Horrendous story from primary school
Discussion
Must have been around 1984, the story in an assembly tried to explain why some people have dark skin and some have light skin.
Originally everyone in the world had dark brown skin, but word got around that there was a special spring that if you bathed in it it turned your skin a beautiful light shade; dark skinned people dived in and came out light skinned. It was so popular that people travelled from around the world to lighten their skin, but soon the spring ran dry and the last people to reach it could only place their palms and soles of their feet into it. So that's why there are still dark skinned people and why they have light coloured palms, apparently.
Obviously, all of the kids gathered around the only dark skinned kid in the school at playtime, looking at his palms and taunting him that his ancestors were too slow to get to the whitening spring before it ran out.
Has anyone ever come across this story before or know where it originates? I can't find any trace of anything similar on the web, and I would hate to think the lovely headteacher had made it up herself to try to lubricate interracial friendships.
Originally everyone in the world had dark brown skin, but word got around that there was a special spring that if you bathed in it it turned your skin a beautiful light shade; dark skinned people dived in and came out light skinned. It was so popular that people travelled from around the world to lighten their skin, but soon the spring ran dry and the last people to reach it could only place their palms and soles of their feet into it. So that's why there are still dark skinned people and why they have light coloured palms, apparently.
Obviously, all of the kids gathered around the only dark skinned kid in the school at playtime, looking at his palms and taunting him that his ancestors were too slow to get to the whitening spring before it ran out.
Has anyone ever come across this story before or know where it originates? I can't find any trace of anything similar on the web, and I would hate to think the lovely headteacher had made it up herself to try to lubricate interracial friendships.
Wow, that is just wow. I think (I could be way off base), it was well intentioned but poorly executed. Imagine if that happened today!
Kids are smarter than (many) adults give them credit for. The truth is usually much more easily explained (i.e. as people migrated to colder climates their bodies adapted to the reduced UV levels).
Kids are smarter than (many) adults give them credit for. The truth is usually much more easily explained (i.e. as people migrated to colder climates their bodies adapted to the reduced UV levels).
My niece who was about 8 at the time had the local vicar coming into their school , they were asked to think of questions.
I asked her to ask:
If dogs believe in god
Why, if the big guy can work miracles, does they church roof always need replacing
She managed to first one, but not the second
I asked her to ask:
If dogs believe in god
Why, if the big guy can work miracles, does they church roof always need replacing
She managed to first one, but not the second
Spare tyre said:
My niece who was about 8 at the time had the local vicar coming into their school , they were asked to think of questions.
I asked her to ask:
If dogs believe in god
Why, if the big guy can work miracles, does they church roof always need replacing
She managed to first one, but not the second
Why does the church steeple need a lightning conductor? I asked her to ask:
If dogs believe in god
Why, if the big guy can work miracles, does they church roof always need replacing
She managed to first one, but not the second
markh1973 said:
ChocolateFrog said:
Go to any Sunday school and you'll hear similar mumbo jumbo to this day.
Never heard that particular story though.
Not in any Sunday school I went to in the 70s/80s you wouldn't Never heard that particular story though.
t is diametrically opposed. TwigtheWonderkid said:
Spare tyre said:
My niece who was about 8 at the time had the local vicar coming into their school , they were asked to think of questions.
I asked her to ask:
If dogs believe in god
Why, if the big guy can work miracles, does they church roof always need replacing
She managed to first one, but not the second
Why does the church steeple need a lightning conductor? I asked her to ask:
If dogs believe in god
Why, if the big guy can work miracles, does they church roof always need replacing
She managed to first one, but not the second
Jeez, sounds like the sort of made up nonsense the old bat that ran my primary school would have said. She was all sorts of old school and a super Catholic too (cape and everything haha).
She had a black cat called, 'Niggy' which I'm pretty sure was not it's original name. Also remember the PE teacher calling the young Indian lad, 'Abbo'! This was at the end of the 80s.
She had a black cat called, 'Niggy' which I'm pretty sure was not it's original name. Also remember the PE teacher calling the young Indian lad, 'Abbo'! This was at the end of the 80s.
ScotHill said:
Must have been around 1984, the story in an assembly tried to explain why some people have dark skin and some have light skin.
Originally everyone in the world had dark brown skin, but word got around that there was a special spring that if you bathed in it it turned your skin a beautiful light shade; dark skinned people dived in and came out light skinned. It was so popular that people travelled from around the world to lighten their skin, but soon the spring ran dry and the last people to reach it could only place their palms and soles of their feet into it. So that's why there are still dark skinned people and why they have light coloured palms, apparently.
Obviously, all of the kids gathered around the only dark skinned kid in the school at playtime, looking at his palms and taunting him that his ancestors were too slow to get to the whitening spring before it ran out.
Has anyone ever come across this story before or know where it originates? I can't find any trace of anything similar on the web, and I would hate to think the lovely headteacher had made it up herself to try to lubricate interracial friendships.
I was told the same story by a teacher in primary school (Peterborough) around 1969, I still can't find where the positive can be found in the story. Bizarrely I was only thinking about it over the last couple of days and how it would be received today, I would like to think I haven't been negatively influenced by the story over the years.Originally everyone in the world had dark brown skin, but word got around that there was a special spring that if you bathed in it it turned your skin a beautiful light shade; dark skinned people dived in and came out light skinned. It was so popular that people travelled from around the world to lighten their skin, but soon the spring ran dry and the last people to reach it could only place their palms and soles of their feet into it. So that's why there are still dark skinned people and why they have light coloured palms, apparently.
Obviously, all of the kids gathered around the only dark skinned kid in the school at playtime, looking at his palms and taunting him that his ancestors were too slow to get to the whitening spring before it ran out.
Has anyone ever come across this story before or know where it originates? I can't find any trace of anything similar on the web, and I would hate to think the lovely headteacher had made it up herself to try to lubricate interracial friendships.
That's pretty shocking to be honest but not unusual for that time period.
I heard one kid getting bullied for having pink palms and soles and the ring leader asked him if it was because he had to get down on his hands and feet to be spray painted.
I had a brain tumour at the time and my skin became quite pigmented and kids i went to primary school and then secondary school with and we had known each other for years, resorted to calling me the P word and the vile racist abuse i used to get would make your stomach churn.
Funny but once the tumour was removed and my skin returned to it's natural shade, they all wanted to be friends again.
let me think....no...fk off you racist piece of st!
I heard one kid getting bullied for having pink palms and soles and the ring leader asked him if it was because he had to get down on his hands and feet to be spray painted.
I had a brain tumour at the time and my skin became quite pigmented and kids i went to primary school and then secondary school with and we had known each other for years, resorted to calling me the P word and the vile racist abuse i used to get would make your stomach churn.
Funny but once the tumour was removed and my skin returned to it's natural shade, they all wanted to be friends again.
let me think....no...f
k off you racist piece of st!I used to work with a Nigerian guy on a blood service team in the City of London. Lovely bloke, called Titus. One day I was backing our truck into a very dimly lit goods bay under some offices, and he was behind me helping me in. As much as I peered into the mirror I could see neither him nor where I was supposed to stop reversing. Suddenly a white hand flashed up and just in time I stopped.
I said to him afterwards that it was a bloody good job the palms of his hands are lighter than the rest of him. He told me that the phenomenon was down to generations of his ancestors using them to rub their sun tan cream on.
I said to him afterwards that it was a bloody good job the palms of his hands are lighter than the rest of him. He told me that the phenomenon was down to generations of his ancestors using them to rub their sun tan cream on.
IIRC correctly there was only one black kid at my primary school (Stephen Clarke... think his family were from Mauritius). This was back in the late 1970s/early 1980s in rural Somerset.
I can remember the teachers referring to him as a 'chocolate pudding' and 'sambo'. Gave me a lifelong sense of 'why do people have to be dicks to someone who is different to them?' anger.
I also remember him for the fantastic variety of curses his dad came out with to an impressionable child (my parents were and are fairly strict Roman Catholics so there was no drinking, swearing or fun in our family).
"Damn, st and blast it" was a particularly good one. So much so that I use it to this day, 40 odd years later! 
As this is PH, his dad had a Japanese car which was a thing of wonder to us small boys: Datsun 120y with weird conical hubcaps.
I can remember the teachers referring to him as a 'chocolate pudding' and 'sambo'. Gave me a lifelong sense of 'why do people have to be dicks to someone who is different to them?' anger.
I also remember him for the fantastic variety of curses his dad came out with to an impressionable child (my parents were and are fairly strict Roman Catholics so there was no drinking, swearing or fun in our family).
"Damn, s
t and blast it" was a particularly good one. So much so that I use it to this day, 40 odd years later! As this is PH, his dad had a Japanese car which was a thing of wonder to us small boys: Datsun 120y with weird conical hubcaps.
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