Australian school apologises for Hitler costume prize

[alp227]

Source: BBC News

A Catholic school in Australia has apologised to parents after teachers awarded a costume prize to a child dressed as Adolf Hitler.

The class of nine- and 10-year-olds had been asked to dress up as famous people at the school in Western Australia.

Teachers declared the winner to be a boy who dressed as the Nazi leader, who was wearing an outfit featuring the swastika.

The principal said in hindsight the school would have done it differently.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11111456

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Wow...Teabaggers in AUSTRALIA?? Hmm, given that the conservative Liberal/National Coalition Party gained several seats, and the liberal Labor Party lost some seats leading to the hung parliament (similar thing happened in the UK with the Conservative Party's gains), and the founder of Fox News is Australian, I wonder if some fools in that nation are picking up from the American Republican playbook.

That's a CATHOLIC school too. Gosh, I thought that they'd have some more sensitivity too. But then again, the Vatican and other American dioceses have been soft on pedophile priests.

By the way, as a child Hitler attended a Catholic school, but he abandoned Catholicism in his later life.

This Australian school wasn't identified in news reports, but soon the truth will come out somehow in this era of blogging and unlimited information spreading. Perhaps the school doesn't want to hurt its reputation just like the damn Vatican.

[jberryhill]

1. Was it a good costume?

Christopher Walz was nominated for Best Supporting Actor in the 2010 Academy Awards for his portrayal of a Nazi.

Famous person? Check.

Costume? Check.

[MilesColtrane]

2. Australia! I'm not that surprised.

Blackface on national TV.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh90w-hbqhI

[TheMadMonk]

8. Interesting. The specific individual being mocked, spent his health...

...and probably millions of dollars on putting on permanent "whiteface". AND I WILL BET that a very very common thought amongst Americans was not disgust or offence at his "mockery" of them, but more along the lines of "What a sad little nigger, trying to ape his betters."

Harry & Americans were offended not because of the insult it offered to African Americans, the insult was clearly offered to a single individual who had been verbally mocked for exactly the attribute visually mocked in this skit for a number of years, but because it embarrassingly reminds them of how they (and their forebears) behaved toward African Americans and how pervasive and fervent opposition to positively modifying that behaviour has been in the past and how little true progress has been made in the minds of too many Americans, whatever the law.

Sometimes makeup is just makeup.


I won't say we're not racist here in Australia, we are, but as a rule it only really manifests when those it is directed against conform too closely to negative racial (or national) stereotypes. We might cheerfully insult your background to your face, but we also give you the chance to show what is good about what you are, rather than the highlighted group's worst features. And in a way, the insult offered is our (as per usual) backwards way of letting people know what is considered behaviour beyond the pale.

Around here, an insult not immediately punctuated with a fist (figurative or real) it's generally not personal unless YOU want it to be so.

Your race, nationality, skin colour, hair (or lack of), height, girth or even sexual orientation are nothing more than convenient labels, features to highlight or caricature and occasionally backwards indicators of acceptable/unacceptable behaviour. Accept insults (and return them in proper time) in the sentiment they are uttered and you'll get along just fine. Any real insult is not directed at you, but the negative features of the group you represent by way of that convenient identifier.

[Poll_Blind]

3. I was there: The best costumed were two boys dressed as Christopher Hitchens and David Dawkins.

The Catholic teachers voted for the least offensive of the three.

PB

[golddigger]

4. Has the whole planet gone stupid?

[classysassy]

5. The Murdock Award

for the little Nazi.

[provis99]

6. Hitler DID NOT abandon Catholicism. He was a strong Catholic to his death.

Are you a Catholic Church apologist?

[alp227]

7. I read on Wikipedia that Hitler was raised a Catholic but was not formally Catholic

Hitler was raised by Roman Catholic parents, but after he left home, he never attended Mass or received the sacraments.<308> Hitler favoured aspects of Protestantism if they were more suitable to his own objectives. At the same time, he adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization, liturgy and phraseology in his politics.<309><310> After he had moved to Germany, where the Catholic and the Protestant church are largely financed through a church tax collected by the state, Hitler never "actually left his church or refused to pay church taxes..."

In public, Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in an Aryan Jesus Christ, a Jesus who fought against the Jews.<313> In his speeches and publications Hitler spoke of his interpretation of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice."<314><315> His private statements, as reported by his intimates, show Hitler as critical of traditional Christianity, considering it a religion fit only for slaves; he admired the power of Rome but had severe hostility towards its teaching.<316> Here Hitler's attack on Catholicism "resonated Streicher's contention that the Catholic establishment was allying itself with the Jews."<317> In light of these private statements, for John S. Conway and many other historians it is beyond doubt that Hitler held a "fundamental antagonism" towards the Christian churches.<318>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler#Religious_views

I'm not defending the Catholic Church here. I'm just saying that Hitler supported Christian views that he believed solidified his hateful ideology.

[davidinalameda]

9. who cares about the school

what about the parents who put together the outfit for the kid

sounds like they're the whack jobs in all this

[Posteritatis]

10. Where'd you get the teabagger bit from, considering nothing's said about the parents? (nt)