baa baa rainbow sheep have you any wool?

Question

i've heard this as replaced ba ba black sheep.
i heard about it in the media during the 1980s and on and off ever since then.
i have never heard rainbow sheep sung all the kids i know say baa baa black sheep. nor have i seen it in a book
is it just a myth ?
please no you couldnt make it up its political correctness gone mad type answers. thanks

pwei34 wow a stunning and to my mind right out of leftfeild answer now i'm all at sea as to what to think cheers for the weblinks. i'm not sure now who to pick as best answer

Answer 1

It's a myth made up by the BNP / Daily Mail types, to evidence their "PC Gone Mad" agenda.

You are, of course, right - Kids do still sing "Baa Baa Black Sheep".

And they write with chalk on blackboards.

EDIT: No one here has any first hand experience of the "Rainbow sheep" song, just having heard that somewhere they sing it.

I still suggest, IT NEVER HAPPENED!

PWEI 34: LEARN TO READ - of the five answerers you mention, ONLY ONE actually claims first hand experience of "Baa Baa Rainbow Sheep" - and pagangirl is just trotting out so many cliches, I'm not sure I believe her. All the others 'read somewhere' or 'know someone who said'.

I'm sure that there have been misguided fools who have picked up on this nonsense and taken it into isolated nurseries etc, but these people are quickly shown to be idiots.

Answer 2

Sorry to disabuse Uncle Joe, #1Dalek and septic but in the answers to this question we have testimony from: Pinkprincezz; Sozza; bty627065; Iklegeek and pagangirl that schools and nurseries are still banning the nursery rhyme "Baa Baa Black Sheep". In the article below dating from 2000 this ban was lifted after protests from parents; but it is clear the ban was on purely "politically correct" rather than educational grounds:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/600470.stm

There is controversy over the origins of the rhyme. One theory is that it is about the taxation on wool in the Middle Ages. One third went to the local lord "the Master", a second to the clergy "the Dame" (Mother Church) and the remainder to the Farmer "the little boy who lives down the Lane"

There is much less evidence that it is about Slavery. The slaves being the black sheep, their wool the products of the West Indies and the American colonies; which went to enrich many people in 18th Century England, the Master, the Dame and the Little Boy Who Lives Down the Lane. Particularly pertinent in 2007 the 200th Anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade

In either case this rhyme is a slice of British Culture and History. It is vital that it is kept alive, unaltered for the education and enjoyment of future children.

Answer 3

Not entirely a myth. It was however claimed that the change was to create more variety of vocabulary in the rhyme and not for racial reasons.

There was however an attempt to ban 'bar bar black sheep' as racist a few years ago but eventually sense prevailed.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4782856.stm

PS I've spent the day hand sheering a small flock of sheep and whether black white or rainbow I can't stand any of them now!! having said that rainbow wool might actually be worth something.

Answer 4

This is pretty old news and, as far as I remember, applied to a single nursery school. I have always wondered why the word 'black' has been seen as such a dreadful word. Surely it insults black people? The PC brigade, with their idiotic views have caused far too much racial problems.

Answer 5

i'm a nursery nurse and have always sung baabaa black sheep-it's always the 1st song the kids want to sing at group times! i've heard about the rainbow sheep song-it is about political correctness i'm afraid!-in case black people get offended, which is just silly, cos there are actually black sheep out there, but not any rainbow sheep the last time i looked!!

Answer 6

I am very glad to see that people like yourself are not daft enough to simply swallow the suggestion that this story applied to more than one school. As you see from the link given earlier, this did happen - once.

It is nonsense to claim that this is widespread, when it didn't apply to more than one incident, and the fact that so many people believe it unquestioningly is ironic considering that it is about ''sheep''!

EDIT: That was pretty good, pwei34 - respect!

Answer 7

Unfortunatly its true as a nursery nurse i do think sometimes people go a bit over the top we are not aloud to sing baa baa black sheep in case it is interprited as racist ! so we sing rainbow sheep also we cannot read 3 little pigs or little red riding hood its getting so that everything we do can be taken the wrong way its very sad !

Answer 8

I read something along these lines a few weeks ago in a paper and it's true.

A school somewhere has changed the words to rainbow sheep. The headteacher was interviewed to justify her decision.

Edit:

Not sure if this link will work, but i found this...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4782856.stm

Don't know why i got a thumbs down, it's not like i make this stuff up...

Answer 9

It's just a myth which gets trotted out by the right-wing tabloids every so often. Much like the 'winterval' stories they run every Christmas, based on a two-year experiment by a borough council in England in the early Nineties.

Answer 10

I've heard this and it's PC madness. It's a children's song that has never meant any harm. It's this PC lot that turn something innocent into an unnecessary racial issue.

I have sheep and it's all started getting so daft now that I wonder if the next step is for the PC brigade to turn up at my farm and demand that I even up my numbers as I definitely have an ethnic minority issue - I only have one black sheep!!!

Err that was a joke - do we have the humour brigade now!