The Politics of Dancing

Race, Culture and Rotherham  I. Anyone working in the field of social care in the 1980’s and 90’s experienced the phenomenon of ‘race awareness’ training. These workshops varied in style and quality from the feel of the mild rebuke of an after school detention class to a Soviet style re-education camp. The underlying assumption was that if you were white you were wholly ignorant of the impact of racism and needed to have your noses rubbed in it. Whilst if you were black this automatically made you an expert on oppression.  If this is a caricature, it is not much of one. This ‘training’ was at its core fear based, less about enlightenment than detecting and weeding out thought crime. To be accused of being a racist or harbouring racist sentiments was like being accused of being a paedophile, possibly worse. It is the atmosphere created by this ideology that has led directly to the Rotherham abuse scandal. Joyce Thacker and Shaun Wright who presided over a social serv...