Children’s books must have more black characters, a study funded by the Arts Council has said.
Only 4 per cent of books published last year aimed at primary school children featured a Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic character, according to research commissioned by the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE).
When analysing how many children’s books had a main character who was from an ethnic minority background, researchers found that the proportion dropped even further down, to one per cent.
Meanwhile, almost a third (32.1 per cent) of pupils in primary schools in England are from minority ethnic backgrounds, the latest official figures show.
“The demographic make-up of the UK did not align with the presence of BAME characters in books published in 2017,” the report said. “Each ethnic minority category was significantly under-represented.”
Yes, there’s that rather fascist demand that children’s books must be propaganda.But the much more important one is that 32% of children are BAME.
That replacement of the British seems to be working well then?
I assume as it’s always does that that 32% includes kids where one parent is efnick British and one not.
Which makes it look a lot less than replacement, dunnit?
Biggie, I hope you are soon well.
“When analysing how many children’s books had a main character who was from an ethnic minority background, researchers found that the proportion dropped even further down, to one per cent.”
I guess ‘Little Black Sambo’ is back in vogue then?
I was recently in a bookshop in Norwich, looking for a book for my 5 year old nephew, and I was genuinely astounded at how lefty the kids books were. Full of SJW bollocks masked with a ‘lets be nice to people / animals / gaia’ type stories.
“It is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre.” Enoch Powell (pbuh)
“Which makes it look a lot less than replacement, dunnit?”
No, it doesn’t.
Stop the import. Stop the subsidised breeding program. Smash the Left.
Job done.
Probably not helped by the fact that there are demands to purge BAME characters who aren’t Mary-Sues (i.e. perfect).
Post modernists went through and removed negative depictions of people denying character development and therefore a story. The same reason Starwars now sux and Female ghostbusters failed.
So they’re calling for more books with golliwogs in, are we?
How is that ‘job done’, Ecksy, without a re-emigration programme?
Millions of disaffected muslims, useless sub-saharans with IQs only marginally higher than a collie dog’s, semi-feral afro-caribbeans, etc….should be sent back to those countries where they still have a right of residence. Only those prepared to assimilate and with relevant qualifications need remain.
Julia: Epaminondas as well. No, not the guy from Thebes. This was a black American kid. I remember reading stories about him as a kid in the 50s.
If you put the same argument about adult TV reporters not being BAME/white in the same proportion as the population you would be a fascist, racist, white supremacist bastard.
Asian TV reporters and weathergirls tend to be young, female and good looking.
This is an injustice I’m prepared to overlook.
Theo–no more in and no more subsidy as follows.
The growing numbers are driven by RoP demographic takeover. Sub-Sahara consists mostly of male yobbo wasters and crims who are not cutting it on the breeding front. Stop importing them and that will close that circus down for good.
As for the RoP.
Their marriages get recognised as equal to ours and bigamy charges apply. So 4 women in tow? You go to jail and are obliged to divorce 3 and pay alimony and they plus the kids have to leave the UK. Or you can avoid jail , take a 20 grand bounty ( still cheaper than civil war) sell-up and leave the UK for good. Multi-marriage = no entry to UK. That should reduce numbers somewhat.
Also benefits only for one woman and two kids max and HB enough to house same. You have more than that –your problem.
Next all migrants –and offspring –get no citizenship for one hundred years. If they have come to work and prosper then they can do everything everybody else does under the law –BUT NO VOTE. After 100 years you –or more likely your kids–will be evaluated. Assimilated ? British in all but perhaps colour or minor points of culture? They get the vote etc. If they are any sort of bad news–they are out even after 100 years. Retroactive to 1/1/ 1997. Which should end the London Labour Lake caper as well.
That is a good start Theo–even you must admit.
There’s nothing stopping BAME authors an publishers putting out those books, or do they expect that to be done for them.
@Ecksy: also living in Bradford, Southall, Brixton etc doesn’t count as assimilation.
Diversity:
” Non-white children need to see more characters who look like them.”
” White children need to see fewer characters who look like them.”
Immigration moratorium now.
ETHNIC MINORITY!!!!
If they want to talk about literacy, they should at least be bloody literate themselves. Minority is a noun not an adjective, ethnic is an adejective not a noun. If they can’t even manage to even get their english right right in their very first sentence, they have no justification to be pontificating on other people’s literacy, especially in a published medium where they are bloody well paid for what they write.
Dear Mr Worstall
Our beloved government is orchestrating a re-run of the fate of the native Americans. Ultimately the remaining native Britons will end up in reservations, possibly on the Isle of Wight.
The mad rush to cram ever more invaders into our towns and cities seems to stem from a desire to create the conditions for perpetual insurgencies in this country.
I can’t think why anyone would actually want to do that, but history tells us that lots of people have done in the past and are still doing so today.
How do we stop them?
DP
Alex,
I thought Southall was mostly Sikh? While not white they do seem to assimilate fairly well.
So colour DOES matter.
I foresee a rush of children’s books featuring Black astro-physicists, Indian firefighters, and who knows, perhaps one say an African discovering penicillin.
And why not? They swallow Narnia after all.
@RLJ: just being even-handed.
Our village has quite a few furriners (Euro), but 0% BAME. It isn’t us keeping them out.
Strange, because I remember when I was at school the children in the textbooks had incomprehensible foreign names which we’d all make fun of.
Yes, but then you were in West Wales. Where Smith, Johnson and Murphy are exotic foreign names….
“…when I was at school the children in the textbooks had incomprehensible foreign names which we’d all make fun of.”
Like Dafydd Iwan, Bryn Terfel, Shân Cothi or Myfanwy Talog?
Ecksy
Your measures would help, but they need to be backed up with a re-emigration scheme. So many RoPers and afros are manifestly unhappy here (as a result of the grievance industry) that they would seize an offer of (say) £5000 per adult to re-emigrate. The savings in benefits, reduced demand for public services and reduced crime would cover the cost.
The UK needs high value, high IQ immigrants prepared to assimilate – and preferably go home before they get old.
UK should follow the new Danish model: any child living in a ghetto gets compulsory Enid Blyton from age one to help assimilation.
Theophrastus – “So many RoPers and afros are manifestly unhappy here (as a result of the grievance industry) that they would seize an offer of (say) £5000 per adult to re-emigrate.”
That is funny! £5000 is about a year’s worth of housing allowance for the average scrounger. Why would they give up a life time of free money for chump change?
The only way to substantially reduce the cancerous populations within Britain is at the point of a bayonet.
“The UK needs high value, high IQ immigrants prepared to assimilate – and preferably go home before they get old.”
No, Britain needs more British babies.
British children’s literature has plenty of non-White faces. Lord of the Rings for instance:
But still, if that is not enough I am happy to include the Lone Ranger, Tintin in Congo, and pretty much everything but G. A Henty into kindergartens.
SMFS
If, as I think, many immigrants are unhappy and dissatisfied here, they’d be pleased to give up benefits for a cash award. £5000 buys a lot in a third world shithole, whereas UK housing benefit pays only for a roof over your head in the uncongenial and allegedly oppressive UK.
“The only way to substantially reduce the cancerous populations within Britain is at the point of a bayonet.”
First, we try persuasion and incentives…
“No, Britain needs more British babies.”
Indeed. But more white babies and high-value immigration aren’t mutually exclusive.
“Our village has quite a few furriners (Euro), but 0% BAME.”
Euro counts as “ethnic”.
Figures for 2017 Primary schools are:
White British 67.2%
White non-British 7.5%
Asian 10.7%
Black 5.6%
Mixed 5.9%
Chinese 0.4%
Any other 1.9%
Unclassified 0.7%
White non-British will include most of Europe (i.e. lots of Poles and Romanians), USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, places like that. Asian will have a lot of Indians. A fair number of the blacks will be from the USA.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/650547/SFR28_2017_Main_Text.pdf
Giving reasons for the increase in numbers, the ONS says:
Top countries for British-born children of foreign parents are are Poland, Pakistan, India, Romania, Bangladesh, and Nigeria. The total number is a little under 200,000 children in 2016.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/livebirths/bulletins/parentscountryofbirthenglandandwales/2016
But it can be difficult. How would you classify Boris Johnson, for example? British? Or Ethnic? How about Prince Philip?
The mystery is why those books aren’t being written, brought to market, and flying off the shelves. The Arts Council seems to have discovered (intuited?) enormous unmet demand.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Where are the descendants of “Hurri Jamset Ram Singh” when you need them?
“UK should follow the new Danish model: any child living in a ghetto gets compulsory Enid Blyton from age one to help assimilation.”
That could prove ‘interesting’…
http://www.enidblytonsociety.co.uk/book-details.php?id=418
Well, the Famous Five had one transvestite, George. So even Enid Blyton saw this coming. With lashings of ginger beer 🙂
I’d like to point out I didn’t see NiV’s comment until after mine.
NiV: which proves what? That the U.K. is a tolerant place extending healthcare without discrimination? Cigarette cards were great! Thanks for the memory.
Celebrate diversity, feel the vibrancy:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5962467/Married-family-doctor-dropped-towel-told-housekeeper-Im-looking-fun.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5962879/Muslim-woman-watch-husbands-terror-trial-refusing-remove-niqab-veil.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5962341/Judges-dock-alleged-12-6million-legal-aid-scam.html
“NiV: which proves what?”
Nothing. I just thought it was amusing, imagining the modern-day reaction.
NiV: appreciated. It’s a lovely quote!
Did anyone else read the report? It’s quite reasonable.
https://clpe.org.uk/library-and-resources/research/reflecting-realities-survey-ethnic-representation-within-uk-children
Why don’t journalists link to the source?
I don’t think that 32.1% figure came from the report.
I can’t tell from the report whether they have excluded all the books that don’t even have a human as the main character.
Are they going to also address the appalling sexual discrimination where female authors are out earning male authors
“I don’t think that 32.1% figure came from the report.”
No, I think it came from the ONS source I linked to above. Add the “White British” to the “Unclassified” and subtract from 100%.