I think the conditional in the first premise is the issue and there's a world where 'If we teach the truth about racism, we MIGHT traumatise black children and if we don't teach the truth about racism, we MIGHT be whitewashing history'

These 'mights' are dependent on taking the microphones away from people who have been hijacked by ideology and giving them to people with a more nuanced understanding of history and pedagogy. Instead we have infantilised everyone towards 'trigger creep' and idiotic posturing.

There are ways to explore racism outside of the immediate history of your own country. There are other times and places in the world where race and slavery were an issue that can be safely explored. The entire Roman Empire for example. Vast swathes of Chinese history. Equally, arguing that people should really be held to the standards of their own time and not to modern standards isn't necessarily 'white-washing', it's understanding historical context. We can appreciate something is morally wrong by today's standards without having to destroy everything which pertains to it and never speak of it again.

It's getting sensible people to have the conversations and letting the idiots shut up. You're rather more bullish on many of the race writers on this platform than I am - I think Jeremy and Marley are excellent advocates but I think they're feeding into the problem they want to solve. Jeremy and I have talked about his niece before, particularly around the use of language and I'm on team QJ, words are only imbued with the power you give them. This is a difficult concept for a child to grasp, and I genuinely feel for her, but this concept must be grasped early and adopted quickly to neutralise its effect. Child psychology gravitates towards attempting to have an effect on each other. The repercussions of giving the word power and having it banned by an authority will mean it goes underground and emerges in more hidden and devious ways. Saying this has been labelled 'victim blaming' - when I think we need to get outside of the construct of 'victim' and empower young people away from that very mindset.

Food for thought as always Professor and we'll all keep writing what we think until consensus occurs.