The publisher of a schoolbook intended to promote diversity has apologised after portraying a typical Irish family as cabbage-chewing, potato-munching xenophobes. The Telegraph has more.
The offending material is being pulled by the Educational Company of Ireland after uproar in Ireland, where the book was part of the curriculum for 14 and 15-year-olds.
In a chapter called All Different, All Equal, an all-white and red-headed Irish family are depicted on a farm wearing Aran jumpers.
It says that Family A eat “potatoes, bacon and cabbage every day” and “do not like change or difference”. The children “get told off if we mix with people with a different religion from ours, as they would be a bad influence”.
The two children are shown Irish dancing. All their relatives are Irish, and they are banned from playing “foreign games” or watching films made outside Ireland.
The family are compared unfavourably with a mixed-race family, who are shown outside Rome’s coliseum. In contrast, they “love change and difference”, eat “curry, pizza and Asian food”, travel internationally and visit art galleries.
Family B says in the book: “We have relations in London and Australia and our family is part-Irish, part-Romanian and part-Dutch. Most years we house-swap with a family in a different country. It is a great way to meet people and learn about other cultures and societies.”
Worth reading in full.
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