Bigotry in Australia
Well, we knew it wasn’t just the Abrahamic religions, and here’s a case in point. Aboriginal leaders in Australia have called for a book to be scrapped because it teaches girls to play a musical instrument.
Depressingly Harper Collins have apologised, when what they should have said was “um… it’s the 21st century; you don’t get to be both respected and a sexist any more.”
I know people tend to think “they’re an ancient culture, we have no right to judge their values,” but I call bullshit. In this case their values are sexist and they’re wrong, and we shouldn’t be afraid to say as much. Sexism isn’t suddenly OK once a culture has been doing it for a certain length of time, and their own inability to move on shouldn’t give them a free pass to try to impose their backwards ideas on others.
Thankfully it looks like Harper Collins have no intention of pulling the book, and the bigots are going to have to learn to live with it.