy.

The Pimlico Academy circus and the liberal media’s reaction to the Sewell report on racial disparity are perfect examples of the fostered permeation of a woke cult within the UK and the extent to which this virus is cultivated and used as a mind-altering, psychological weapon in our schools. From the government’s reluctance (some have referred to it as ‘moral cowardice’) to institute robust measures to combat the virulence, hope for an effective vaccine grows less and less credible as each day passes. Unchallenged, systemic wokeness is a source of global embarrassment to the UK in the disproportionate media and political space it occupies to the detriment of real issues, such as unsafe streets and spiralling crime, but is at the very least redeemable in its entertainment value.

My attention was first drawn to this farcical piece of nonsense, re Pimlico Academy, when I stumbled upon a report in that most august of intellectual online dispensaries, the Mirror.

Headlined, “Pimlico Academy: Angry pupils stage mass walk-out at school’s ‘racist’ uniform policy”, with the standfirst, “Students and staff are furious over a strict new uniform policy at Pimlico Academy in Westminster, central London, and changes to the secondary school’s history curriculum”, the article immediately set the sirens wailing: ‘Woke! Woke! Woke!’.

From the safety of my anti-PC bunker, not having been enriched for some time now, I read on, hardly able to contain my amusement. According to the report, some angry children were having a tantrum in the school playground (for those of you who are not from the UK, an ‘academy’ is a posh-sounding name for a school; a tantrum is a ‘peaceful demonstration’). ‘We want change’, they shouted. I could hear an echo bouncing back at them from somewhere in Britain’s glorious past, “Don’t we all!” it was saying.

The change that they wanted was not for the drinks machine. They were ~ shall we use a ‘peaceful demonstration’ word? ~ ‘outraged’.

Woke Attack in Pimlico UK!

It may defy belief if you come from a non-PC-crazed background, but in the wonky land of Woke, anybody and anything can be denounced as racist at any time, and somebody with a lot more time on their hands than most of us, but not a great deal of intelligence, had denounced Pimlico’s school uniform as racist. The school uniform was wacist (that’s a cross between woke and racist) because it discriminated against hijabs and hairstyles. The school pupils were also incensed that the school curriculum was not paying enough attention to the antics of Black Lives Matter and were demanding that more time be devoted to Black History Month, like, er, Black History Two Months or preferably 13 months of the year. Durrgh…

The Mirror published extracts from the children’s online post, which, incorporating such terms as ‘protect marginalised races [and] religions’, ‘discriminating against’ and ‘challenging identity’, shows that if they learn nothing else in today’s progressive liberal schools, children are at least well versed in the parrot language of Woke.

Some went on to excel themselves by taking up the cudgel for the gender disadvantaged. And you have to hand it to them, they had really done their homework on the PC prose of choice:

“We believe the idea of gendered uniform for all students is a ridiculous, backwards ideal. This ostracises non-binary and gender non-conforming students, or those who are struggling with their gender identity.”

I really, really do wish that I had been armed with this load of old cod’s wallop when I was at school. In those days, if you did not present in the full and prescribed uniform by the time you had chanted ‘we want change’, you could be guaranteed to have got it, initiated by a swift, stout kick up the arse. The change being a bruise where you did not have one before.

Woke Attack in Pimlico UK!

Whilst some of Pimlico’s school children were writing online statements, others, true to form, were defacing the school walls with graffiti. Some future university student daubed:

“Headmaster Smith should get the sack.”

And why on earth shouldn’t he, with a name like that!

The Mirror goes on to report that, “the Guardian reported that the school was facing mass staff resignations, a student protest and a vote of no confidence in its headteacher.”

It almost sounds like ‘Hooray’?

Mr Smith is a white headmaster and therefore it goes without saying that he should either resign or apologise, or preferably both! ~ be sent to Devil’s Island, somewhere in the Caribbean or Lambeth, and never again be permitted to hold office.

Apparently, the academy’s staff is in such a PC tizz about it all that many of the poor darlings are thinking of quitting their job.

Helpful school caretaker: “Allow me, I’ll open the door for you!”

And it is reported that the entire geography department handed in their notice, presumably because they failed to identify that the country where they live and work is Britain. Mind you, it is not that easy to tell these days, is it, not even for a geography teacher?

Now, I am not sure whether you will appreciate the woke irony inherent in this next quote from the Mirror, but take your time (clue, think of BLM and statues and political allegiances).

“Former Pimlico Academy pupil Liza Begum, Labour’s candidate for the upcoming Churchill ward councillor by-election, visited the protest.”

Well, she would, wouldn’t she!

According to the Mirror, she was proud of the students, adding, ‘it [the protest] was a peaceful event’.

As all such demonstrations, especially BLM demonstrations, are ~ children …

One mother complained that the pupils are not listened to and feel ‘frustrated and disempowered’ (Congratulations, now you know what most teachers feel every day of their lives.) And wanted to know what this would do for them [the kids] when they left school? The answer being, a great deal of good, I suppose, because in the real world, the world outside of school, getting your own way by staging a tantrum, even if the liberal media patronises it as ‘peaceful’, is not something that Bet Fred is likely to give you very good odds on.

Now, I have intentionally left the best for last, which is that after ticking all the essentials on the woke checklist, as ticked by the children at Pimlico Academy, having been primed to do so by their liberal masters …

Racism
Discrimination
Gender issues
Identity
Challenged self-esteem
White man headmaster

… the ultimate demand from the Pimlico children was that the school remove the Union Jack. And, yes, you have got it in one, of course the school capitulated.

Think about it. An institution whose purpose it is not only to educate the young in the academic sense but is also charged with the responsibility of inculcating them with an appreciation of the values and morals of society to help them to integrate into that society, takes down the nation’s flag, having been ordered to do so by a gaggle of school children not yet worldly wise enough to know the fundamental difference between their arses and their elbows. Still, I suppose it was an improvement on last September, when Britain’s future hauled the flag down and burnt it. To quote Del Amitri:

“And nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
The needle returns to the start of the song
And we all sing along like before … “

The least you would expect is that the entire history department of Pimlico Academy would hand in their resignation, hop into the nearest TARDIS, shoot off back in time and warn Great Britain of what will become of it in the 21^st century unless it takes a firmer grip. What a mess!

The ethnic composition of the child protestors which led to the peremptory and pitiful removal of the nation’s flag is not immediately apparent. A closer look at the photos and videos that covered the playground huff would be interesting from a sociological viewpoint if nothing else, as it would help to ascertain the ratio of children indoctrinated by liberal left mantras in relation to those exploiting them to further an agenda.

Incidentally, did you ever see that wonderful old black and white (cough) film Passport to Pimlico? It was all very different then, wasn’t it, although the title of that film could well have been a presentiment. All the same, should a remake be made today, the film would have to retain its original title since Pimlico is land-locked, so something along the lines of Small Boat to Pimlico would hardly be believable ~ but then again, what is?

Woke Attack in Pimlico UK!

At the end of a wrong day, whether your verdict is woke tsunami or merely a storm in a piss pot, that the Pimlico spat was set against the backdrop of the frenzied reception to the Sewell report on racial disparity speaks volumes about the wider malaise in the land of the Woke and Wonderless.

This ‘landmark adjudication’, the Sewell report, is, of course, covered extensively by the liberal press. The Guardian, for example, asks in one of their earlier articles, before the tone becomes predictably rabid, ‘Did the government’s response to the Black Lives Matter protests measure up? A panel of writers responds’. And the answer, from the liberal perspective is, as we know, of course it didn’t. Whilst some people could be forgiven for equating inadequate response with lack of robust policing, I am not saying anything about this article. Find it, read the names of the contributors, see their panels and photographs, read what they have to say and judge for yourselves.

I cannot quite make up my mind, from a purely woke position, whether the liberal faction so seemingly incensed by the Sewell report’s conclusion that the UK is one of the most racially tolerant countries in the world, would have been infinitely more disappointed had the report returned what they presumed it must do following what they conceived to be an intimidation victory by the BLM riots, namely that the UK is racist to its core and that penance by those responsible can never be paid in full, as there is not enough guilt in Woke land for reparation to replace agenda.

Such Woke expressions of virtue-signalled anger are surely just for the record ~ the broken record. Without doubt, the Sewell report has handed to those who have nothing better to do than to delude themselves into believing that making banners and running amok in the streets will change anything, a golden opportunity: summer is on the way, time to get those hoodies on and crank up the ‘peaceful protesting’! And if it all gets sordid and nasty, then not only is there the old excuse to fall back on, that the police response was ‘neither appropriate nor proportionate’ (from the rehearsed script of Mr Mayor Khan) there is the Sewell report as well. “Ooooh, it made me so angry! I just had to make a banner and go and deface a statue. Er, how do you spell ‘discriminate’?”

Woke me up when it’s all over, yawn …