hang on, there was a funny moment today. I has set a task for the girls to impro a scene between  Martin Luther King and his wife Coretta Scott King, in which she wants more of a political career and he is is saying that she should stay home and raise the kids.  ( read it on wikipedia 'so it must be true et'c.)

Two girls did the most ghetto slang version you could imagine. Martin is asking Coretta, " are you dumb?"  and  that she's sket and she is calling him a waste-gash et'c and that he's just after a boomting. In the end I had to stop it and say that I was suprised that they would depict these icons in this way. One girl says " miss, you don't understand. we are doing the Black version!"

Excuse me? Have I missed something here? I am now really worried.

Have all those Black History Weeks you slogged through at primary school been wasted?

" Yeah, we know they're black miss.." (phew!) " but this is is how black people talk"

" So you think all black men talk to women like that. Do you really think that Martin spoke to Coretta like that?"

 This provokes thought. Some are saying yes, others are not so sure...

" Rubbish, he would not have spoken like that to her and she wouldn't speak like that to him. Do your parents talk like that to each other? I doubt it" I say.

"Sometimes..." some of them say. ( Jesus.. i'm thinking...)

More discussion.

"Well its how teenagers talk ..."

Aha, there we have it! 

So then I have to say that it was a bit mental to portray MLK and CK as London teenagers. The whole point was, just 'cos he was a revolutionary, doesn't mean he wasn't a sexist.