Pupils in several Sheffield schools have indeed been taught that Black people “cannot be racist” towards white peers, according to multiple UK news reports published on 17–18 May 2026.
A cluster of Sheffield schools introduced anti‑racism lesson programs teaching that racism needs structural or cultural influence, and thus Black prejudice toward white people is “not racism”. This sparked a political backlash, with critics calling it indoctrination and supporters framing it as teaching structural racism.
Pupils aged 7- 11 were told that white people in Britain were likely to be privileged because they are less likely to encounter racist behaviour, and older pupils were taught that Black people can hold prejudice, but racism = prejudice + power, and only groups with cultural power (defined as white people) can be racist.
The lessons were devised by a Sheffield teaching school alliance led by Notre Dame High School, a government-designated national teaching school.
However, this enables divisive identity politics. Presents contested ideas like white privilege as reality and enables children to consider themselves primarily through race, but the schools said they teach it because the alliance sought to empower students to question unequal systems and to deliver a first step towards anti-racist teaching.
Evidently, research indicates that Black pupils in England frequently encounter extreme discipline, linguistic prejudice and a sense of being policed, or they feel unsafe in the school environment.
These are crazy times that we are living in because now all ‘white kids’ are going to be made to feel shamed, but we are not accountable for what people did in the past; that does not mean that we should not learn about it as part of our history, and British kids have far better things to do than worry about another race’s feelings of inadequacy.
Why should we feel any guilt about what some people did 200 years ago? They’re all dead anyway. What we should be concerned about is what is going on today or the day before, but race and history have become chaotic and polarised. Now there are genuine endeavours to modernise history education, yet all of this gets spun into a culture war.
If you want to disempower a generation of children, you teach them that their identity is something done to them, not something they can shape, and that cuts across race, class, disability, gender, and everything, but the deeper point is this – pointing out differences isn’t the issue, weaponising them is by turning them into fear, guilt or a form of competition.
Parents definitely have a role in helping their children to think critically, but framing it as protecting them from ‘wokists’ oversimplifies what’s actually going on and risks substituting one form of dogma with another. The goal is accurate information and evidence, not ideology.
Isn’t all of this simply creating more of a racial divide? It feels like it, doesn’t it? Because whenever an issue touches race, identity, or inequality, public discussion gets more audible, more penetrating, and more polarised, but reacting to these debates frequently strengthens division; those underlying anxieties were already there, they’re just being yanked into the open more.
Any individual, of any skin colour or ethnic background, can hold racist views or act in racist ways. Racism isn’t biologically tied to one group; it’s a collection of behaviours, prejudices, and power dynamics that any person can partake in.
Some people might say that our education system has been lying to our children for years now. It’s not been lying, it’s been avoiding, minimising, and deflecting because acknowledging children’s needs commands money, training, and accountability, and that’s not a lie, it’s a structural incentive problem.
So, are black people racist against white people? The short answer is yes – individual Black people can be racist towards white people because the law defines racism as any racially inspired hatred, regardless of who targets whom. However, some schools and activists use a distinct, structural definition that says racism requires power, which is why we are seeing claims that ‘Black people can’t be racist to white people.’ These claims are ideological, not legal.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 