117. Don't send them if they are from a minority ethnic group

117. Don’t send them if they are from a minority ethnic group
Any treatment of education today that ignores or sidesteps the topic of racism will of necessity, be incomplete. O’Sullivan p134

Racism is endemic and plays a part in all society’s institutions, in many of our lives and has a particularly glaring presence in much that happens in schools. Audre Lorde told us that: “Racism is the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance”. (O’Sullivan p149)

Racism occurs when prejudice, on the basis of perceived race, occurs coupled to power and dominance. Racism is about more than skin colour, religion and country of ancestral origin. It is about dominance and subjugation, and this plays out in the playgrounds and classrooms as well as in society at large. Harber tells us that racism has been a deliberate policy in some places e.g. South Africa. In many places it may seem accidental. (Harber) It plays out in subtle ways, with far from subtle consequences.

At classroom level, teachers’ expectations, shaped by racial prejudice, impact highly on the pupils in their care. Those expectations appear to be that Black children and those from ethnic minority groups will not achieve as well as white children. This expectation can be shaped by many attitudes and beliefs about race, which persist in spite of valiant attempts by enlightened educators to challenge them.

Teachers, it seems, view Black boys’ calls for fair treatment and their anger at injustice as disruptive behaviour and dismiss its causes. (Observer 13/1/02 “Bad teachers betraying Black boys, says expert”)

The labelling of ‘other’ as mad or bad, is one of the key functions of school with minority ethnic groups faring rather badly in this. Programs aimed to ‘help’ minority ethnic groups can unwittingly feed prejudice. When section 11 funding for minority ethnic groups was introduced into schools some schools employed extra staff who were given registers for classes containing a code for a level of language difficulties for Asian children and a code for the level of behavioural difficulties for Black/Afro Caribbean children. There was no code for white kids, as the funding was not for them. This encapsulates vast racist assumptions on behalf of administrators that shape the way our children are dealt with. (Personal communication)

The teachers who are dealing with our children are not representative of society at large. In January 2005 figures for England show that 15% of teachers are from minority ethnic groups, 0.6% from mixed or dual groups, 2.1% Asian or Asian British and 1.6% Black or Black British (www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/5000578/SFR20-2005.pdf). In the population of England and Wales, there are 4.8% of Asian origin and 2.2% of Black origin and 1.4% of mixed race. (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2756041.stm figures from 13/2/03) Black men are one of the least likely groups to pursue a career in teaching. (Big Issue in the North 723 26th May-1st June 2008 p5 “academic question”)

Jonathan Kozol writes of his experience as a young teacher in a ghetto school in the USA, and what he observed of the more experienced teachers handling of young Black people. Leila Berg summarises:
“He watched while more experienced teachers destroyed the identity, the dignity and the confidence of children by treating with contempt what they had to offer and forcing on them middle-class aims which they cynically knew the children could never feel or achieve and deliberately (that is ‘for their own good’) worked against children’s roots and culture and deliberately ( for their own good) destroyed the children’s speech and trust in communication and offered them, chalked on the blackboard, only pleasant words to describe what the children knew to be unpleasant…..blandly and brutally invalidated the children’s true experience”
(referring to Death at an Early Age by Jonathan Kozol on www.aspects.net~leilaberg/chchildren.htm)

The idea reflected in this is that the teachers believe they are acting in the best interests of a Black child or an Asian child to somehow turn them, their values, and their beliefs to match those of the dominant white middle-class culture. This process of assimilation, of denying and obliterating difference, is a popular tactic of schools when faced with anyone who can be classed as ‘other’.
Another approach to issues of race, of difference, is one of multiculturalism, that tries to incorporate and celebrate some aspects of differentness, while leaving issues of power and dominance unchallenged. (Harber C p86)

Anti-racist approaches are being used to deal with issues around race. This adds a power analysis and strict rules about prejudice and discrimination to a multicultural approach. (Harber C p86) However, in spite of surface adoption of anti-racist strategies in schools: “schools can and do actively encourage hatred of ‘other’ groups, along with separation, prejudice and discrimination.” (Harber C p86) This occurs due to authoritarianism, which acts to reproduce loyalties and hostilities and deepens them. It is divide and rule.
117. MEG p2
Racist assumptions are reinforced and reflected in a curriculum that ignores the contribution of non-European groups in all subjects from history, science and mathematics to English (which is a mixture of languages). Choice of content, choice of reading material, choice who to laud and who to ignore, acts in subtle and not so subtle ways to deny the contribution to our lives, our history and our culture of different minority ethnic groups.

O’Sullivan argues that historically racism existed for the purpose of monetary exploitation, to justify robbing ‘inferior’ races of their resources and their people. This aspect has rarely been analysed and explored in school history. By omitting the politics of race from the curriculum, we make it disappear. (O’Sullivan)

History GCSE is all about World Wars 1 and 2 (our glorious victories) and covers only Hitler’s racism against Jewish people. It omits our own inglorious past of racial exploitation, colonialism, of Empire and slavery.

A curriculum that defines what everyone must learn, and by extension, defines that which is not worth learning, limits the horizons of all children. For those whose experiences and history didn’t make it onto the curriculum, it destroys their sense of self. The myth that a national curriculum represents a level playing field, of equal opportunities, all you have to do is work hard and you have exactly the same chance as everyone else, acts to blame those who do not succeed in it for their own failure. Education doesn’t work the same way for disadvantaged groups. An increase in education does not increase earnings and employment for Black people in the same way as it does for middle-class white people. (Marilyn French BP p413)

The myth of equal opportunity plays out most harshly among minority groups, who, by denying their heritage to ‘succeed‘, still don’t get the goodies. Those that see through the sham and don’t play the game are treated even more harshly. Black teenage males are four times more likely to be excluded from schools than other groups. (Bali Rai p149) Overall, Black pupils are three times more likely to be excluded. (MEN 11/12/06 p4 “‘Racism’ sees Black pupils excluded”)

In a report “Getting it right” by Peter Wanless, director of school performance and reform, it was stated that the exclusion gap is caused by unwitting systematic racial discrimination. (MEN 11/12/06) The systematic racial discrimination is not always ‘unwitting’. Audre Lorde argues that an institution’s reflection of difference, is an absolute necessity in a profit economy, which needs ‘outsiders’ as surplus people. She argues that we respond to human difference in different ways, depending on how we perceive it. We ignore it or copy it if we think it is dominant or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. (cited in O’Sullivan p148)

Within an institution of racism and labelling and destruction of difference, certain groups are more vulnerable to bullying. Bullycide claims that black and Asian kids are more at risk of bullying. (p143) Xenophobia, being afraid and threatened by anything ‘alien’ is promoted by authoritarian systems and structures due to the attitudes it produces. (Harber C p92)
117.MEG p3
Racism in schools has a particularly devastating effect when it is aimed at indigenous cultures by a colonising power. (see separation from indigenous cultures) The Soweto uprising in 1976 occurred when Black students rejected the white Afrikaans education imposed upon them. This education showed white history, white heroes, inventions, culture and represented white as normal, and everything else as aberrant. In the uprising 700 students were killed and 4000 injured. The power of the state is used to back up these hollow institutions. But as Steve Biko stated, once the chains of the mind have been broken, they will never be the same again. (from the movie Cry Freedom) This is why schools can’t risk their students developing unchained minds.

In order to prop up society’s racism, we justify the lowly position of Black people by ensuring that they fail at school.
Radio 4 10/9/08 suggestions have been made that Black-only schools would improve life for black students due to the low expectations of white teachers. Black supplementary schools, which aim to give Black kids back a sense of personal identity and worth, increase their performance in mainstream school. However, these could act to diminish questioning of racism if the primary aim is assimilation and adoption of the values and ideals of the dominant society.

But many more are seeking to get their own education by walking away from these institutions altogether.

117. MEG p4