"Hang tradition." In this modern climate where we all assumed to share the mental capacity of a five-year old, the modern approach to England's rich and varied cultural heritage is one where children, and indeed the parents, are in need of protection. Having to explain something to a child that the state hasn't sanctioned, or placed in the curriculum, is tremendously tiresome. As the children of a primary school in Kent found out when part of their 'cultural' event that looked to bring a 'diverse and fragile' community together was cancelled after the staff discovered that some Morris dancers 'blacked' their faces.
Why do these Morris dancers perform with blacked out faces? The merry band of dancers concerned explain that it is thought to be some sort of disguise, or another theory offered elsewhere relates it to an attempt to look Moorish. Or perhaps these people feared persecution and sought to protect their identities. These reasons fundamentally point in the opposite direction to the racism that the dysfunctional teachers and parents of Kent inferred. Had they spent two minutes on the internet they would have been furnished with information that they could then pass onto the children, instead their charges will remain slightly less aware of the world around them. This a primary example of why this country's education system is only good at producing state educated clones who can barely think for themselves, let alone function.
These dancers should be welcomed back. This country needs to realise that offence is something that can be explained away if the other party holds all the information pertaining to a comment, or action. In this case the teacher and parents in Kent won't be the ones made to look ignorant; it will be the Morris dancers and their traditions. The public won't seek to understand why the dancers 'black' up, they will make assumptions. Tradition and culture are choked out of existence by the noose that state sanctioned prejudice and stupidity create through the dumbing down of the majority of the population via the poor quality of government provided education. This is just another classic example.
