My Journey Through Racism

Maintaining discipline and looking after the welfare of the children was every adult’s responsibility. The able bodied adults also looked after the frail and elderly. In neither case it was not a requirement to be related. Caring enveloped the full circle from cradle to death. I remember being marched to school held by one ear by a neighbour after she caught me playing truant from school. This was the extent to which the adult neighbours cared about the welfare of the young children. Their future was to some extent dependent upon our success as adults although this was not the motive for their care and attention. * * * Throughout the past decades of the fifties and onwards, it was customary practice for the more affluent black parents in the English society to repatriate their children to their homeland to enjoy a better standard of life and primary and secondary education since the system in the UK did not cater fully for their children needs. This practice was more common among Barbadians and Jamaicans. The West Indian culture is slightly different and our cultural strengths are based on what we have inherited from our African ancestry and Europeans during slavery and colonialism. Attitudes and behaviour of our children were often misinterpreted by English school teachers at large. Being black was perceived as an educational disadvantage and many black students were stereotyped as athletes or entertainers rather than individuals with academic ability. A bright, intelligent and assertive student was often portrayed as ‘having a chip on his shoulder’ or being arrogant and that unfortunate student would sometimes be demoted to a class well below his/her educational standard unless the parents were mindfully strong enough to intervene and stop the injustice which was rife throughout those decades. The child’s complaint to the parent nearly always resulted in the passive parent consoling the child and urging that child to do his best. In other words the child was being told; ‘Think well of yourself and proclaim this fact to the world, not only in loud words but in great deeds.’ ‘Live in the faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to do the best that is in you’. These words were often not positive enough and was somehow encouraging that child to surrender his / her ideals and be submissive to racial injustice. It did not seem to matter that the behavioural attitude of some of the school teachers was inadvertently damaging the personality of the some of the black children and as a result destroying their self esteem and denying them intellectual development which happened to be one of the debilitating components under the system of slavery when black people would be punished for attempting to educate themselves to an intellectually higher level. The term ‘uppity niggers’ is still being used in to-day’s civilised society. Some of the more intellectually aware West Indian parents saw a need to fill the void which was apparent in the English system of educating our children and found it necessary to give them extra tuition by establishing Saturday Schools in the predominately black communities which was generally staffed by black volunteer teachers and able parents. Those who were better off financially employed private tutors.